While illegal immigrants account for about 3.5 percent of the U.S population, they represented 36.7 percent of federal sentences in FY 2014 following criminal convictions, according to U.S. Sentencing Commission data obtained by Breitbart News.

According to FY 2014 USSC data, of 74,911 sentencing cases, citizens accounted for 43,479 (or 58.0 percent), illegal immigrants accounted for 27,505 (or 36.7 percent), legal immigrants made up 3,017 (or 4.0 percent), and the remainder (about 1 percent) were cases in which the offender was either extradited or had an unknown status.

Broken down by some of the primary offenses, illegal immigrants represented 16.8 percent of drug trafficking cases, 20.0 percent of kidnapping/hostage taking, 74.1 percent of drug possession, 12.3 percent of money laundering, and 12.0 percent of murder convictions.

One GOP aide expressed shock at the numbers, emailing Breitbart News, “These statistics blew me away, and they blow a hole through the oft-repeated line that people only want to come to America to work. It’s tragic so few politicians are willing even to acknowledge the true extent of this problem, but until more do, more Americans will keep getting harmed.”

The USSC data only deals with federal offenders sentenced under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (SRA) and does not include other categories like state cases, death penalty cases, or “cases initiated but for which no convictions were obtained, offenders convicted for whom no sentences were yet issued, and offenders sentenced but for whom no sentencing documents were submitted to the Commission.”

The data does include immigration violations, of which illegal immigrants represented by far the greatest number of cases: 91.6 percent, or (20,333 cases), out of a total 22,204 cases.

Eliminating all immigration violations, illegal immigrants would account for 13.6 percent of all the offenders sentenced in FY14 following federal criminal convictions — still greater than the 3.5 percent of the population illegal immigrants are said to make up.