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Trump returns to Michigan to talk about crime, but data shows crime rate has dropped

Howell – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump campaigned in Michigan on Tuesday, claiming there was a “crime wave” on a scale “nobody has ever seen before,” but FBI data shows the national violent crime rate has fallen in the two years since he left the White House.

Coming 77 days before the Nov. 5 election, Trump's event was the former president's sixth trip to Michigan this year and coincided with the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. At a Livingston County Sheriff's building in Howell, Trump spoke for about 50 minutes, with a group of sheriffs standing behind him and a banner reading “Make America Safe Again.”

“The level of crime in our country is unbelievable,” Trump said on Tuesday.

Trump referred to the trends he believes are taking place as the “Kamala crime wave,” referring to Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, the current vice president. Trump also claimed – without any evidence – that crime is declining in other countries because they are sending their criminals to the United States.

In big cities, “almost all of which are run by Democrats,” Trump said, “you can't just walk across the street to get a loaf of bread. You get shot. You get mugged. You get raped. You get whatever.”

National FBI violent crime data showed that the violent crime rate declined during the Trump administration from 2017 to 2019 before rising to 398.5 incidents per 100,000 people in 2020. In 2021 and 2022, the first two years of President Joe Biden's administration, the nation's violent crime rate declined, reaching 380.7 in 2022, according to FBI data.

However, the Trump campaign said on Tuesday that the federal data was “completely unreliable at this time” because the FBI compiled its statistics based on “estimated crime figures” for law enforcement agencies that do not release figures.

Data collected by the Michigan State Police, which goes through 2022, showed that violent crime in Michigan increased by 12% from 2019 to 2020, the last full year of Trump's term in the White House. According to the figures, there were 48,674 violent crimes in Michigan in 2020.

Then violent crimes rose about 1% to 49,073 in 2021, the first year of Biden's term, before falling about 7% to 45,449 in 2022, according to MSP data.

Over the five-year period 2018-2022, Michigan's murder rate peaked in 2020 at 760 cases before declining in 2021 and 2022, the two years of the Biden administration for which figures are available. Robbery and rape cases have generally been declining since 2018, the second year of Trump's term.

Michigan State Police data showed that the violent crime rate — the number of violent crimes per 100,000 residents — in 2022, the second year of the Biden administration, was the same as in 2018, the second year of the Trump administration: 452.9.

Data for 2023 will be available this fall, said state police spokeswoman Shanon Banner.

The Trump campaign had originally agreed that Trump would participate in an interview with The Detroit News on Tuesday, but when the newspaper began asking about Michigan crime data before the event, a campaign aide said the presidential candidate would not have time for an interview after the speech.

“Tell a story”

To combat crime, Trump said Tuesday he would support law enforcement and deport illegal immigrants who violate the law.

“We will end violent crime in the United States,” the Republican candidate once said.

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Trump hosts campaign rally in Livingston County

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But in an interview Tuesday, Michigan state Rep. Tyrone Carter, a Detroit Democrat and former Wayne County sheriff's deputy, said crime in Michigan has declined during Biden's tenure in the White House. He also touted anti-crime programs proposed by Michigan Democrats, including a $75 million public safety trust fund in the latest state budget.

“With him, facts don't matter,” Carter said of Trump. “It's about telling a story that benefits you.”

During a press conference for the Harris campaign on Tuesday, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said her office relies heavily on numbers from the Michigan State Police.

“One of the things he could do to reduce crime is stop committing as many,” Nessel said, citing the numerous criminal charges pending against the former president as well as his conviction in May in New York for his role in a plot to illegally influence the 2016 election by paying hush money.

More: Trump reflects: His rhetoric in the auto industry is probably the reason why I'm being shot at

But Matt Hall, Republican minority leader in the Michigan House of Representatives from Richland Township, said independent voters in Michigan are very concerned about illegal immigration.

When asked if crime is increasing or decreasing in Michigan, Hall replied, “We believe crime is a serious problem in our state. … I look at the polls. It's not just about illegal immigration and illegal immigrant crime, it's about public safety.”

