The Migrant Crime Wave Data They Don’t Want You to See

MATT GOODWIN

THERE is a reason why some of the most revealing facts about modern Britain do not come from government press releases, ministerial speeches or mainstream media, but from Freedom of Information requests.

Again and again, as I have demonstrated, it is only when independent journalists and researchers force the British state’s hand that we learn what is really going on beyond the carefully managed narratives of the BBC and Westminster.

The latest data on crime on Britain’s transport network is a case in point because once you strip away the spin, the message is stark. Foreign nationals – in particular, asylum seekers  – are dramatically over-represented in arrests on Britain’s railways. Not by a small margin. Not by statistical noise. But by margins so large they raise serious questions about public safety, policy failure and why the British people are, once again, being kept in the dark.

According to data obtained from the British Transport Police through Freedom of Information requests, and shared by the independent Centre for Migration Control, foreign nationals accounted for nearly 38 per cent of all arrests on Britain’s railways last year in spite of making up only 10 per cent of the population.

The figure becomes even more extraordinary when you look at specific crimes. Almost 80 per cent of arrests for theft of passenger property involved foreign nationals. So did more than a third of arrests for violence and sexual offences did.

When it comes to asylum seekers, the picture is starker still. On a per-capita basis, asylum seekers were up to seven times more likely to be arrested on the rail network than the British people.

This is not conjecture. It is not ideology. It is not ‘stoking the culture wars’. It is what the actual figures show us once they are prised from the state and dragged into the light.

The obvious question is this: why are we only hearing about this now? Why do these figures emerge only after Freedom of Information requests rather than being proactively published by the Home Office, the Department for Transport, or the police, much like they are made publicly available by other European nations?

Why are the public expected to trust institutions which appear reluctant to disclose basic facts about crime, safety and public order? And why – whenever this data does surface – is the first instinct of the political and media class to downplay it or ignore it altogether?

The answer is uncomfortable but increasingly obvious. It is because the moment you acknowledge these figures, you are forced to confront the consequences of a political consensus that has treated mass immigration as an unquestionable good while refusing to deal honestly with its spiralling costs.

You are forced to ask why ordinary British commuters are expected to tolerate rising levels of theft, intimidation and disorder on trains while being told that raising such concerns is ‘divisive’, ‘irresponsible’ or ‘stoking culture wars’. You are forced to ask why working people are told by their own leaders to accept declining safety on public transport as the price of ‘compassion’ and ‘tolerance’. And you are forced to ask why the state appears more concerned with managing headlines than managing borders.

None of this means every migrant commits crime. Of course not. Nor does it mean that poverty, trauma or background play no role in the disproportionate figures. But none of that explains away numbers that are this lopsided nor does it justify the culture of silence surrounding them.

What is most striking is not just the data itself, but how hard it had to be fought for. In a healthy democracy, information about crime trends would be routinely and regularly published, openly debated and used to inform policy. Instead, in the UK, where politicians berate voters for being ‘misinformed’ while deliberately keeping them in the dark, information like this has to be prised out of the state through Freedom of Information requests.

That tells you something important. It tells you that the real scandal is not just what is happening on Britain’s railways – but how little trust the public is afforded to judge the situation for themselves. When the state only tells people the truth after being forced to do so, it is no longer governing openly and transparently. It is managing perception. And when the media refuse to ask obvious questions about issues that affect millions of people every day, it ceases to be a watchdog and becomes a shield.

If Britain is serious about restoring trust, public safety, and democratic accountability, it must start with something very simple: stop hiding the facts.

Because once people start to see what is really going on, they will begin to understand why so many no longer believe the official story that is being presented to us in BBC-Westminster land.

They will start to question the grim reality that surrounds them and the narratives that are imposed on them from above. And they will do so not on the basis of fantasy or ideology but hard evidence of the kind we must never stop sharing.

This article appeared in Matt Goodwin’s substack on January 19, 2026, and is republished by kind permission.

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This article (The migrant crime wave data they don’t want you to see) was created and published by Conservative Woman and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Matt Goodwin

Featured image: Modernity News