Immigration and Crime: Taking Stock 3031228383, 9783031228384

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SpringerBriefs in Criminology SpringerBriefs in Crime and Place Charis E. Kubrin · Graham C. Ousey

Immigration and Crime Taking Stock

SpringerBriefs in Criminology SpringerBriefs in Crime and Place Series Editors Joshua Hinkle Georgia State University Atlanta, Georgia, USA Sue-Ming Yang George Mason University Fairfax, Virginia, USA

SpringerBriefs in Crime and Place presents concise summaries of cutting-edge research across the field of Crime and Place. It publishes small but impactful volumes of between 50-125 pages, with a clearly defined focus. The series covers a broad range of Crime and Place research, including: experimental design and advanced research methods, crime prevention, the role of communities and places, policy-related applications, and methodological issues in crime and place research at various units of analysis. The scope of the series spans the whole field of Crime and Place, including the communities they are within, on the leading edge and advancing research. It is international and cross-disciplinary, including a broad array of topics, including the importance of the micro-place in research, policing, crime prevention, quantitative methods, experimental methods, research design and analysis, and crime prevention when considering a spatial perspective. SpringerBriefs in Crime and Place will be of interest to a broad range of researchers and practitioners working in Crime and Place research and in related academic fields such as Sociology, Geography, Public Health, and Economics.

Charis E. Kubrin • Graham C. Ousey

Immigration and Crime Taking Stock

Charis E. Kubrin Department of Criminology, Law & Society University of California Irvine, CA, USA

Graham C. Ousey Department of Sociology William & Mary Williamsburg, VA, USA

ISSN 2192-8533     ISSN 2192-8541 (electronic) SpringerBriefs in Criminology ISBN 978-3-031-22838-4    ISBN 978-3-031-22839-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22839-1 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the scholars whose research and insights over the decades created this field and inspired us to write this Brief. There are too many names to list here, but we feature their important contributions in the pages that follow.

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Contents

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Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   1

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Theoretical Perspectives on Immigration and Crime����������������������������   9

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From Theory to Empirics: Data Requirements for Studying Immigration and Crime����������������������������������������������������������������������������  27

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 Immigration and Crime: What We Know and What Remains Unknown����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  47

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Undocumented Immigration��������������������������������������������������������������������  71

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Harsh, Restrictive, and Exclusionary: How Do Immigration Policies and Practices Matter?������������������������������������������������������������������  81

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Conclusion��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  95

Index��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  97

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Chapter 1

Introduction

It has long been said that immigration is the foundation of America, and that immigrants represent what is best about the country (Brookings 2022). In this spirit, former President Bill Clinton remarked: “We are a Nation of immigrants that strives to live up to an idea of openness and receptivity. Immigration involves more than welcoming newcomers from faraway places. It involves reuniting our own families, helping our economy, fulfilling our religious and humanitarian values, and standing up to persecution that far too many Americans remember” (United States President’s Report). No other nation has as large an immigrant population as the United States. Even so, the number of immigrants coming to the U.S. from far away shores waxes and wanes across the decades. Numbers rose rapidly from the mid-nineteenth century through the early part of the twentieth century—popularly known as the Age of Mass Migration. With the cessation of large-scale immigration after 1924, absolute numbers of foreign-born declined to below ten million by 1970 (Hirschman 2014). With the renewal of immigration in recent decades, the number of foreign-born persons has risen dramatically and the U.S. is, once again, in the midst of an immigration wave. Today there are more than 44 million immigrants in America, constituting just over 13% of the U.S. population, a figure not far below the record high of 14.8% in 1890 (Esterline and Batalova 2022). And, approximately 17.8  million U.S. children under age 18 lived with at least one immigrant parent in 2019, accounting for 26% of the 68.9 million children under age 18 in the U.S. (Esterline and Batalova 2022). Immigrant populations change over time, and today’s immigrants look quite different from the past. Most who arrived during the Age of Mass Migration were from Southern and Eastern Europe, including Italy, Germany, Poland, and Russia. Many of these new arrivals were considered distinctly different from the older stock of white Americans in terms of language, religion, and in their potential for assimilation into society (Hirschman 2014). There were much smaller waves of immigration

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. E. Kubrin, G. C. Ousey, Immigration and Crime, SpringerBriefs in Criminology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22839-1_1

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1 Introduction

Table 1.1  Immigrant place of origin, 2019 Place of birth Region of birth (excluding born at sea) Born in Africa Born in Asia Born in Europe Born in Latin America (South America, Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean) Born in North America (Canada, Bermuda, Greenland, St. Pierre, and Miquelon) Born in Oceania

Foreign born Number % 4,49,32,799 100 24,75,118 5.5 1,40,99,479 31.4 46,65,173 10.4 2,25,88,239 50.3 8,04,602 1.8 3,00,188 0.7

Source: Migration Policy Institute (https://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/state-­profiles/state/ demographics/US#top)

from China and Japan, but strong opposition ended Asian immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century (Hirschman 2014). When the doors to immigration reopened after 1965, few Europeans arrived. The major regions of origin in the Post-1965 wave are Latin America and Asia—a trend that continues today (see Table 1.1). Currently, immigrants from Mexico constitute the largest group of immigrants in the U.S., comprising 24% of the total immigrant population. China (including Hong Kong and Macao but not Taiwan) and India are the origins of the next two largest immigrant groups, each accounting for roughly 6% of the overall foreign-born population. Other top countries of origin include the Philippines, El Salvador, Vietnam, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Korea. Together, these countries accounted for 57% of all immigrants in the U.S. in 2019 (Esterline and Batalova 2022). Such figures and trends raise critical questions about whether immigrants and their children are successfully integrating into American society, and whether or not current policies and practices facilitate their integration. Questions, too, arise about how the millions of immigrants arriving in recent decades are transforming America. These questions underscore the fact that while the U.S. is a nation comprised largely of immigrants and their descendants, immigration remains one of the most fraught social and political issues of modern times.

Stereotypes, Fears, and Moral Panics Existing alongside the pride of residing in a “nation of immigrants,” many Americans fear that the U.S. has more immigrants than it can absorb and assimilate. Accompanying these fears are widespread beliefs that immigrants take jobs that would otherwise go to native-born Americans and that wages of native-born workers are depressed by the presence of immigrant workers (Hirschman 2014). Beyond economic concerns, many Americans also believe that immigrants, especially those

Implications

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from “third world” countries, threaten American values, culture, and institutions (Hirschman 2014; see also Bouvier 1992; Brimelow 1995; Huntington 2004). Yet the most stubborn and damaging stereotype is that immigrants bring crime onto American shores. Criminologist Edwin Sutherland (1934) long ago highlighted immigration and crime as a topic marred by popular misconception and policy distortion. Today, little has changed as public opinions are still shaped more by fears and stereotype than empirical fact (Martinez and Lee 2000; Ousey and Kubrin 2009). For starters, the constant juxtaposition of the words “immigration” and “crime” in news story after news story has helped forge the perception of a causal link between the two (Butcher and Piehl 1998: 457). Indeed, “The misperception that the foreign born, especially illegal immigrants, are responsible for higher crime rates is deeply rooted in American public opinion and is sustained by media anecdote and popular myth” (Rumbaut and Ewing 2007: 3; see also Hagan et al. 2008: 96).

Implications The consequences of a perceived immigration-crime link are nontrivial and wide-­ ranging. These sentiments have given rise to an anti-immigrant lobby including political leaders, TV and radio talk-show pundits, public interest organizations that publish reports and policy briefs, and unauthorized militia groups that patrol the U.S.–Mexico border, such as the Minutemen (Hirschman 2014). The anti-immigrant lobby occupies a significant role in political life, including most recently in the 2016 presidential election. Immigration was a unifying concern among Trump supporters. According to a Pew Survey, voters who supported Donald Trump viewed illegal immigration as a serious problem in the U.S., and strongly favored his proposal to build a wall along the southern border with Mexico. And, half of Trump supporters in the survey said undocumented immigrants are more likely than U.S. citizens to commit serious crimes, compared to just 27% of all registered voters (Pew Research Center 2016). Beyond securing votes and propelling conservative politicians into power, the assumed link between immigration and crime has consequences for immigration policy. Research documents a direct connection between peoples’ perceptions and beliefs about immigration and their policy preferences (Grigorieff et al. 2020). By manipulating the public’s fear of “crime prone” immigrants, for example, politicians are able to secure support for harsh, restrictive, and exclusionary immigration policies (Sniderman et al. 2004; Stumpf 2006). Fear of the “criminal immigrant” also directly impacts the everyday lives of minority group members. Studies show that immigrants face discrimination in both the workplace (Dietz 2010) and the housing market (Rosenbaum and Friedman 2007). Negative stereotypes also motivate racial and ethnic profiling practices where physical appearance and socially constructed notions of race and ethnicity subject immigrants to special scrutiny, stops, and searches (Provine and Sanchez 2011: 470).

