Sign up for TPR Today, Texas Public Radio's newsletter that brings our top stories to your inbox each morning.
The FBI's 2024 Uniform Crime report shows the murder rate in Texas border cities were among the lowest in the nation.
The national murder rate last year was about five victims per 100,000 people. Here in San Antonio, it was about eight victims per 100,000 residents.
But in Laredo and Brownsville, there were about 2 murder victims per the same population group.
Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar, who represents a district that covers San Antonio's Southeast Side and runs all the way to Laredo on the border, released a statement on the crime figures.
"The FBI's 2024 crime statistics, which over the years have consistently shown what residents along the southern border already know," he said. "These communities are safer than many non-border cities across the United States."
The most murderous cities in the U.S. were Baltimore, Detroit, and Cleveland, in that order, and with each having 30 or more murders per 100,000.
When it comes to all violent crimes, the results were more mixed. While the national average of violent crimes per 100,000 was about 359, it was 365 per the same population in Laredo and 456 in Brownsville.
In San Antonio, there were 594 violent crimes per 100,000 people last year.
