Homicides in the United States dropped 18 percent in the first half of 2026 compared to the same period last year. Carjackings fell 47 percent. Robberies dropped 17 percent. Residential burglaries, down 13 percent. Motor vehicle thefts, down 20 percent.
The Department of Homeland Security says the murder rate is now on pace to hit its lowest point in 126 years. That takes us back to 1900.
Lauren Bis, Assistant Secretary for DHS's Office of Public Affairs, didn't dance around the reason. "President Trump promised to make America safe again, and he has done just that," Bis said. "Crime has fallen to record lows under the Trump Administration. It's no surprise that this drop in crime coincides with deportations of dangerous criminal illegal aliens."
Nearly three million illegal immigrants have been removed from the country during the first Trump administration year. ICE operations have stretched from coast to coast — including a raid that netted over 80 illegal immigrants at a Louisiana racetrack. The numbers aren't abstract. They're showing up in police precincts and hospital emergency rooms in every major city.
The Epoch Times reported on the data alongside a broader context that makes the trend harder for skeptics to dismiss. Compared to the first half of 2022 — which was still under Biden-era enforcement — homicides are down a staggering 51 percent.
The White House issued a statement calling the decline "the direct result of the Trump Administration's relentless efforts to enforce the rule of law, back the police, and surge resources into communities." On day one, President Trump signed executive orders restoring the federal death penalty and targeting illegal immigrant criminals — January 20, 2025.
Adam Gelb, president of the Council on Criminal Justice, offered a more measured take: "Murder and other crime rates are falling across the map, in cities with different political leadership... Local policies and programs surely matter, but the striking consistency suggests macro-level forces exert enormous influence."
That's a polite, think-tank way of saying this isn't about any one mayor or city council. Something changed nationally. And the only national-level change anyone can point to is a president who started deporting people instead of releasing them with a court date three years out.
Left-wing commentators have spent two years insisting mass deportations would "tear apart communities" and "destroy local economies." The communities in question appear to be doing fine — unless your definition of community includes people who carjacked their way into the neighborhood.
The numbers that aren't dropping tell their own story. Domestic violence is up 8 percent. Sexual assaults are up 3 percent. Aggravated assaults are down only 2 percent, and gun assaults down 6 percent. Those are crimes that tend to happen between people who know each other — not the kind driven by transient criminal populations.
Which means the categories most connected to illegal immigrant crime are plummeting, and the categories least connected to it are holding steady or rising. The data didn't just support the administration's argument. It drew the diagram.
The last time homicide rates were this low, there were 45 states. The Wright brothers hadn't flown yet. Teddy Roosevelt was president. We've had two world wars, a Cold War, a war on drugs, and a war on terror since then.
All it took to get back there was enforcing the border.