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At its worst, anxieties about “crime prone immigrants” can manifest into violence. The vitriol spewed by politicians and touted in the media provides motivation for hate crimes that target immigrants. Case in point: less than 2 weeks following President Trump’s election victory, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported almost 900 instances of harassment and intimidation across the nation. Not surprisingly, anti-immigrant harassment was the most common type (Southern Poverty Law Center 2016).

The Call for Research In response to popular claims and stereotypes about immigrant criminality and given the serious implications, scholars have decried the paucity of research on the immigration-crime link, calling for increased scrutiny among scholars. As Lee et al. (2001) point out, “Contemporary sociological studies of the link between crime and immigration are scarce” (pg. 559), a point emphasized by Reid et al. (2005: 758) who suggest, “Despite this body of commentary on the alleged link between immigration and crime, empirical research exploring this link is sparse.” Consistent with this, Martinez (2006: 2) maintains, “While studies of immigrants in many social science disciplines have proliferated, less attention has been paid to immigrant crime or the consequences of immigration on crime, despite an intensified public debate about this topic” (Martinez 2006: 2) while Morenoff and Astor (2006: 36) observe, “…criminologists know relatively little about how crime in the United States might be affected by recent waves of immigrants and their descendants.” Emphasizing the point that “The fields of criminology and immigration studies cannot continue to ignore each other” (Rumbaut et al. 2006: 68), scholars repeatedly called for more research on the immigration-crime nexus, underscoring the maxim that “…anecdotal impression cannot substitute for scientific evidence” (Rumbaut and Ewing 2007: 1). Researchers responded. Today, dozens of empirical studies that consider the immigration-crime nexus fill the field’s journals, and entire issues of journals are dedicated to examining how immigration and crime are related (see, for example, Adelman et al. 2018; Martinez 2009). What are the key findings? Do immigrants commit more crime than nonimmigrants? Are undocumented immigrants more crime-prone than their documented counterparts? Do increases in immigration cause crime rates to rise in communities? As suggested, public opinion data reveal many Americans believe the answer to these questions is an unqualified “yes.” Does scientific research agree? Given the veritable explosion in research over the past two decades, we are now able to answer these questions. It’s time to take stock. In this Brief, we take up this task. Across the pages, we explore various dimensions of the immigration-crime connection in the U.S., explicating theories that present diverse arguments asserting an immigration-crime link, reviewing methods and findings of studies that examine its nature, magnitude, and predictors, and considering the impacts and consequences of immigration policy. The volume’s

Structure and Organization

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synthesis of diverse bodies of scholarship across many disciplinary fields creates a brief, but comprehensive, resource seeking to separate fact from fiction on an issue of great scientific and social importance. The volume’s subject—and the implications for policy—remain timely. While the Trump presidency ushered in controversial strategies on immigration, President Biden’s administration is eyeing sweeping immigration reforms that would roll them back. But, what policies make the most sense? What should reform look like? At the center of the debate is the question of how immigration and crime may be related, and informing it requires up-to-date knowledge of empirical realities about immigrants, immigration, and their linkages with crime in the U.S. We have been researching and publishing extensively on the immigration-crime nexus for over 15 years, in both academic and public outlets. We have edited special journal issues on this topic, frequently review the latest research for top academic journals, and news media often cite our work and solicit our input for stories they are producing on this topic. In Immigration and Crime: Taking Stock we apply our combined knowledge to synthesize and integrate diverse bodies of scholarship addressing varied questions related to the study of crime and immigration. The Brief provides an essential primer on current knowledge that, we hope, will be of great value for researchers, policy makers and the broader public.

Structure and Organization The Brief is organized into seven chapters, each reflecting the most pressing issues, concerns, and questions related to the study of crime and immigration. Chapter 2, Theoretical Perspectives on Immigration and Crime, reviews theories on the immigration-crime link. These include macro-level theories that consider geographic units of different sizes, from states and counties to census tracts, block groups and street segments, as well as micro-level theories, that focus on individuals. Some theories pose a positive relationship between immigration and crime while others a negative relationship between immigration and crime. Chapter 3, From Theory to Empirics: Data Requirements for Studying Immigration and Crime, introduces the reader to the data sources—and appropriate measures of key concepts—available for studying immigration and crime including census data, official crime data, and self-report surveys. We also detail limitations of existing data sources for answering some of the most pressing questions. Chapter 4, Immigration and Crime: What We Know and What Remains Unknown?, reviews findings from the growing literature at the macro and micro levels, which reveals that, by and large, immigration and crime do not go hand in hand as commonly asserted. At the same time, we discuss studies that examine different types of crime to ascertain instances where immigrants may be overrepresented as offenders or where immigration to an area may cause certain types of crime to rise. Chapter 4 also identifies key gaps in knowledge about the immigration–crime association, focusing largely on the need to differentiate among types of

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immigrants in order to capture the true diversity that exists among the foreign-born, the need to determine how broader context, including immigration policies and practices, conditions the immigration–crime relationship across communities, and the need to explain the immigrant paradox along with why some immigrant communities are among the safest places around. Chapter 5, Undocumented Immigration, focuses specifically on undocumented immigration, reviewing the handful of recently published studies that examine whether undocumented immigrants are overrepresented in crime statistics and whether the presence of undocumented immigrants across places of varying sizes, from communities to states, leads to higher crime rates. This chapter also underscores the challenges associated with conducting research on undocumented immigration, focusing largely on data limitations. Chapter 6, Harsh, Restrictive, and Exclusionary: How Do Immigration Policies and Practices Matter?, considers the role of immigration policies and practices, particularly those that reflect what scholars refer to as “crimmigration,” or the broader integration of civil immigration enforcement and the criminal justice system (Stumpf 2006). We pay special attention to recent policies and practices related to the devolution of immigration enforcement, and describe the implications for the immigration–crime association across places. We conclude that recent policies have largely been ineffective in enhancing community public safety and may create more costs than benefits in the long run. Chapter 7 is the Conclusion, summarizing key points made throughout the Brief.

References Adelman, Robert, Charis E. Kubrin, Graham C. Ousey, and Lesley W. Reid. 2018. New Directions in Research on Immigration, Crime, Law and Justice. Migration Letters 15: 139–146. Bouvier, Leon F. 1992. Peaceful Invasions. Lanham: University Press of America. Brimelow, Peter. 1995. Alien Nation: Common Sense About America’s Immigration Disaster. New York: Random House. Brookings. 2022. Our Nation of Immigrants: A Podcast Series on America’s Immigration System. Accessed here: https://www.brookings.edu/product/our-­nation-­of-­immigrants/. Butcher, Kristin F., and Anne Morrison Piehl. 1998. Cross-City Evidence on the Relationship between Immigration and Crime. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 17: 457–493. Dietz, Joerg. 2010. Introduction to the Special Issue on Employment Discrimination against Immigrants. Journal of Managerial Psychology 25: 104–112. Esterline, Cecilia, and Jeanne Batalova. 2022. Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. Report accessed here: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-­requested-­statistics-­immigrants-­and-­ immigration-­united-­states#immigrants_now_historically. Grigorieff, Alexis, Christopher Roth, and Diego Ubfal. 2020. Does Information Change Attitudes Toward Immigrants? Demography 57: 1117–1143. Hagan, John, Ron Levi, and Ronit Dinovitzer. 2008. The Symbolic Violence of the Crime-­ Immigration Nexus: Migrant Mythologies in the Americas. Criminology and Public Policy 7: 95–112. Hirschman, Charles. 2014. Immigration to the United States: Recent Trends and Future Prospects. Malaysian Journal of Economic Studies 51 (1): 69–85.

