That seems to be an interesting correlation: I don't want to get in trouble to avoid being deported. In Italy there is statistical evidence that illegal immigr

That seems to be an interesting correlation: I don't want to get in trouble to avoid being deported. In Italy there is statistical evidence that illegal immigrants are overrepresented in terms of arrests/convictions. That being said, the data underneath is often hard to judge without bias. Police is more likely to arrest and investigate an illegal compared to a local. Other factors include weighting for age and other socio economical factors. Illegals are often young adults, male and financially weak: exactly the demographic that is more prone to crime regardless of its ethnical background or nationality. When you normalize for those factors you find out that illegal immigrants are not statistically likelier to commit crime than young Italian unemployed males. Data is difficult to collect and even harder to analyze, and you can twist data to tell you what you want to hear. In order to really shape legislative action you need to invest in data collection and analysis first.