It is beyond disturbing and disappointing that when a migrant is charged with a crime in the U.S., conservative media outlets jump on the news and try to portray the crime as part of a broader trend that migrants are engaged in an ongoing crime wave.

So I was glad to see the New York Times and John Oliver recently puncture holes in the myth of “migrant crime.”

“It’s no accident that Republicans were focusing so hard on immigration,” John Oliver, Host of “Last Week Tonight,” said in reference to this month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

“Recent polling shows it’s the second most important issue among Americans. But a big reason for that is the relentless, bad-faith fearmongering around the issue by the Republican party themselves, perhaps best summed up by the startling growth this year of the toxic phrase ‘migrant crime,’” said Oliver.

The Guardian noted Oliver’s comments in a recent article. “There is no migrant crime wave happening right now. In fact, there is no crime wave at all. Crime in general has been trending downward in recent years, including this one,” Oliver said.

U.S. rates of crime and immigration “have moved in opposite directions in recent years. After illegal immigration plummeted in 2020, the murder rate rose. And after illegal immigration spiked in 2021 and 2022, murders plateaued and then fell,” notes German Lopez, a reporter for the New York Times in a July 18 article.

Lopez points out that undocumented migrants “have an incentive to avoid trouble with the law so they do not get caught by the authorities and deported.”

“Despite claims from conservative media and campaign rhetoric pointing to immigration as the cause of crime increases, there is no evidence that immigration — and in particular the recent influx of immigrants to Democratic-run cities — is causing a ‘crime wave,'” the Brennan Center for Justice noted in late May.

Refugees and migrants continue to face extreme forms of violence, human rights violations and exploitation not just at sea, but also on land routes across the African continent, towards its Mediterranean coastline, a new report released by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Mixed Migration Centre (MMC)

The new report, titled “On this journey, no-one cares if you live or die” (Volume 2), was released on July 4.

With more people estimated to cross the Sahara Desert than the Mediterranean Sea – and deaths of refugees and migrants in the desert presumed to be double those happening at sea – the report casts light on the much less documented and publicized perils facing refugees and migrants on these land routes, a news release related to the report said.

Spanning a 3-year data collection period, the report also warns of an increase in the number of people attempting these perilous land crossings and the protection risks they face.

This is in part the result of deteriorating situations in countries of origin and host countries – including the eruption of new conflicts in the Sahel and Sudan, the devastating impact of climate change and disasters on new and protracted emergencies in the East and Horn of Africa, as well as the manifestation of racism and xenophobia affecting refugees and migrants.

“The report also notes that across parts of the continent, refugees and migrants are increasingly traversing areas where insurgent groups, militias and other criminal actors operate, and where human trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, forced labor and sexual exploitation are rife. Some smuggling routes are now shifting towards more remote areas to avoid active conflict zones or border controls by State and non-State actors, subjecting people on the move to even greater risks,” the news release said.