Violent crime has plunged across Americas largest cities after more than a year of President Donald Trumps renewed law-and-order agenda, with fresh data showing steep declines in homicides, robberies, rapes, and aggravated assaults.
According to Western Journal, a new report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which represents police agencies in the 67 largest cities and metropolitan areas, found that violent crime between January 1 and March 31, 2026, was significantly lower than during the same period in 2025. Homicides dropped by nearly 20 percent and robberies by more than 20 percent, while rapes fell by 7.2 percent and aggravated assaults declined by nearly 5 percent, underscoring a broad-based improvement in public safety that stands in stark contrast to the chaos of the previous administrations open-border policies.
The most dramatic reductions in homicides were recorded in Baltimore County, Maryland, where killings fell by more than 83 percent, and in Suffolk County, New York, where homicides dropped by about 73 percent. Omaha, Nebraska, saw homicides fall by just over 71 percent, while Buffalo, New York, recorded a 70 percent decline, suggesting that even historically troubled jurisdictions can turn a corner when law enforcement is empowered rather than undermined.
Other major jurisdictions also reported notable progress, including Aurora, Colorado; Newark, New Jersey; Washington, D.C.; Raleigh, North Carolina; Portland; and Philadelphia. These cities, many of them governed by Democrats, have long struggled with violent crime, yet they are now seeing measurable gains as federal authorities intensify deportations and crack down on criminal networks.
Still, the picture is not uniformly positive, with 16 jurisdictions experiencing modest increases in homicides in 2026 compared with 2025. Those areas include Albuquerque, New Mexico; Charlotte, North Carolina; Chicago; Cincinnati, Ohio; Cleveland, Ohio; Dallas; Dekalb County, Georgia; Denver; Detroit; Fairfax County, Virginia; Fresno, California; Honolulu, Hawaii; Las Vegas; Mesa, Arizona; Minneapolis; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Orlando, Florida; Sacramento, California; Salt Lake City, Utah; San Antonio, Texas; San Diego, California; San Francisco; and Wichita, Kansas.
While establishment media outlets have largely attributed the nationwide decline in violent crime to a post-COVID-19 normalization, the Trump White House has pointed instead to deliberate policy choices, particularly aggressive deportations and strengthened border enforcement. In response to last years drop in violent crime, the administration openly credited mass deportations, arguing that removing dangerous offenders from American communities has had a direct and measurable impact.
The results are especially pronounced in Democrat-run jurisdictions where the Trump Administration conducted mass deportation and enhanced law enforcement operations, the statement read. The Department of Homeland Security has likewise highlighted border security and the deportation of criminal illegal immigrants as central drivers of the crime decline, noting that 70 percent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests have targeted violent offenders.
There can be no question that the record number of deportations, of which 70 percent are criminals, has had a noticeable effect on public safety, Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Washington Stand. Her assessment reflects a long-standing conservative argument: when the federal government enforces immigration law and prioritizes the removal of violent offenders, American citizens reap the benefits in safer streets and fewer victims.
Vaughan emphasized that the Trump administration has prioritized the arrest of violent offenders, including gang members, human traffickers, drug dealers, murderers, rapists, and others responsible for serious crimes. At the same time, she cautioned that Whether this will be measurable in crime rates is hard to say, because many other factors affect those rates, including policing strategies, prosecution policies, budgets, and even the weather.
Even with those caveats, Vaughan underscored the strategic value of targeting the worst offenders. We do know from experience that certain criminals, such as gang members, are responsible for a disproportionate share of crime, so removing them instead of allowing them to remain and keep offending is a good use of resources, she continued. This is why we have seen an explosion in local law enforcement agencies signing up to work with ICE.
Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundations Border Security and Immigration Center, echoed that view, arguing that the administrations focus on dangerous illegal aliens is paying dividends for ordinary Americans. In comments to TWS, she said, Because the Trump administration has been focusing on deporting the worst of the worst deportable aliens, Americans are indeed safer. Additional, preventable crimes have been prevented.
Ries also pointed to another, less discussed factor that may be distorting crime statistics in some left-leaning jurisdictions. She continued, An additional factor is likely the deceiving statistics in jurisdictions where charges are downgraded, dismissed, or simply not pursued because the prosecutors and judges have a social justice agenda.
As the presidents deportation agenda has advanced, ICE has routinely publicized arrests of the worst of the worst illegal immigrants to demonstrate the nature of the threat being removed. These updates highlight cases that many progressive politicians prefer to ignore, underscoring the human cost of lax border enforcement and lenient prosecution policies.
As recently as last week, ICE confirmed that it had arrested Mexican national Miguel Angel Rodriguez-Ramirez, who was convicted of continuous sexual abuse with a child under 14-years-old in California. The agency also apprehended Mexican national Enrique Garcia-Pineda, convicted of lewd conduct with a minor under the age of 16 in Idaho; Mexican national Miguel Simon-Marcial, convicted of assaulting a pregnant woman in Texas; Cuban national Pedro Fernandez, convicted of trafficking cocaine; and others.
Under former President Joe Biden, illegal immigration surged to historic levels, bringing with it a sharp increase in encounters with criminal aliens. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics, fiscal years 2017 through 2019 saw a yearly average of 6,499 CBP encounters with illegal immigrants who had criminal records.
That figure fell to fewer than 2,500 in 2020 during the height of COVID-19 restrictions, but it spiked almost immediately once Biden took office, reaching nearly 11,000 in 2021, his first year in the White House. The number peaked at more than 17,000 in fiscal year 2024, with CBP encountering an annual average of nearly 14,000 illegal immigrants with criminal convictions during Bidens tenure, a stark indicator of the consequences of his administrations permissive border stance.
By contrast, Trumps first year back in office, fiscal year 2025, saw that number nearly cut in half, down to 8,814 encounters with criminal aliens. As of February, fiscal year 2026 has recorded only 2,664 CBP encounters with illegal immigrants who have criminal records, suggesting that sustained enforcement is reversing the dangerous trends of the Biden years.
The criminal convictions involved in these encounters span some of the most serious offenses in the criminal code, including murder, homicide, and manslaughter; assault, battery, and domestic violence; burglary, robbery, larceny, theft, and fraud; and a range of sexual offences. Excluding immigration-specific crimes such as illegal entry and re-entry, the most commonly encountered convictions are driving under the influence and drug trafficking, both of which pose ongoing threats to public safety and community stability.
For conservatives who have long argued that secure borders, robust deportations, and support for law enforcement are non-negotiable pillars of a safe society, the latest crime data offer powerful empirical support. While progressive prosecutors downgrade charges and pursue social justice experiments, the Trump administrations decision to prioritize the removal of violent offenders and restore immigration enforcement appears closely aligned with the sharp decline in violent crime now being reported in Americas major cities.
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