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Huntington, Samuel L. 2004. Who are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity. New York: Simon and Schuster. Lee, Matthew T., Ramiro Martinez, and Richard Rosenfeld. 2001. Does Immigration Increase Homicide? Negative Evidence from Three Border Cities. Sociological Quarterly 42: 559–580. Martinez, Ramiro. 2006. Coming to America: The Impact of the New Immigration on Crime. In Immigration and Crime: Race, Ethnicity, and Violence, ed. Ramiro Martinez and Abel Valenzuela, 1–19. New York: New York University Press. ———. 2009. Immigration and Homicide Studies: Guest Editor’s Introduction. Homicide Studies 13: 207–210. Martinez, Ramiro, and Matthew T.  Lee. 2000. On Immigration and Crime. In Criminal Justice 2000: The Nature of Crime: Continuity and Change, ed. Gary LaFree, Robert J. Bursik Sr., James Short, and Ralph B.  Taylor, vol. 1, 485–524. Washington, DC: U.S.  Department of Justice. Morenoff, Jeffrey D., and Avraham Astor. 2006. Immigrant Assimilation and Crime: Generational Differences in Youth Violence in Chicago. In Immigration and Crime: Race, Ethnicity, and Violence, ed. Ramiro Martinez and Abel Valenzuela, 36–63. New  York: New  York University Press. Ousey, Graham C., and Charis E. Kubrin. 2009. Exploring the Connection between Immigration and Crime Rates in U.S. Cities, 1980-2000. Social Problems 56: 447–473. Pew Research Center. 2016. Trump Voters Want to Build the Wall, But Are More Divided on Other Immigration Questions. November 29. Report accessed at: https://www.pewresearch.org/ fact-­tank/2016/11/29/trump-­voters-­want-­to-­build-­the-­wall-­but-­are-­more-­divided-­on-­other-­ immigration-­questions/. Provine, Marie, and Gabriella Sanchez. 2011. Suspecting Immigrants: Exploring Links between Racialised Anxieties and Expanded Police Powers in Arizona. Policing and Society 21: 468–479. Reid, Lesley Williams, Harald E.  Weiss, Robert M.  Adelman, and Charles Jaret. 2005. The Immigration-Crime Relationship: Evidence across U.S.  Metropolitan Areas. Social Science Research 34: 757–780. Rosenbaum, Emily, and Samantha Friedman. 2007. The Housing Divide: How Generations of Immigrants Fare in New York’s Housing Market. New York: New York University Press. Rumbaut, Ruben G., and Walter A.  Ewing. 2007. The Myth of Immigrant Criminality and the Paradox of Assimilation: Incarceration Rates Among Native and Foreign-Born Men. Washington, DC: Immigration Policy Center, American Immigration Law Foundation. Rumbaut, Ruben G., Robert G. Gonzales, Golnaz Komaie, Charlie V. Morgan, and Rosaura Tafoya-­ Estrada. 2006. Immigration and Incarceration: Patterns and Predictors of Imprisonment among First- and Second-Generation Young Adults. In Immigration and Crime: Race, Ethnicity, and Violence, ed. Ramiro Martinez and Abel Valenzuela, 64–89. New  York: New  York University Press. Sniderman, Paul M., Louk Hagendoorn, and Markus Prior. 2004. Predisposing Factors and Situational Triggers: Exclusionary Reactions to Immigrant Minorities. American Political Science Review 98: 35–49. Southern Poverty Law Center. 2016. Ten Days After: Harassment and Intimidation in the Aftermath of the Election. November 29. Report accessed here: https://www.splcenter.org/20161129/ ten-­days-­after-­harassment-­and-­intimidation-­aftermath-­election#antiimmigrant. Stumpf, Juliet. 2006. The Crimmigration Crisis: Immigrants, Crime, and Sovereign Power. American University Law Review 56: 367–419. Sutherland, Edwin. 1934. Principles of Criminology. Chicago: J. B. Lippincott. United States President (1993–2001: Clinton). Clinton, B. 1994. Accepting the Immigration Challenge: The President’s Report on Immigration. Washington, DC: U.S.  Office of the President.

Chapter 2

Theoretical Perspectives on Immigration and Crime

A significant share of the U.S. population believes that immigration increases crime (Ousey and Kubrin 2009; National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine 2015; Pew Research Center 2019). There is little doubt this belief emerges, in part, from stereotypes and prejudices depicting the foreign-born, especially the undocumented, as criminals or terrorists who threaten the rule of law (Rumbaut and Ewing 2007). Yet, the belief also finds support in several criminological theories, which assert plausible mechanisms whereby increased immigration leads to more crime. In contrast, other criminological theories reject this position, offering reasons why immigration reduces crime. In this chapter, we review these theories. Our discussion unfolds in two main parts. The first covers macro-level theories, which posit reasons why variations in immigration levels across communities (e.g., metro areas, cities, neighborhoods) may elevate or reduce crime rates. The second covers micro-­ level theories, which explain why individuals with different immigrant statuses may have varying propensities to commit crime. In Chap. 4, we discuss findings from empirical research, which speaks to our current knowledge about the merit of these theoretical positions in explaining the immigration–crime relationship at both macro- and micro-levels.

Macro-Level Theories of an Immigration–Crime Relationship Macro-level theories assert that immigration alters communities in ways that increase or decrease crime risk for all residents within them, regardless of their immigrant status. Several propose that places with higher or increasing immigration levels will have higher crime rates than places with lower or decreasing immigration levels. Other macro-level theories suggest the opposite, that more immigration is associated with less crime. For organizational purposes, our discussion distinguishes theoretical orientations by the main mechanism(s) believed to produce the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. E. Kubrin, G. C. Ousey, Immigration and Crime, SpringerBriefs in Criminology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22839-1_2

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expected immigration–crime connection. The five perspectives are demographic, economic/strain, economic revitalization, culture, and social control.

Demographic Theories The first macro-level theoretical argument identifies demographic mechanisms as key to the effects of immigration on community crime rates. In brief, it suggests that immigration changes the age structure or sex structure of communities, thereby influencing crime. Criminological research has long suggested that offending is greater among adolescents and younger adults than among young children or older adults (Hirschi and Gottfredson 1983). Consequently, it is hypothesized that increases in the share of the population in crime-prone age ranges will lead to higher crime rates across communities (Levitt 2006; Land et al. 1990; Marvell and Moody 1991; McCall et  al. 2013). Likewise, criminal offending is known to be higher among males than females (Steffensmeier and Allan 1996), leading to the expectation that places with a greater prevalence of males will experience more crime. Finally, prior research indicates that teens congregating in unstructured activities lacking in adult supervision creates a criminogenic situation (Osgood and Anderson 2006), especially when they are young males (Augustyn and McGloin 2011). Combining these social facts, one demographic theory offers that immigration increases crime by increasing the share of communities comprised of young males and lowering its share of middle-aged and older adults (Ousey and Kubrin 2009). Yet as we note elsewhere in this Brief, immigration waves vary in their characteristics, including demographic structure. Looking across time periods and countries of origin, noteworthy differences in the age and gender composition of immigrants coming to the U.S. may thus differentially alter the demographic structure of receiving communities. Effects also depend on the demographic structure of receiving communities. Indeed, in some cases, immigrant inflows may alter a community’s demographic structure in ways that should reduce, rather than increase, crime. This would be true if immigration worked to increase the ratio of older adults relative to adolescents and young adults, or raised the ratio of females relative to males. The key point is that demographic theory is not rigid in suggesting that immigration will always be criminogenic. Rather, the effects are contingent, with the nature of the relationship varying as a function of both the demographic characteristics of arriving immigrant groups and of the community receiving those groups.

Economic Deprivation and Strain Theories Another theory positing a relationship between immigration and crime emphasizes the role of economic strain. It asserts that immigration concentrates forms of economic deprivation in immigrant-receiving communities, putting upward pressure

Macro-Level Theories of an Immigration–Crime Relationship

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on crime. There are at least three ways this occurs. First, some immigrant groups enter the U.S. with deficits in educational credentials or occupational skills that carry high value in U.S. labor markets. This may be a particular problem for recent immigrants who, on average, have fewer skills than earlier migrants or native-born citizens (Bean et al. 2004: 501; Butcher and Piehl 1998: 461). Second, the post-­ industrial labor market encountered by recent immigrants may be more challenging than that of earlier immigrants who arrived during periods when abundant low-skill manufacturing jobs provided routes of upward mobility (Morenoff and Astor 2006). Hence, recent immigrants and the communities in which they settle face economic vulnerability, including high rates of poverty and joblessness, especially in places with high concentrations of undocumented immigrants, whose legal status compounds the labor market and economic marginality concerns encountered by documented immigrants (Light and Miller 2018; Passel and Cohn 2009). And third, the economic struggles of immigrants may be amplified by anti-immigrant prejudice and discrimination, which is likely to intensify in periods of economic slowdown and job scarcity. In sum, economic deprivation theory suggests that for various reasons, many immigrants’ assimilation into American life involves downward, rather than upward, mobility (Portes and Rumbaut 2001; Rumbaut et al. 2006); as a result, they face pressure to find alternative—often illegal—means of attaining money, desired goods, and needed services. Looking beyond this economic vulnerability, immigration in the U.S. may also increase economic struggles among native-born low-skilled workers. Research supports the idea that immigrants displace and negatively affect the economic prospects of native-born minorities working in lower-skilled occupations (Adelman et  al. 2005; Beck 1996; Waldinger 1997; but also see Bean, Lowell and Taylor). One consequence is an increase in crime among those native groups (Butcher and Piehl 1998; Shihadeh and Barranco 2010a; Shihadeh and Barranco 2010b). Shihadeh and Barranco (2010a) posit that recent waves of Latino immigration reduced the availability of low-skill jobs and increased unemployment among Blacks in U.S. cities. The upward pressure on unemployment, in turn, led to increases in violent crime among Blacks. Shihadeh and Barranco (2010b) also contend that Latino immigration affected low-skill labor markets in rural areas, thereby increasing homicide among both non-Latino Whites and Blacks.

