Since President Trump took office in January 2025, crime has been on the decline. The United States experienced the largest one-year drop in murders ever recorded, with nearly a 20 percent decrease nationwide. Overall violent crime declined by more than 10 percent, and property crime fell by more than 12 percent, according to data from the FBI, the Real-Time Crime Index, and the Council on Criminal Justice.
Several Trump policies have contributed to the drop in crime, including mass deportation of illegal aliens, deployment of the National Guard to crime-ridden cities, and sealing the border, where illegal aliens, gang and cartel members, and illicit drugs were pouring in under the Biden and Obama administrations.
The administration reports that 2.5 million illegal immigrants left the United States in 2025, comprising 622,000 deportations and an estimated 1.9 million self-deportations. ICE arrests averaged 821 per day between January and October 2025.
Liberals and Democrats claim that most of these individuals did not have prior convictions, sometimes phrasing it as lacking “a criminal record.” That framing is irrelevant, since 100 percent of them were in the country illegally and were therefore lawfully deported. It is also misleading because it focuses narrowly on prior convictions. DHS statistics show that roughly 70 percent of those arrested had criminal charges or convictions.
The distinction between charges and convictions is significant: DHS frequently drops criminal charges without prejudice to expedite deportation rather than pursue costly criminal trials. An individual arrested for assault or drug trafficking may have charges dismissed once deportation proceedings begin, resulting in no conviction in the system despite criminal activity. So, “no charges” and “no convictions” do not mean “no crime.”
Gang members from MS-13, Tren de Aragua, and other transnational organizations may be identified through intelligence from foreign law enforcement, gang tattoos and identifiers, known associations, testimony from victims or witnesses, and previous deportations from other countries. Some, like Abrego Garcia, were found by a court, and again on appeal, to be gang members, which is itself not a crime, but it prevented him from obtaining a green card or citizenship.
When he was deported, liberals claimed that he had no convictions, which in Garcia’s case was not even true. More broadly, many gang members lack U.S. criminal charges because they have not yet been prosecuted for crimes committed domestically. However, being in the United States illegally provides sufficient legal grounds for removal regardless of criminal history.
Trump deployed National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. (more than 2,000 troops since August), Los Angeles (4,000 Guard troops plus 700 Marines, later reduced), Chicago, Memphis, Portland, New Orleans (350 troops in December 2025), North Carolina cities including Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, and St. Paul, Minnesota.
Federal judges in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Portland ruled these deployments unlawful or beyond presidential authority. These rulings came from Democratic-appointed judges in Democratic cities and addressed legal authority rather than conditions on the ground.
Cities receiving federal intervention experienced significant crime reductions in 2025. Washington, D.C., saw a 40 percent decline in murders. Additionally, a police commissioner was placed on leave for falsifying crime data, undermining claims that the city’s crime problem had been exaggerated. By reclassifying serious crimes as misdemeanors and counting convictions rather than charges or 911 calls, Democratic jurisdictions were able to claim crime was low prior to Trump’s deployment of federal troops.
Many cities have reclassified certain crimes to lower categories and changed what gets recorded as a “reported” crime. Retail theft shows massive underreporting, with one study finding that recorded external thefts increased 114 percent from 2019 to 2023 while incidents reported to police remained flat. In Portland, major retailers closed downtown locations and companies relocated offices despite official statistics showing crime improvements, and most companies pulled out due to lawlessness.
Even given the artificially low numbers that were publicly available, new data after Trump’s National Guard deployments irrefutably shows a stark decline in crime, suggesting the true decline is even larger.
Chicago recorded a 28 percent decrease in murders despite consistently ranking among the highest cities for homicides nationally. Memphis experienced a nearly 20 percent drop in murders. New Orleans is on pace for its lowest murder count in decades, with 97 homicides through November compared to 124 in 2024.
Securing the border has contributed to a reduction in crime by decreasing the number of gang members and criminals who can enter the country while also reducing the flow of illicit drugs.
Since President Trump took office in January 2025, border crossings have collapsed to record lows. Southwest border apprehensions have averaged under 10,000 per month. In December 2023 under Biden, 336 people were apprehended every hour. Under Trump, that figure represents more than one day’s worth of apprehensions.
For seven consecutive months from May through November 2025, Border Patrol released zero people into the United States. Every individual apprehended was processed according to law and sent back.
The secure border directly reduced drug-smuggling pathways. Fentanyl trafficking at the southern border declined 56 percent compared to the same period in 2024. The administration designated cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and deployed advanced drug-detection technology at the border capable of scanning 100 vehicles per hour. The president also pressured Mexico and other Latin American countries to secure their side of the border, preventing drugs and illegal aliens from getting through.
Overdose deaths declined 25 percent from the year ending March 2025 compared to the previous year, falling from 103,529 to 77,648.
Overall, Trump’s policies have made America safer, but liberals and Democrats have fought him and continue to fight him in the courts, alternately claiming there is no crime or immigration problem while also challenging his authority to address both.
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