A new report from the Government Accountability Office finds the number of non-U.S. citizens in prisons here has been in decline over the last few years.
The report compiles data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which includes people incarcerated by the Bureau of Prisons.
They found the number of non-U.S. citizens incarcerated decreased by more than 30% between the end of 2017 and the end of 2022 — going from roughly 36,000 non-citizen inmates to about 24,000.
They also found the number of non-citizens sentenced for federal crimes fell by more than 25%, and the majority of those crimes were immigration-related. U.S. citizens took up a higher share of federal crimes involving things like drug trafficking, fraud and firearms.
The report also notes measures like pandemic-era protocols at the border impacted the number of immigrants referred for federal prosecution, and that many non-citizens are incarcerated in places where federal agencies don’t track immigration status — like local jails.
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