Immigrant Economic Revitalization Theory Contradicting the economic deprivation perspective, economic revitalization theory argues that immigration is a boost to local economies, resulting in lower levels of crime. According to this perspective, immigration can revitalize an area and strengthen social control: “…contemporary immigration may encourage new forms of social organization that mediate the potentially crime-producing effects of the deleterious social and economic conditions found in urban neighborhoods” (Lee and Martinez 2002: 376). This argument maintains that far from being a

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criminogenic force (see discussion of social disorganization below), immigration is an essential ingredient to the continued viability of urban areas, especially those that experienced population decline and deindustrialization in previous decades (Lee et al. 2001: 564). There are two ways that immigration may revitalize local economies. First, immigrants are a self-selected group rather than a random cross-section of a sending country’s population. They uproot their lives and relocate to the U.S. with strong motivations to improve their life chances and make good on opportunities the U.S. presents to them (Tonry 1997; Van Hook and Bean 2009; Gottfredson and Hirschi 2020). Immigrants are unlikely to put those opportunities at risk by engaging in crime. Doing so would not only subject them to a criminal penalty but also would ensure their deportation. If this selection argument is correct, immigrants are, on average, more likely to be committed, hard-working, productive, model employees than they are to be lazy, unemployed individuals with a propensity for crime. As a result, an inflow of immigrants is likely to recharge, rather than deplete, local economies and receiving communities. Second, local communities receiving immigrants may also experience economic benefits associated with ethnic enclaves (see discussion below). Ethnic enclaves are areas where many businesses are owned and operated by immigrant families from the same country of origin (Bohon 2001; Kubrin and Mioduszewski 2018). Intergenerational social networks abound in enclaves and help minimize experiences of cultural disorientation among new arrivals while also supplying useful resources for labor recruitment and training (Bailey and Waldinger 1991; Phillips and Massey 2000). This increases employment and reduces poverty (Portes and Zhou 1993; Waters and Eschbach 1995), which in turn, contribute to lower crime (Desmond and Kubrin 2009; Engbersen and van der Leun 2001; Velez 2009). According to Velez (2009), immigrants help revitalize disadvantaged neighborhoods in three critical ways (pp. 327–328). First, immigrants often develop strong ties to family members and fellow residents including longer settled immigrants, as well as to nonfamilial residents like clergy, social service providers, and school officials. These relationships, in turn, create social support and secure financial resources for immigrants as well as generate neighborhood social control. Second, immigrants can help to reinvigorate an ethnic enclave economy, whereby immigrants with social capital create new opportunities for economic growth and an extensive ethnic division of labor. As discussed earlier, enclaves can provide social capital for residents by creating a context for widespread job opportunities and higher wages for immigrants and nonimmigrants that are typically not available outside the enclave. And third, immigrants can expand and strengthen community institutions such as churches, schools, and immigrant-focused agencies like legal counseling and job placement, allowing them to more effectively serve as brokers on the community’s behalf. Neighborhood institutions are integral in helping to curb crime because they organize activities that create networks among residents, provide programming for community youth, help connect communities to mainstream individuals and institutions, and facilitate the recruitment of external resources for the community.

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In sum, the immigration revitalization thesis challenges what many consider to be outdated arguments about how immigration to an area may impact neighborhood institutions and social organization, arguing instead that “…larger immigrant populations in metropolitan areas may invigorate local economies leading to redevelopment of the stagnating economies of the urban core of metropolitan areas. The causal process by which the size of the immigrant population could lessen crime is via job growth, both for immigrants and the native-born; business development in previously economically depressed areas; and the repopulation of the urban core” (Reid et al. 2005: 762; see also Feldmeyer 2009; Morenoff and Astor 2006; Portes and Stepick 1993).

Ethnic and Immigrant Enclaves Theory A related perspective underscores the importance of ethnic and immigrant enclaves in some U.S. cities (Kubrin and Mioduszewski 2018). Enclave theory argues that ethnic enclaves pose several benefits for immigrants such as social networks, jobs, information, and resources for entrepreneurial activities, all of which can accelerate upward mobility without full assimilation (Portes and Rumbaut 2014; Waters and Esbach 1995; Wilson and Portes 1980; Zhou 2010). In this framework, the enclave is considered to be a specific mode of incorporation or adaptation (Portes and Manning 1986) that creates an alternative path towards success within a bifurcated labor market. Enclaves not only offer a means of immigrant adaptation but also deviate from the mainstream economy due to “the co-ethnic nature of workplace relationships among employers, employees, and the self-employed” (Hum 2002: 279). These relationships allow for informal training and employment recruitment (Bailey and Waldinger 1991). Ethnic economies also foster beneficial relationships that encourage immigrant entrepreneurship. In short, the benefits of ethnic enclaves are many: (1) Native language skills can improve employment chances, while English fluency is unnecessary for employment; (2) “bounded solidarity” and “enforceable trust” create camaraderie between employees and employers; (3) attenuation of cultural differences that impede workforce integration into the mainstream economy; and, (4) immigrants’ skills will be in high demand because the enclaves trade in ethnically defined goods (Bohon 2001). Ethnic enclaves differ in their ability to offer these benefits, depending in part upon levels of institutional completeness (Breton 1964). Institutional completeness is “at its extreme whenever the ethnic community could perform all the services required by its members” (Breton 1964: 194). These services are generated by organizations in the enclave, or institutions with a formal structure that comprise the civic life of a neighborhood and keep immigrant social relations within its boundaries (Breton 1964: 196). Examples include religious, educational, political, recreational, professional, welfare, mutual aid societies, and media organizations (Kubrin and Mioduszewski 2018).

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Enclave theory predicts a negative immigration–crime association because immigrants are able to find employment that yields better returns to their human capital than would be found in secondary labor markets outside the neighborhood (Waters and Eschbach 1995: 438). While the jobs offered may be low wage, they still help offset poverty, a correlate of crime (Desmond and Kubrin 2009: 586). At the same time, ethnic enclave economies offer noneconomic benefits that help reduce crime. Consistent with immigrant economic revitalization theory, formal organizations and informal networks in enclaves can strengthen neighborhood organization. And, ethnic enclaves may also act as a buffer against youth participating in deviant subcultures (see following section), thus curbing crime and delinquency in immigrant communities.

Cultural Theories Cultural perspectives argue that immigration affects crime because of variations in values, norms, and behavior scripts. A culture conflict model suggests that immigrants bring with them sets of values and norms that contradict those of mainstream culture. In some cases, the values and norms support actions violating existing laws. In describing this perspective, Wortley (2009) notes: …the vast majority of immigrants arrive in their host country with absolutely no intention of engaging in criminal activity. It is argued, however, that some recent immigrants maintain cultural or religious practices which come into conflict with the laws or customs in their new home. For example, some cultures may condone certain forms of domestic violence as a means of ensuring strict adherence to religious scriptures. While these forms of corporal punishment may be acceptable in their country of origin, such behavior may warrant criminal charges in the host nation. (p. 354)

Thus, the culture conflict perspective argues that conformity to values and norms inherent in an immigrant’s origin culture may produce violations of the norms and laws of the host society. A second cultural perspective emphasizes the impact of heterogeneous, contradictory values and norms (Harding 2007; Berg et al. 2012). Applied to the immigration–crime nexus, this argument asserts that immigrant communities will have higher crime rates because they contain greater normative heterogeneity. In other words, residents in immigrant-heavy communities are exposed to a wide array of values, norms, and behavioral expectations because those communities contain aspects of both their origin-country culture and their receiving-country culture. This is problematic to the extent it creates uncertainty about which of the norms take precedence as individuals move between social institutions and other interactional social fields. One possibility is that in the presence of heterogeneity, the moral and proscriptive force of prosocial norms weakens. As a result, actions that violate the law are more likely to occur. Finally, immigrant communities may be more likely to have oppositional cultural codes contradicting middle-class value systems (Lee et al. 2001; Mears 2002;

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15

Reid et al. 2005). Indeed, because of labor market struggles and discrimination, new immigrants may be channeled into communities plagued by high rates of poverty and joblessness (Martinez and Lee 2000; MacDonald and Saunders 2012; Velez 2009). In these structural contexts, they may perceive little choice but to adopt the “street code,” a cultural system that calls for projecting a tough and aggressive disposition in public spaces and during informal interactions (Anderson 1999; Bourgois 2003; Martinez et  al. 2004; Tonry 1997). Performing within this cultural system increases the potential for violent conflict.

