While undoubtedly citing precise details, the article “Released to reoffend’’ misleads readers on the big picture. Recent immigrants, including the undocumented, are less likely to commit violent crimes than native-born citizens of similar socioeconomic status, as studies such as Harvard professor Robert Sampson’s have shown.

Yes, criminals emerge from all human groups, including undocumented immigrants. Yet the article elicits the impression that deportable immigrants pose particular threats to public safety. The truth is that the offenses for which immigrants are convicted are overwhelmingly due to their lack of a visa. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2012, 75 percent of unauthorized immigrants sentenced in federal court were sentenced for immigration-related offenses: 68 percent for “unlawfully entering or remaining in the United States,’’ and another 7 percent for “other immigration-related offenses.’’

A real threat to public safety is the fear that Immigration and Customs Enforcement unleashes among the vast majority of honest, hard-working immigrants. Fearing ICE, almost all undocumented people have been victimized in some manner through means such as extortion, unsafe housing, wage theft, and domestic violence, as their abusers hold the threat of deportation over them. Predatory behaviors against the undocumented harm all of us, and calls to step up deportations enable the predators.

Dr. Julia Koehler, Jamaica Plain

The writer is a pediatrician who cares for immigrant children, and is chair of the Immigrant Health Committee of the Massachusetts chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.