Immigration violations, mostly by illegal immigrants, has jumped over drugs to become the top federal crime.
Federal sentencing for immigration violations surged 22.9% last year, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s annual report shared with Secrets.
The result was that over 38% of all cases were immigration-related.
“Immigration offenses increased by more than 5,000 cases from the previous year and accounted for the largest single group of federal crime — a position held by drug offenses in FY17,” said the commission.
Some of the numbers are jarring. Among them, 29,354 were sentenced for immigration crimes, up from 23,883 last year.
Of those, 95.4% were sent to prison for an average sentence of 10 months.
And nearly all were illegal immigrants, said the report.
This article was originally posted by the Washington Examiner.