Control Theories Control theories aim to explain between-community differences in levels of conformity with legal rules. They identify factors causing social constraints on crime to break down. Social disorganization theory is one example. It argues that conformity is high when communities have a density of social networks between residents, when local social institutions are strong, and when residents share norms and agree on the value of adhering to laws. In contrast, when social networks are disrupted, social institutions weak, and normative systems are unclear, conformity breaks down and communities experience increases in crime. Social disorganization theory suggests several structural conditions set the stage for rising crime including poverty, racial and ethnic heterogeneity, and population instability. Social disorganization theory theorizes a positive association between immigration and neighborhood crime, for several reasons. First, it is argued that immigration to an area causes residential turnover, or the frequent movement of populations in and out of a community. Residential turnover weakens social ties, as residents are unable to create dense friendship networks, which itself leads to decreases in informal social control, or the capacity of a group to regulate its members according to mutually desired goals such as the desire to live in a crime-free environment. Weak ties and decreased informal social control, in turn, lead to heightened crime rates. Under this explanation, immigration is also theorized as associated with crime because it creates racial and ethnic heterogeneity, which, similar to residential mobility, can undermine the strength and salience of informal social control in communities. In areas with diverse racial and ethnic groups living in close proximity, interaction between members will be lower than in racially and ethnically homogeneous communities as a result of cultural differences between the groups, language incompatibility, and the fact that individuals prefer members of their own race or ethnicity to members of different races or ethnicities. As a result, according to social disorganization theory, residents will be less likely to look out for one another and will not take as great an interest in their neighbors’ activities, resulting in less informal social control and, ultimately, more crime. In short, the logic of this theory suggests that immigration contributes to a break down in informal social control, resulting in higher crime rates in communities (Bankston 1998; Lee, Martinez and

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Rosenfeld 2001; Lee and Martinez 2002; Mears 2002; Reid et  al. 2005; Stowell et al. 2009). Increased immigration may also attenuate social control by fostering distrust of the police or other criminal justice agents, known as “legal cynicism.” Legal cynicism emerges in response to economic deprivation and neighborhood variations in police practices and police–citizen interactions (Kirk and Papachristos 2011). Residents of poor communities develop legal cynicism partly because they recognize that conventional institutions, like the legal system, offer them little in the way of security (Kirk and Papachristos 2011). Moreover, residents in these communities are often harassed and over-policed, with misconduct and unnecessary use of force a common occurrence (Kane 2005; Terrill and Reisig 2003). Immigrant communities are particularly ripe for the development of legal cynicism. Beyond being economically vulnerable, immigrants have been increasingly subjected to greater social control efforts, especially in the post-9/11 environment where immigration control has been elevated to the forefront of federal law enforcement efforts to confront terrorism and secure the border (Kirk et al. 2012; Light and Miller 2018; Zatz and Rodriguez 2015). Legal changes have also enabled state and local police agencies to partner with the federal government in such security efforts. The result has been an intensification of policing in immigrant communities. While these security efforts have roots in a desire for increased “public safety” and crime control, the concept of legal cynicism suggests the opposite effect may follow. This is because immigrants often perceive these vigorous policing efforts as unjust and unwarranted harassment, increasing feelings of distrust and cynicism about the motives and practices of law enforcement. Residents of immigrant communities may thus become less willing to engage with and assist law enforcement efforts, weakening constraints on crime (Kirk et al. 2012). Contrary to the preceding social control arguments, some theories contend that immigration increases forms of social control, thereby lowering crime. One argues that immigrant communities are likely to feature high levels of social capital and intergenerational family structures aiding in the supervision of youth and the maintenance of behavior regulating norms. In their study of Vietnamese immigrants in New Orleans, for instance, Zhou and Bankston (2006) found that the tight-knit system of ethnic social networks provided social controls that shielded young people from the risks they might otherwise encounter in a relatively poor local environment. Likewise, Martinez (2006) argues that immigration “may encourage new forms of social organization and adaptive social structures” that buffer against harsh social conditions (p. 10). Ousey and Kubrin (2009) contend that immigrant communities fortify the prevalence of traditional two-parent family structures, reinforce parental authority norms, and propagate pro-family cultural orientations. These outcomes, in turn, lower crime by strengthening social capital and informal social control processes (Land et  al. 1990; Ousey 2000; Sampson 1987; Shihadeh and Steffensemeier 1994). Another argument posits that immigration reduces crime by increasing formal social controls, meaning constraints on crime imposed by formal law enforcement mechanisms. Deterrence theory provides a basis for this argument, suggesting that

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17

crime is deterred whenever there is high probability that law violators are apprehended and sanctioned quickly. Vigorous law enforcement is one means to this end. Because immigration enforcement has been elevated to high priority as just described (Light and Miller 2018), it is expected that deterrence is enhanced in immigrant communities.

Micro-Level Theories of an Immigration–Crime Relationship A central objective for micro-level theories is to explain why individuals with different immigration statuses have different probabilities of engaging in crime. If immigrants are less (more) likely to commit crime than native-born individuals, what explains the difference? Likewise, how do we explain the common observation (see Chap. 3) that second-generation immigrants are more likely to offend than first-generation immigrants? Several micro-level theories provide answers.

Social Bonds Theory Social bonds theory focuses on the strength of affective associational ties that bind individuals to significant others—parents, friends, teachers, romantic partners—in their lives (Hirschi 1969). It assumes that natural self-interest provides individuals with motivation for criminal behavior and posits that the strength of social bonds determines whether that motivation is constrained or realized. Thus, variation in social bonds affect an individual’s likelihood of offending. Individuals developing close relationships with significant others learn the norms, rules and expectations of conventional society from those relationships. They also learn that violating the norms, rules and expectations will lead to sanctions, including a potential loss of affection and esteem. Thus, the stronger our bonds to others, the more likely we are to refrain from engaging in crime. Social bonds theory explains variations in criminal offending across individuals with different immigrant statuses by pointing to differences in the strength or quality of their social bonds. Reflecting this argument, studies analyze the link between immigrant statuses and criminal offending while controlling for measures of theoretically relevant social bonds (Bersani and DiPietro 2016; Desmond and Kubrin 2009; DiPietro and Bursik 2012; DiPietro et  al. 2015; Jiang and Peterson 2012; Maldonado-Molina et  al. 2011; Peguero 2011; Reingle et  al. 2011). A handful examine if differences in bonds help account for observed violent offending differences between immigrants and native-born individuals, or between first-, second-, and third-plus generation individuals (DiPietro et al. 2015; Jiang and Peterson 2012; Maldonado-Molina et al. 2011; Reingle et al. 2011). Others consider whether the strength of the effects of social bonds on offending differ across immigrant s­ tatuses/

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generations (Bersani and DiPietro 2016; DiPietro and McGloin 2012) or across immigrants from different countries of origin (DiPietro and Bursik 2012).

Self-Control Theory Self-control theory (Gottfredon and Hirschi 1990) suggests differences in offending propensity develop early in life, usually in the first 8 to 10 years. Parents or guardians who consistently supervise their children, recognize wrongful behavior, and apply appropriate sanctions will instill sufficient self-control in their children by the time they reach adolescence. Youth with parents or guardians failing to do so will remain low in self-control. The latter situation is a problem because individuals with low self-control are predisposed to impulsive, self-interested behaviors that violate social norms and/or the law. In short, individuals with low self-control have greater crime propensity than those with higher self-control. In the context of immigrant status and offending, self-control theory expects material differences in levels of self-control between immigrants and nonimmigrants. Interestingly, the architects of self-control theory, Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi, argue that immigrants on average have high, rather than low, levels of self-control: “Many characteristics of the `decision’ to immigrate…are strong markers for self-control. Immigration is extraordinarily difficult, requires considerable sacrifice, and demonstrates strong emphasis on the long-term…This is true for both documented and undocumented immigration” (Gottfredson and Hirschi 2020: 181). Hence, self-control theory predicts that immigrants are less likely to offend (Gottfredson and Hirschi 2020: 83). Unfortunately, to date, this claim is largely untested. Despite ample research on self-control as a predictor of offending more broadly, research on its impact among immigrants, including of different statuses/ generations, remains limited (DiPietro and McGloin 2012; Kundakova et al. 2002).

Peer Influence Theory Peer influence theory argues that differences in offending emerge during adolescence as individuals attempt to forge their own identities separate from those conferred upon them by their parents (Warr 2002; DiPietro and McGloin 2012). It is typically in the context of peer relationships where this identity work takes place. As such, peer relationships occupy a significant role in shaping an individual’s risk of crime. Peers influence risk by creating opportunities for law violation and by encouraging and rewarding rule-breaking behavior through processes of socialization (Haynie and Osgood 2005). To explain differences in offending by immigrant status, peer influence theory suggests that immigrants differ from nonimmigrants in important ways. First, they differ in terms of the quantity of exposure to “delinquent peers.” The more that

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individuals associate with others who create offending opportunities, who engage in crime themselves, and who encourage their friends to do likewise, the greater their likelihood of crime. If immigrant youth differ from native-born youth in terms of their associations with delinquent peers, it follows that they would also differ in their involvement in offending. Some research considers this possibility, exploring whether variation in associations with delinquent peers mediates the association between immigrant status or acculturation and delinquent behavior (Jiang and Peterson 2012; Le and Stockdale 2008; Myers et al. 2009; Maldonado-Molina et al. 2011; Reingle et al. 2011). Second, individuals with varying immigrant status also may differ in terms of the extent to which they are susceptible to the influence of peer associations (DiPietro and McGloin 2012). DiPietro and McGloin (2012) note that because immigrant youth already experience being outsiders with regard to speech and appearance, they may be especially motivated to establish a social identity within peer networks of their host country. They also suggest that because family obligations limit the opportunities immigrant teens have to interact with peers, they are more likely than nonimmigrant teens to conform strictly to peer group expectations in informal socializing situations. In sum, DiPietro and McGloin (2012) hypothesize that immigrant youth are more susceptible to both the effects of associating with delinquent peers and the consequences of unstructured socializing. Their findings reveal support for the former but not the latter.

