FIRST ON FOX: Republican Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana is calling on U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel to close “critical gaps” in crime reporting that he says obscures a “serious and growing problem with immigrant crime” in America, according to a letter that was obtained by Fox News Digital.
Banks suggested that a lack of immigration status reporting by local and state authorities has resulted in the amount of crime committed by illegal aliens being drastically underreported, according to the letter that was sent to Bondi and Patel on Tuesday.
As such, he urged the FBI and DOJ to encourage local and state law enforcement to collect arrestees’ immigration status, national origin and ethnicity by reforming the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), in which most agencies participate.
Currently, the NIBRS only includes ethnicity as an optional element, and it does not require law enforcement to collect an arrestee’s immigration status or national origin.
Banks also pointed out that though the DOJ collects some aggregate statistics about the citizenship of state prison populations, it does not distinguish between noncitizens with legal status and illegal aliens. He said it also generally leaves out offenders in local jails, who make up approximately one-third of the inmate population.