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Title: Does Undocumented Immigration Increase Violent Crime?

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2018

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Abstract: Despite substantial public, political, and scholarly attention to the issue of immi-gration and crime, we know little about the criminological consequences of undocu-mented immigration. As a result, fundamental questions about whether undocumentedimmigration increases violent crime remain unanswered. In an attempt to addressthis gap, we combine newly developed estimates of the unauthorized populationwith multiple data sources to capture the criminal, socioeconomic, and demographiccontext of all 50 states and Washington, DC, from 1990 to 2014 to provide thefirst longitudinal analysis of the macro-level relationship between undocumentedimmigration and violence. The results from fixed-effects regression models reveal thatundocumented immigration does not increase violence. Rather, the relationship be-tween undocumented immigration and violent crime is generally negative, althoughnot significant in all specifications. Using supplemental models of victimization dataand instrumental variable methods, we find little evidence that these results are due todecreased reporting or selective migration to avoid crime. We consider the theoreticaland policy implications of these findings against the backdrop of the dramatic increasein immigration enforcement in recent decades.

Url: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/1745-9125.12175

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Authors: Light, Michael, T; Miller, Ty

Periodical (Full): Criminology

Issue: 2

Volume: 56

Pages: 370-401

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Crime and Deviance

Countries: United States