General Strain Theory General strain theory proposes that individuals are motivated to commit crime by intense aversive social experiences or strains (Agnew 2006). Strains include blockages of desired opportunities, losing relationships, people, or possessions that are highly valued (e.g., being dumped by a lover, the death of a parent, losing a job); or being forced to endure unpleasant circumstances or treatment at the hands of social institutions or individuals (e.g., a violent victimization, being bullied, or being discriminated against). These strains can cause negative emotions, like anger, and elicit a coping response. For some, crime is the means of coping. This is particularly likely if individuals lack alternative—that is, noncriminal—coping resources or social supports. General Strain theory thus suggests a connection between immigrant status and criminal offending if individuals face varying levels of strain due to their immigrant status. Additionally, this connection could occur if differences in immigrant status affect the availability of noncriminal-coping resources or mechanisms (e.g., access to close friends to vent to; access to therapeutic professionals). There are good reasons to speculate that immigrants face unique strains (Pumariega et al. 2005). First, immigrants may leave their home country in response to stressful events, such as extreme poverty, war, or victimization. Second, the migration process is itself stressful. Connections to employers, social networks, and friends from origin countries are diminished, and arrivals often lack the social support and social capital that make for an easier transition. Third, many immigrants

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endure the strains of economic hardship as they struggle to gain employment and climb out of poverty. Fourth, immigrants can encounter anti-immigrant prejudice and discrimination in the labor market, schools, or other social institutions. Fifth, language deficiencies can impede ability to accomplish mundane tasks that accompany residential relocation. Sixth, immigrant youth and those in the second-­ generation may face intense stress trying to establish an identity in their new peer culture while also having to adhere to the rules of their parents, which are often strictly rooted in traditions of their country of origin or ethnic culture. In sum, immigrants face a unique set of strains not experienced by the native-­ born. Likewise, strains encountered by the first-, second-, and third-plus generations may also differ to some extent. In light of these facts, general strain theory predicts that variations in immigrant status are an important source of differences in criminal offending. However, to date, research testing this is scarce.

Conclusion This chapter reviewed major criminological perspectives and their potential for explaining the immigration–crime relationship at both macro- and micro-levels. Each explanation proposes distinct mechanisms at play (see a summary of these in Table 2.1), and thus offers a morsel of truth that can help us understand the immigrant experience, and the ways in which it can lead to differences in crime propensity among individuals and across places. This is especially true because waves of immigration, and immigrant groups, are diverse, not monolithic. Thus, the resources that benefit some groups in some times (e.g., mobility ladders, the social capital of enclave communities, a more diversity-friendly society) may not be available to other groups at other times. Likewise, the strains that immigrants face are not uniform across groups or times. In light of these variations, it should not surprise us if the immigration–crime nexus is complicated, involving countervailing effects and contingencies linked to the social and cultural characteristics of particular groups, times and places (Kubrin and Mioduszewski 2018; Morenoff and Astor 2006; Lyons et al. 2013). Considering that fact, theoretical efforts would benefit from attempts to incorporate nuanced arguments that anticipate potential contingencies. Looking beyond criminological theory, perspectives like segmented assimilation (Portes and Zhou 1993) offer valuable tools for thinking about such complexity. While classic assimilation theory proposes all immigrants follow a similar pathway, segmented assimilation assumes this may be too simplistic an argument, asserting that immigrants follow different trajectories of assimilation and, by extension, have different crime propensities. For some, immigration entails obstacles and roadblocks, resulting in downward assimilation into persistent poverty, joblessness, and higher criminal involvement. For others, assimilation involves upward mobility, with both a successful integration into America’s cultural mainstream and a retention of beneficial aspects of immigrant group culture that lead to lower criminal involvement (Kubrin and Mioduszewski

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Conclusion Table 2.1  Theories of the immigration–crime relationship Theory Demographics

Economic Disadvantage/ Strain

Economic Revitalization

Cultural

Social Disorganization Legal Cynicism

Social Capital

Level of analysis Explanatory mechanism(s) Macro Immigration flows change age structure and/or gender structure of places. Increases in percentage of young males increases crime by elevating share of the population in “crime prone” ages and gender categories. Alternatively, if immigration flows reduce share of the population in crime prone ages and gender categories, it could reduce crime. Macro Immigration may produce place-level concentrations of persons with educational and occupational skills poorly matched for local economy. This mismatch is amplified in post-industrial economy where low-skill manufacturing jobs are less abundant. In places where immigrants are well-suited for low skill jobs, they may compete with or displace low-skill native-born workers, increasing strain among latter groups. Economic strain encourages illicit activities. Macro Immigrants have favorable social, economic, and personal characteristics. They bring skills and motivations that enhance local economies, thereby improving economic circumstances for all. Immigrant communities often develop enclave characteristics in which longer-term residents provide economic opportunities and social support for new immigrants. Immigration acts as an “economic revitalization” for local communities, lowering crime by reducing economic strain. Macro Culture conflict argument suggests immigrants bring values and norms that contradict those of mainstream culture, leading to a greater toleration of law-violating behavior. Cultural heterogeneity argument suggests immigrant communities contain aspects of both origin-country culture and receiving-country culture, generating uncertainty about which set of available norms take precedence, weakening behavioral constraints. Lastly, because immigrant communities may face greater economic disadvantage, a pro-crime “oppositional culture“may emerge. Macro Immigration contributes to population instability, poverty, and racial/ethnic heterogeneity, all of which break down informal social controls and increase crime. Macro Due to higher poverty and public concerns about deleterious impact of immigration, immigrant communities may receive disproportionate attention from law enforcement. This undue attention increases distrust of the police and criminal justice system, which reduces willingness to assist law enforcement or intervene in community problems, weakening social controls. Macro Ethnic enclaves, intact family structures, and strong family traditions among immigrants bolster social capital and social organization in immigrant communities, lowering crime rates. (continued)

2  Theoretical Perspectives on Immigration and Crime

22 Table 2.1 (continued) Theory Formal Control & Deterrence

Social Bonds

Self-Control

Peer Influence

General Strain

Level of analysis Explanatory mechanism(s) Macro In areas where law enforcement activity is greater, residents perceive a greater chance of being caught for law violations, leading to an increased deterrent effect that lowers crime. Deterrence is enhanced in immigrant communities, which receive disproportionate law enforcement attention. Micro Immigrants differ from nonimmigrants in their social bonds to family and conventional social institutions (schools, jobs, churches), leading to lower propensity for offending. Micro Immigrants are a highly selected population, disproportionately likely to be higher in self-control, leading to lower propensity for offending. Micro Peers influence crime risk by creating opportunities for law violation and by encouraging and rewarding rule-breaking behavior through socialization. Facing pressures to integrate into a new country and culture, immigrant youth and young adults are more likely to associate with, and be influenced by, peers modeling law violating behavior. Micro Individuals are motivated to commit crime by intense aversive social experiences or strains. Immigrants face unique strains that distinguish them from the native-born.

2018). Other recent theorizing introduces complexity by considering how variations in immigrant political opportunities across cities may impact the strength of the immigration–crime relationship (Lyons et  al. 2013). Empirical testing of these nuanced perspectives exists (Bersani et al. 2014; Lyons et al. 2013; McCann et al. 2022; Xie and Greenman 2011), as we discuss in greater detail in Chap. 4, but this burgeoning line of work is in its infancy, and requires more conceptual and empirical development to further advance understanding of this important issue.

