Midterm Realities: Would a Blue Wave Mean a Crime Wave?

It’s an amazing, though ignored, story: Murder in the United States is at its lowest level since perhaps 1900. As for the violent-crime rate in general, it fell 9.3 percent in 2025. This is the largest year-to-year decline since the FBI began estimating national trends in 1936.

Something else at its lowest since perhaps the ’30s is net migration. In fact, when the numbers are finalized, it may turn out that there was negative net migration in 2025. But this can happen when you deport, or induce to self-deport, up to three million people, as the Trump administration has done. Note, too, that approximately 190,000 of the ejected illegals had criminal convictions, and many thousands were gang members.

Now, question: Could there be a connection between the reduction in crime and the reduction in illegal aliens?

Moreover, is it coincidental that this rapid crime decrease occurred under the watch of a president who has prioritized crime-fighting?

Third question: How can we know that the Democrats would, upon gaining power, re-enable criminals?

Answer: They’ve said so — in so many words.

Among other things, leftists have vowed to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the very agency responsible for removing illegal-alien criminals.

Crime Decline, by the Numbers

Reporting on the crime triumph, the New York Post Editorial Board wrote yesterday in “Crime’s way down thanks to Trump — Dems will fight to send it back up”:

Democratic mayors are trying to claim credit for last year’s marked decline in violent crime, yet the staggering 25% drop was nationwide and came in the first year of President Donald Trump’s new term.

The cause and effect are obvious: The Trump team made fighting crime a top priority — a reversal from the “criminal justice reform” emphasis of Joe Biden and #Defund Democrats — and got the expected results.

Per [the] Justice Department’s National Crime Victimization Survey, 2025 saw 2.16 million violent incidents — down from 2.83 million in 2024 [the preceding excludes “simple assault”] …

Aggravated assault fell 31%; motor vehicle theft, 30%; burglary and trespassing, 25%.

Overall, households suffered roughly 3.5 million fewer property crimes.

America feels safer than it was — with huge side benefits.

Notably, researchers estimate that crime costs America tens of billions of dollars every year; stopping it does the opposite — encouraging investment, economic growth, and jobs.

The Post can say that again. Why are there “food deserts” in inner-city neighborhoods? Crime is one reason.

Then there’s retail theft. Total annual 2022 losses associated with it amounted to approximately $72.9 billion. Of course, good citizens are paying this bill, too.

In fact, theft cost the average family more than $400 in 2022.

The 35-second video below, from the Biden years, illustrates a shocking example of retail theft.

Of course, such crime is a factor in “affordability,” a major topic today. But it’s virtually never mentioned when affordability is discussed. Could this be because doing so would implicate left-wing policy?

Returning to Democratic mayors’ boasting about crime reduction, consider the following deportation-effort snapshot, courtesy of the Daily Signal on Sunday:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement nabbed over 2,000 illegal aliens in New York in July and August as part of Operation Rotten Apple — with no help from local authorities like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, of course. Among those arrested were “murderers, rapists, pedophiles, drug traffickers, and violent assailants,” according to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

The arrests included, according to DHS:

“- Bogdan Detrovich Gren, an illegal alien from Ukraine, whose criminal history includes convictions for kidnapping, abduction resulting in death, criminal possession of a weapon, and murder.

– Andreas Bernal Chiquito, an illegal alien from Colombia, whose criminal history includes arrests for [a] course of sexual conduct against a child and act in manner to injure child less than 17.

– Noel Celestino Lopez Martinez, an illegal alien from Mexico, whose criminal history includes an arrest for first-degree rape: forcible compulsion.

– Palvinder Singh, an illegal alien from India, whose criminal history includes a conviction for rape in Germany.

– Chhun Kim Pril, an illegal alien from Cambodia, whose criminal history includes a conviction for drug trafficking.”

And the list went on and on.

So Mayor Mamdani may want to trumpet NYC crime reduction. But didn’t ICE’s removal of multitudinous criminal illegals from Big Apple streets have something to do with it?

Note here that Mamdani fought these ICE efforts tooth and nail, propagandizing all the way.

This said, the Post Editorial Board points out that some local leaders do deserve credit. It cites as an example New York Police Department commissioner Jessica Tisch. Tisch, a holdover from the prior mayoral administration, has prioritized crime-fighting.

The Post also makes another good point, however. Taking illegal-alien miscreants off the streets frees up local law enforcement to fight homegrown criminals.

Will We Snatch Defeat From the Jaws of Victory?

None of this is rocket science. Man has long known how to quell crime. You focus resources most in high-crime areas, apprehend the lawbreakers, and administer punishment sufficient to deter the criminality.

Moreover, studies and experience have shown that a relatively small number of individuals commit the majority of crime. Remove these miscreants from the streets and “Voilà!”: Most crime ends in short order.

Oh, this is precisely what ICE has done, and is doing, too. It’s taking the criminally inclined illegal aliens off the streets.

The Post also mentions another crime-fighting factor: Trump’s dispatching of National Guard troops to cities that would allow them.

However you slice it, though, America is now a much safer place than it was just some years ago. But this brings us to a question:

Will it be this safe a few years from now?

That’s up to the voters. Democrats have long been talking about abolishing ICE, the police, and prisons. They’ve specialized in turnstile “justice,” with “reforms” such as no-cash bail. They’ve made clear that citizens harmed by illegal-alien and other criminals are just the broken eggs needed for their omelet. What follows are three illustrative tweets. Note when evaluating the first that the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have become a major Democratic Party force.

So what can be concluded here? The late poet Maya Angelou, a devoted leftist, put it well. “When someone shows you who they are,” she warned, “believe them the first time.”

And what about when you’ve been shown 10 times? ‘Nough said.