BEL AIR, Maryland – Locals described the town of Bel Air, Maryland, about 30 miles northeast of Baltimore, as community-oriented and safe, at least before Rachel Morin’s murder.
Neighbors flock to Ma and Pa Heritage Trail to hike, the name itself symbolizing the family-friendly nature.
Then, on August 6, 2023, police found the body of Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five, on Ma & Pa Trail.
“Gosh, I mean, it was such a shock because you don’t think anything’s going to happen in this little area because you just feel safe,” said Susan DiSabatino as she walked along the path with a friend and her dog Max, a few days after the killer was convicted this month.
DiSabatino walked the trail for a decade. She stopped going alone after the murder.
On April 14, a jury found El Salvadoran native Victor Martinez-Hernandez, 24, guilty of murder, rape, and kidnapping after less than an hour of deliberation at the Harford County Circuit Court.
The high-profile case garnered national media coverage and renewed the conversation about whether undocumented immigrants commit more crimes than United States citizens. Martinez-Hernandez’s conviction has resurfaced the debate about immigrants and crime.
Do undocumented immigrants commit more crime than citizens?
Researchers point to data that confirms immigrants commit fewer violent crimes than nonimmigrants. However, Americans’ opinions are split on whether a correlation exists between immigration status and crime.
“The research shows that the immigration and crime relationship does not exist,” said Haley Puddy, a criminology and criminal justice PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Dallas.
However, a handful of residents told Medill News Service that they think undocumented immigrants commit violent crimes. These residents declined to give their names because they didn’t want their comments published.
Research has found that 44% of Americans believe foreign-born people are more likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens, according to a survey experiment conducted by Puddy and co-authors, published in Sage Journals in December 2024.
Bel Air is a town of about 10,500 people. The majority of the population is white, but the Hispanic population has consistently grown, according to the mayor.
According to the most updated Census data, in 2023, about 12.7% of Bel Air’s population was Hispanic.
The Harford County Sheriff’s Office announced during the investigation that he had been deported three times in early 2023. Authorities also said DNA from the crime scene matched DNA collected in Los Angeles in 2023 at a home where a young girl was attacked, but no one was arrested.
“We obviously prosecute crimes of people who are citizens of the United States and people who are illegal immigrants,” Alison Healey, the state prosecutor on the case, said in an interview. “I don’t know that I have statistics or data to say percentage-wise what the correlation is there, but what I do know is that we should not be allowing illegal immigrants or illegal criminals to come into our country.”
Healey was also the state prosecutor in the trial of Walter Javier Martinez, who was found guilty last year of murdering Aberdeen, Maryland, woman Kayla Hamilton. The defendant was also an El Salvadoran national.
What’s shaping public opinion on immigration and crime
The president has repeatedly linked undocumented immigration with violent crime.
At a White House press briefing on April 16, Morin’s mother, Patty Morin, told the press, “Please tell the truth. Tell the truth. Tell how violent it really is. It’s more than politics. It’s about national security. It’s about protecting Americans. It’s about protecting the children.”
Using Texas Department of Public Safety data, a 2020 study found that U.S.-born citizens were over two times more likely to have committed violent crimes than undocumented immigrants.
One reason immigrants commit fewer crimes is that the “consequences of committing crimes are higher for immigrants because they have more at stake to lose, including potential deportations or revocation of statuses,” said Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute think tank.
Experts said politics and news media have contributed to the disparity between data and public opinion.
“Trump specifically has called them things like murderers, animals, not like they’ve called them not people before. So things like that are influencing the public’s perceptions and so they’re viewing them in that way,” Puddy said.
Dr. Matthew Wright, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia’s Department of Political Science, also said, “People are susceptible to the framing of these immigrants as criminals.”
Resident John Demey said he noticed Morin’s murder received a lot of media coverage, including of the defendant’s immigration status.
“Rachel Morin’s murder was amplified to a disproportionate degree. … That was the reason why it was amplified, I believe,” Demey said.
‘Mayberry of Harford County’
“Some people say: “This is kind of like the Mayberry of Harford County,” said Bel Air Police Chief Charles Moore, referencing the “Andy Griffith” show. “We like the small town feel, and we keep that here.”
There were 12 murders in Harford County in 2023, the year of Morin’s death, compared to seven the year before, according to State of Maryland data. The town of Bel Air, within Harford County, reported only two homicides in 2023, after a streak of zero homicides since 2012, according to the police department.
“We want to make sure that wherever you’re from, whether you’re documented or not, if you’re a criminal, we want to hold you accountable,” Moore said.
Bel Air is a three-square-mile town, the county seat of Harford County—the “heart of Harford,” Mayor Paula Etting said. She added that retail theft is the biggest crime concern. Police have recorded only one homicide since 2024.
It’s a walkable city, and on a sunny morning two days after the conviction, people bustled in and out of the local coffee shop, Coffee Bar, on Main Street.
In line for a boost of energy, Maria Smee, a lifelong resident, said she feels safe hiking the trail during daylight now that police have installed cameras.
Not all hold the sentiment that immigrants commit more crime than nonimmigrants, though.
“I think the general reaction was just shock,” said Smee, who for years ran along Ma & Pa for high school cross-country practices. “I personally didn’t see much on the conversation of immigration towards it.”
As Martinez-Hernandez awaits his sentence, Ma & Pa Trail regains its foot traffic, and the town of Bel Air returns to daily life.
“If you’re here and you don’t wish to commit any crimes in our town and you’re here legally, you’re welcome,” Mayor Etting said. “I think our population of our residents looked at it as a single event … I think as far as the town residents are concerned, it’s a closed book.”
Cover Photo: Victor Antonio Martinez-Hernandez (Credit ICE)