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Kundakova, Makpal, Dzhansarayeva Rima, Gulzagira Atakhanova, Nuraisha Temirbolat, and Kevin M. Beaver. 2002. Does Self-control Predict Crime, Delinquency, and Victimization in Immigrants? A Longitudinal Analysis. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 37: NP8257-NP10442. Land, Kenneth C., Patricia L.  McCall, and Lawrence E.  Cohen. 1990. Structural Covariates of Homicide Rates: Are There Any Invariances across Time and Social Space? American Journal of Sociology 95: 922–963. Le, Thao N., and Gary Stockdale. 2008. Acculturative Dissonance, Ethnic Identity, and Youth Violence. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 14: 1–9. Lee, Matthew T., Ramiro Martinez Jr., and Richard Rosenfeld. 2001. Does Immigration Increase Homicide? Negative Evidence from Three Border Cities. Sociological Quarterly 42: 559–580. Lee, Matthew T., and Ramiro Martinez Jr. 2002. Social Disorganization Revisited: Mapping the Recent Immigration and Black Homicide Relationship in Northern Miami. Sociological Focus 35: 363–380. Levitt, Steven D. 2006. The Limited Role of Changing Age Structre in Explaining Aggregate Crime Rates. Criminology 37: 581–598. Light, Michael T., and Ty Miller. 2018. Does Undocumented Immigration Increase Violent Crime? Criminology 56: 370–401. Lyons, Christopher J., Maria B. Velez, and Wayne A. Santoro. 2013. Neighborhood Immigration, Violence and City-Level immigrant Political Opportunities. American Sociological Review 78: 604–632. MacDonald, John, and Jessica Saunders. 2012. Are Immigrant Youth Less Violent? Specifying the Reasons and Mechanisms. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 641 (1): 125–147. Maldonado-Molina, Mildred, Jennifer M. Reingle, Wesley G. Jennings, and Guillermo Prado. 2011. Drinking and Driving among Immigrant and US-born Hispanic Young Adults: Results from a Nationally Representative Study. Addictive Behavior 36: 381–388. Martinez, Ramiro, and Matthew T.  Lee. 2000. On Immigration and Crime. In Criminal Justice 2000, vol. 1, 485–524. Washington D.C: The Nature of Crime: Continuity and Change. Martinez, Ramiro, Jr. 2006. “Coming to America: The Impact of the New Immigration on Crime.” Pp. 1–19 in Immigration and Crime: Race, Ethnicity, and Violence, edited by Ramiro Martinez and Abel Valenzuela. New York: New York University Press. Martinez, Ramiro, Matthew T. Lee, and Amie L. Nielsen. 2004. Segmented Assimilation, Local Context and Determinants of Drug Violence in Miami and San Diego: Does Ethnicity and Immigration Matter? International Migration Review 38: 131–157. Marvell, Thomas B., and Carlisle E.  Moody Jr. 1991. Age Structure and Crime Rates: The Conflicting Evidence. Journal of Quantitative Criminology 7: 237–273. McCall, Patricia L., Kenneth C. Land, Cindy Brooks Dollar, and Karen F. Parker. 2013. The Age-­ Structure Crime Rate Relationship: Solving a Long-Standing Puzzle. Journal of Quantitative Criminology 29: 167–190. McCann, Wesley S., Saijun Zhang, and Francis D.  Boateng. 2022. Immigrants, Crime, and the American Dream: Testing a Segmented Assimilation Theory of Crime. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 66: 560–586. Mears, Daniel P. 2002. Immigration and Crime: What’s the Connection? Federal Sentencing Reporter 14: 284–288. Morenoff, Jeffrey D., and Avraham Astor. 2006. Immigrant Assimilation and Crime: Generational Differences in Youth Violence in Chicago. In Immigration and Crime: Race, Ethnicity, and Violence, ed. Ramiro Martínez Jr. and Abel Valenzuela, 36–63. New  York: New  York University Press. Myers, Raquel, Chih-Ping Chou, Steve Sussman, Lourdes Baezconde-Garbanati, Harry Pachon, and Thomas W. Valente. 2009. Accultural and Substance Use: Social Influence as a Mediator among Hispanic Alternative High School Youth. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 50: 164–179.

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Osgood, D.  Wayne, and Amy L.  Anderson. 2006. Unstructured Socializing and Rates of Delinquency. Criminology 42: 519–550. Ousey, Graham C. 2000. Deindustrialization, Female-Headed Families, and Black and White Juvenile Homicide Rates, 1970–1990. Sociological Inquiry 70: 391–419. Ousey, Graham C. and Charis E. Kubrin. 2009. Exploring the Connection between Immigration and Violent Crime Rates in U.S. Cities, 1980–2000. Social Problems 56: 447–473. Passel, Jeffrey S., and D’vera Cohn. 2009. A Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Peguero, Anthony A. 2011. Immigration, Schools, and Violence: Assimilation and Student Misbehavior. Sociological Spectrum 31: 695–717. Pew Research Center. 2019, March. Around the World, More Say Immigrants Are a Strength Than a Burden. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/03/14/around-­the-­world-­more-­say-­ immigrants-­are-­a-­strength-­than-­a-­burden/. Accessed 22 July 2022 Phillips, Julie A., and Douglas S. Massey. 2000. Engines of Immigration: Stocks of Human and Social Capital in Mexico. Social Science Quarterly 81: 33–48. Portes, Alejandro, and R.D.  Manning. 1986. The Immigrant Enclave: Theory and Empirical Examples. In Competitive Ethnic Relations, 47–68. Orlando: Academic. Portes, Alejandro, and Ruben G. Rumbaut. 2001. Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation. Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 2014. Immigrant America: A Portrait. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Portes, Alejandro, and A. Stepick. 1993. City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Portes, Alejandro, and Min Zhou. 1993. The New Second Generation. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 530: 74–96. Pumariega, Andrés J., Eugenio Rothe, and JoAnne B.  Pumariega. 2005. Mental Health of Immigrants and Refugees. Community Mental Health Journal 41: 581–597. Reid, Lesley Williams, Harald E.  Weiss, Robert M.  Adelman, and Charles Jaret. 2005. The Immigration-Crime Relationship: Evidence across US Metropolitan Areas. Social Science Research 34: 757–780. Reingle, Jennifer M., Wesley G. Jennings, and Mildred M. Maldonado-Molina. 2011. Generational Differences in Serious Physical Violence Among Hispanic Adolescents: Results From a Nationally Representative Longitudinal Study. Race and Justice 1: 277–291. Rumbaut, Ruben G., and Walter A. Ewing. 2007. The Myth of Immigrant Criminality and the Paradox of Assimilation: Incarceration Rates among Native and Foreign-Born Men. Washington, D.C.: Immigration Policy Center, American Immigration Law Foundation. Rumbaut, Ruben G., Robert G. Gonzales, Golnaz Komaie, Charlie V. Morgan, and Rosaura Tafoya-­ Estrada. 2006. Immigration and Incarceration: Patterns and Predictors of Imprisonment Among First- and Second-Generation Young Adults. In Immigration and Crime: Race, Ethnicity, and Violence, ed. Ramiro Martinez and Abel Valenzuela, 64–89. New  York: New  York University Press. Sampson, Robert J. 1987. Urban Black Violence: The Effect of Male Joblessness and Family Disruption. American Journal of Sociology 93: 348–382. Shihadeh, Edward S., and Raymond E. Barranco. 2010a. Latino Employment and Black Violence: The Unintended Consequence of U.S. Immigration Policy. Social Forces 88: 1393–1420. ———. 2010b. Latino Employment and Non-Latino Homicide in Rural Areas. Deviant Behavior 31: 411–439. Shihadeh, Edward S., and Darrell J. Steffensmeier. 1994. Economic Inequality, Family Disruption, and Urban Black Violence: Cities as Units of Stratification and Social Control. Social Forces 73: 729–751. Steffensmeier, Darrell, and Emilie Allan. 1996. Gender and Crime: Toward a Gendered Theory of Female Offending. Annual Review of Sociology 22: 459–487.

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Stowell, Jacob I., Steven F.  Messner, Kelly F.  McGeever, and Lawrence E.  Raffalovich. 2009. Immigration and the Recent Violent Crime Drop in the United States: A Pooled, Cross-sectional Time-Series Analysis of Metropolitan Areas. Criminology 47: 889–928. Terrill, William, and Michael D. Reisig. 2003. Neighborhood Context and Police Use of Force. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 40: 291–321. Tonry, Michael. 1997. Ethnicity, Crime, and Immigration. Crime & Justice 21: 1–29. Van Hook, Jennifer and Frank D. Bean. 2009. Explaining Mexican-Immigrant Welfare Behaviors: The Importance of Employment-Related Cultural Repertoires. American Sociological Review 74.3: 423–444. Velez, Maria B. 2009. Contextualizing the Immigration and Crime Effect: An Analysis of Homicide in Chicago Neighborhoods. Homicide Studies 13: 325–335. Waldinger, Roger. 1997. Black/Immigrant Competition Re-assessed: New Evidence from Los Angeles. Sociological Perspectives 40: 365–386. Warr, Mark. 2002. Companions in Crime: The Social Aspects of Criminal Conduct. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Waters, Mary C., and Karl Eschbach. 1995. Immigration and Ethnic and Racial Inequality in the United States. Annual Review of Sociology 21: 419–446. Wilson, K.L., and Alejandro Portes. 1980. Immigrant Enclaves: An Analysis of the Labor Market Experiences of Cubans in Miami. American Journal of Sociology 86: 295–319. Wortley, Scot. 2009. Introduction. The Immigration-Crime Connection: Competing Theoretical Perspectives. International Migration & Integration 10: 349–358. Xie, Yu, and E. Emily Greenman. 2011. The Social Context of Assimilation: Testing Implications of Segmented Assimilation Theory. Social Science Research 40: 965–984. Zatz, Marjorie S., and Nancy Rodriguez. 2015. Dreams and Nightmares: Immigration Policy, Youth, and Families. Oakland, CA: The University of California Press. Zhou, Min. 2010. Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potential of an Urban Enclave. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Zhou, Min, and Carl L. Bankston. 2006. Delinquency and Acculturation in the Twenty-First Century: A Decade’s Change in a Vietnamese American Community. In Immigration and Crime: Race, Ethnicity, and Violence, ed. Ramiro Martinez and Abel Valenzuela. New York: New York University Press.