At Trump's campaign rally on Tuesday, a slide was repeatedly shown in the background saying that a 2023 Gallup poll found that 63% of Americans described crime as an “extremely” or “very” serious problem in 2023.

In a Detroit News-WDIV-TV poll of 600 likely Michigan voters in July, crime was not a top issue in the presidential race. Respondents were asked an open-ended question about the “most important issue that will influence their voting decision.” Crime or a similar issue was not among the top 10 responses, according to the poll.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers of White Lake Township told the crowd in a speech Tuesday that the political debate lacks discussion of “real victims.”

“They want to give you statistics,” Rogers said. “I'm telling you, there are real victims.”

Rogers cited a number of incidents, including the attack on a minor by an illegal immigrant and two other assaults in Oakland County.

About crime data

National FBI statistics paint an incomplete picture of crime in America, with about a third of the nation's 18,000 police departments no longer reporting crime statistics to the FBI following a change in reporting requirements in 2021, according to the Marshall Project.

This has led to a lack of data in New York City, Los Angeles and other cities, which criminologists say makes it difficult to analyze crime trends and understand where Detroit and other cities fit in the national picture.

But in Michigan's largest city, Detroit, the number of murders fell from 302 in 2016, the year of Trump's election, to a low of 261 in 2018, before rising again to 273 in 2019 and then rising to 324 murders in 2020, Trump's final year in office, according to figures previously released by Detroit police.

Since then, while Biden is president and Harris is vice president, annual homicides in Detroit have fallen to their lowest level in over 50 years. In 2023, there were 252 homicides in Detroit, a 22% decrease since 2020, according to Detroit police statistics.

More: Detroit will record 252 murders in 2023, the lowest since 1966

In the past, some law enforcement officials have linked the rise in violent crime in 2020 to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, James Craig, then-Detroit police chief and a Trump supporter, said drug and alcohol use during the pandemic had “fueled violence.”

“COVID was the main factor behind these numbers,” Craig said in 2021. “The pandemic has a direct impact on the rise in violence in Detroit and other cities.”

To support its arguments, the Trump campaign released data on the increase in violent crime in 2021, stating that Michigan's violent crime rate is above the national average.

Trump focuses on migrant crime

Michigan is expected to be one of the few states that will decide this fall whether Trump or Harris controls the White House.

Trump is the only Republican presidential candidate to win Michigan since 1988. He defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 by less than one percentage point, 47.5% to 47.3%, or about 10,700 votes. But four years later, in 2020, Trump lost to Biden by three percentage points, 48% to 51%.

The Republican candidate has made crime and illegal immigration two focal points of his third campaign for the White House in Michigan.

Speaking to a group of Michigan sheriffs at an event in Grand Rapids in April, Trump said the surge in crossings at the southern border was “changing the country” and defended his use of the word “animals” to describe illegal immigrants who commit violent crimes.

Trump's running mate, U.S. Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, held a press conference with police officers in Shelby Township on August 7. After that event, James Tignanelli, president of the Police Officers Association of Michigan and a Trump supporter, said he was not sure whether the number of crimes committed by illegal immigrants in Michigan had increased because a person's immigration status is not always part of police departments' background check process.

Trump was referring to the story of Joel Quintana-Dominguez, who was charged in Macomb County on July 19 with three counts of first-degree sexual abuse with a victim under the age of 13, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted. Shelby Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bailey previously told The Detroit News that the investigation into Quintana-Dominguez began on July 15, when relatives of the 32-year-old alleged he sexually abused a family member.

Investigators believe Joel Quintana-Dominguez may have been warned that police viewed him as a suspect and was preparing to flee the country. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Quintana-Dominguez was deported to Mexico twice, but returned both times.

“Customs found that he was here illegally, that he had been deported before but had found his way back into the country,” Bailey said.

Trump said he would close the southern border and “get all the bad guys out.”

“We will get it done quickly,” Trump said.

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Editors Beth LeBlanc and George Hunter contributed.

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