Another Study Finds that Undocumented Immigrants Commit Fewer Crimes & Make Communities Safer

Donald Trump kept up his unfortunate and deceitful attack on undocumented immigrants during last week's presidential debate, again implying that they are murderers and rapists rather than individuals and families seeking jobs and better lives. It's the President's signature issue, so don't expect him to change his tune despite a growing mountain of evidence to the contrary.

Another study on immigrants and crime was released yesterday in the Journal of Crime and Justice, co-authored by Yulin Yang, James Bachmeier and Mike Maciag.

They studied crime and illegal immigrant population data "using two sets of estimates for the 2014 undocumented foreign-born population in U.S. metropolitan areas acquired from the Pew Research Center and the Migration Population Institute, 2013-2015 FBI Uniform Crime Report data, and 2011-2015 American Community Survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau, to model the association between undocumented immigration and violent and property crime."

Their study determined that the presence of illegal immigrants did not increase violent crime rates, and that neighborhoods with large populations of undocumented individuals actually had lower rates of property crime such as burglary and larceny.

These findings are in line with the conclusions of a large study released in 2018 by Graham Ousey and Charis Kubrin who examined 51 studies on immigration and crime published from 1994 to 2014. Their research determined that immigrants are marginally less likely to commit crimes than US citizens.

Many researchers are now investigating why immigrants, legal and otherwise, are more law abiding. The "common sense" answer is that they have more to lose if they are arrested, but it's likely more complex than that. Here is an interesting article regarding the "why" question, and it has some important things to say about the positive impact immigrants have had on our large urban centers.

American Prospect.org: "Although certainly not the only factor, immigration deserves attention as part of the answer for the nation's crime decline and urban revitalization. Immigrants have gravitated to many of the urban areas that were most distressed 40 years ago and have contributed to their economic revival. Contrary to widespread beliefs, high concentrations of immigrants are also associated with lower crime rates."

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By: Don Lam & Curated Content