Are You More Likely to be Killed by and Illegal Immigrant or Law Enforcement?

There have been many claims floating around social media about how likely you are to die from an illegal immigrant or from law enforcement. We decided to take a look.

First, let’s look at the average across the country:

Illegal Immigrant Risk: ~0.09 deaths per 100,000 people per year
LEO Risk: ~0.39 deaths per 100,000 people per year
Homicide Risk: 2.2 deaths per 100,000 per year

Both of these are tiny compared to the overall homicide risk: CDC reports 22,830 homicides in 2023 (about 6.8 per 100,000). Both are also highly striated based on other factors. For instance, in Texas, with a large illegal immigrant population the odds are 2.2 homicide convictions per 100,000, almost 2.5x more. On the policing side the local policing environment, which is also out of our immediate control, dictates odds of being killed by LEO.

Men (overall): ~1 in 2,000 lifetime risk
Women (overall): ~1 in 33,000 lifetime risk
Black men: ~1 in 1,000 lifetime risk

That’s 30×+ swing between “average woman” and “Black man”

The real model for identifying how likely YOU are to be killed from LEO is this:

(how often you have police contact) × (how often those contacts are high-risk contexts) × (how you behave in the first 10 seconds of tense moments) × (local policing environment)

This formula, applied to me, a mixed race white looking (non black) male, comes to 1 in 7.3 million or 0.0136986 in 100,000 or 6.5 times LESS likely than being killed by an illegal immigrant. Now, this is for me, being middle-aged in an area with moderate policing. What helps lower this is that I AVOID high-risk contexts and my low frequency of encountering police and how I act when I do encounter police. There are many factors in an individual’s control here.

If I change my skin color to a black man and keep other factors the same my odds change to 0.061 to 0.073 per 100,000 or 2.5–3× times less likely than being killed by an illegal immigrant.

If I change my skin color to black and age to 25 my odds increase to 0.286 per 100,000 – a DRASTIC increase. This is because my decrease in age increases the odds in all other factors, and because of math, they multiply.

The takeaway? Your odds of either are actually VERY VERY small compared to general homicide – much of which is often committed by someone you know if your crime shows are to be believed.

If you’re worried about one, the math says you should be worried about the other, but really you shouldn’t be worried about either.

That and women are smarter.

Sources:

POLICE KILLINGS (COUNTS / RATES / METHODOLOGY)
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/
https://mappingpoliceviolence.us/
https://mappingpoliceviolence.us/aboutthedata
https://mappingpoliceviolence.us/states
https://policeviolencereport.org/

RISK BY AGE / RACE (LIFETIME RISK STUDY)
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1821204116
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31383756/

POLICE CONTACT FREQUENCY (HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE POLICE CONTACT)
https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/contacts-between-police-and-public-2022
https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/cbpp22.pdf
https://bjs.ojp.gov/press-release/contacts-between-police-and-public-2022

TRAFFIC STOPS (HOW COMMON THEY ARE) + TRAFFIC-STOP KILLINGS
https://openpolicing.stanford.edu/
https://openpolicing.stanford.edu/findings/
https://policylab.hks.harvard.edu/projects/stanford-open-policing-project.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/21/us-police-violence-traffic-stop-data

POPULATION DENOMINATOR USED FOR “PER YEAR” RATES
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/12/population-estimates.html
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-kits/2024/national-state-population-estimates.html

OVERALL HOMICIDES (CONTEXT)
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm

UNAUTHORIZED IMMIGRANT POPULATION SIZE (DENOMINATOR)
https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-s-unauthorized-immigrant-population-reached-a-record-14-million-in-2023/
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/22/qa-how-pew-research-center-estimates-the-number-of-unauthorized-immigrants-living-in-the-us/
https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/08/RE_2025.08.21_Unauthorized-Immigrants_REPORT.pdf

UNAUTHORIZED IMMIGRANT HOMICIDE-CONVICTION RATE (TEXAS) + “NO NATIONAL DATABASE” NOTE
https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/illegal-immigrant-murderers-texas-2013-2022
https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/no-evidence-4000-people-are-killed-yearly-by-undocumented-immigrants-2024-09-27/