Chapter 3

From Theory to Empirics: Data Requirements for Studying Immigration and Crime

Inquiry on the relationship between immigration and crime begins with a simple question: Are immigration and crime related? This intriguing question has motivated a significant body of empirical research, which reveals that answers are complex, for several reasons. First, immigration and crime are dynamic and layered social phenomena. Second, there are relationships between them at both micro- and macro-levels of analysis. Third, macro-level relationships between immigration and crime vary across communities of different geographic scales, from large metropolitan areas to small neighborhoods. Finally, immigration–crime relationships are contingent, meaning they can differ across contexts, population subgroups, historical periods, and immigrant generations. Unpacking this complexity is essential to the task of taking stock of the immigration–crime nexus. Contributing to that objective, this chapter considers the data sources and measures used in the research. We begin with a brief discussion of levels of analysis and the range of geographic units in which immigration may affect crime. Next, we discuss data and measures used in research at the macro level, emphasizing how variations in those data and measures help researchers address nuance in the immigration–crime relationships. We follow by outlining data sources and measures available at the micro-level, again focusing on key variations to help build an understanding of whether and how immigrant status and assimilation may affect criminal offending and victimization.

 nits of Analysis, Data, and Measures U in Macro-level Research Research on the immigration–crime relationship exists in two broad groupings, distinguished by the level of analysis at which the relationship operates. Micro-level research is about individuals. It asks, for example: Do foreign-born individuals have a higher propensity to commit crime than native-born individuals? Macro-level © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. E. Kubrin, G. C. Ousey, Immigration and Crime, SpringerBriefs in Criminology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22839-1_3

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research, in contrast, is concerned with aggregate social units or whole “communities.” It asks, for example: Do broader changes in immigration affect community crime rates? A focus on the micro-level implies an individual’s immigrant status affects their likelihood of offending. In comparison, a focus on the macro-level implies that changes in immigration alter the likelihood of crime for everyone in a community—immigrants and nonimmigrants alike. With this distinction refreshed, we turn attention to discussing the data needed to analyze relationships at both levels of analysis. We start by discussing the macro-level literature first.

Units of Analysis Macro-level research on the immigration–crime connection requires data that characterizes whole communities. Publicly available datasets contain important information about aggregate communities. However, because macro-level research encompasses units of different sizes—from tracts to cities to states—researchers who study the macro-level immigration–crime relationship must first decide which unit of analysis is best. There is no simple consensus and the most appropriate unit depends on the research question examined. The challenge is that immigration effects play out across national, state, city, and community levels. Indeed, while immigration is a process of population growth regulated by the federal government, the effects of national-level policy decisions are diffused across a wide array of places, but unevenly. Some states, metropolitan areas, cities, counties and neighborhoods experience heavy immigration while others are relatively untouched by it (Massey and Capoferro 2008). Compounding the matter, immigration is dynamic, with the size of flows and patterns of settlement changing through time, as discussed in the introductory chapter. Places that are primary destinations for immigrants in one decade can become secondary destinations in subsequent years. While immigration was once largely confined to large cities of the southwest and northeast, immigration now reaches all regions of the country, including small cities and rural communities (Massey and Capoferro 2008). In short, because the dynamics of immigration potentially affect locales of varying sizes, research across diverse units of analysis is necessary to build better understanding of the scope of immigration’s effects on crime (and other social processes). Consistent with this, there is considerable diversity with regard to the units of analysis studied by researchers. Some examine relatively large geographic areas such as states, metropolitan areas, cities, census places, and counties (Barranco 2013; Deller and Deller 2010; Feldmeyer et  al. 2013; Green 2016; Harris and Feldmeyer 2013; Martinez 2000; Ousey and Kubrin 2009; Ousey and Kubrin 2014; Painter-Davis 2016; Reid et al. 2005; Ruther 2013; Schnapp 2015; Shihadeh and Winters 2010; Stowell et  al. 2009; Stucky 2003; Wadsworth 2010) while others analyze small geographic units such as census tracts, census blocks, or neighborhood clusters (Lee et al. 2001; Martinez et al. 2010; Stansfield et al. 2013; Stowell and Martinez 2007; Davies and Fagan 2012; Emerick et  al. 2014; Kubrin and

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Ishizawa 2012; Wright and Benson 2010; Kirk and Papachristos 2011; MacDonald et al. 2013; Graif and Sampson 2009; Sampson et al. 1997). As we discuss in Chap. 4, the extent to which the immigration–crime relationship generalizes, or differs, across these units of analysis is itself an important research question.

Measuring Immigration Despite diversity in the units of analysis, nearly all macro-level studies draw on the same core data sources for measuring key concepts. The primary data used to measure immigration comes from the U.S.  Census Bureau (www.census.gov). The Census collects a wealth of information on the U.S. population for different aggregate units. For researchers studying immigration, an essential piece of information asks about an individual’s country of birth. This question gives researchers data they need to create a core measure of overall levels of, and changes in, immigration across communities: the percentage of the resident population that is foreign-born. Studies, focused on both small and large geographic units, examine the relationship between immigration and crime using the percent foreign-born as the primary immigration measure (Alaniz et  al. 1998; Allen and Cancino 2012; Deller and Deller 2010; Graif and Sampson 2009; Han and Piquero 2022; Kirk and Papachristos 2011; Kooi and Patchin 2008; Martinez et al. 2010; Olson et al. 2009; Ramey 2013; Ruther 2013; Schnapp 2015). While useful, this measure lacks critical nuance needed to answer salient questions about the generality of the immigration–crime relationship. As Ousey and Kubrin (2018: 71) note: “By narrowly emphasizing the foreign-born/native-born dichotomy, researchers [using the total percent foreign-born measure] discount the widespread diversity that exists across immigrant groups, diversity related to immigrants’ racial, ethnic or cultural backgrounds, reasons for migrating, countries of origin, and other factors.” In light of this limitation, there is a need for alternative measures. One alternative measure emerges from research addressing the question: Does the timing or historical context of immigration matter? Stated alternatively, are communities with a large foreign-born population of recent migrants markedly different from communities with similarly sized foreign-born populations who migrated earlier? Contemporary immigration is different from earlier periods (Butcher and Piehl 1998; Martinez 2006; Massey and Capoferro 2008), with earlier waves coming from Europe but recent waves mostly originating in Latin America and Asia, as discussed prior. Moreover, different immigration waves bring immigrants with varying levels of education, occupational skills, religiosity, and cultural values. Different arrival years in the U.S. also mean immigrants encounter different economic and labor market conditions, and levels of anti-immigrant prejudice. For these (and other) reasons, it is reasonable to surmise that timing of immigration influences the effects it may have on immigrants themselves and on the communities in which they settle.

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Answering questions about how immigration timing differentially affects crime requires data that gauge when immigrants enter the U.S. Fortunately, such information is contained in the Census. Using 1990 census data, Martinez et  al. (2004) developed three separate immigration measures that broadly distinguish the timing of immigration—percent foreign-born entering in the 1980s, the 1970s, and the 1960s—to predict drug homicides across census tracts in Miami and San Diego. Other researchers utilize year of entry data, measuring the effects of specific immigration waves on crime (Shihadeh and Barranco 2013), or to test the criminogenic effects of the most recent immigration wave (Akins et al. 2009; Butcher and Piehl 1998; Cancino et  al. 2009; Feldmeyer and Steffensmeier 2009; Feldmeyer et  al. 2013; Lee et al. 2001; Nielsen et al. 2005; Painter-Davis 2016; Reid et al. 2005; Stansfield et al. 2013). Findings from this body of literature are reviewed in the next chapter. Another important research question asks whether the ethnic, racial, or national composition of immigration influences its relationship with crime (Kubrin et  al. 2016). Answering this question requires data that measure the racial or ethnic identity and/or the country of birth of foreign-born residents. Census data, again, are the go-to source. For the former, using Census data, studies examine whether levels of, or changes in, the Hispanic/Latino foreign-born population affect crime (Barranco 2013; Harris and Feldmeyer 2013; Shihadeh and Barranco 2010, 2013; Shihadeh and Winters 2010) or if variations in the relative prevalence of Asian, Latino, or Black immigrant populations are correlated with crime (Davies and Fagan 2012; Reid et al. 2005). For the latter, studies consider the effects on crime of immigrants from countries in South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and Asia (Stowell and Martinez 2007, 2009). Are findings regarding the immigration–crime relationship different across studies employing race- or ethnic-specific measures of immigration? We entertain that question in Chap. 4. Scholars have also pondered whether the degree of acculturation of immigrants matters. One salient marker for acculturation is language. Foreign-born residents who are unable able to speak and comprehend English face greater obstacles to American cultural socialization than those with good English fluency and comprehension. Thus, communities of immigrants with poor English-speaking ability likely exhibit cultural and organizational differences from communities where immigrants with strong English-speaking skills are more prevalent. Those differences, in turn, may affect patterns of offending across communities. To test this argument, scholars require data capturing immigrants’ English language capabilities. Again, the decennial census obliges. It asks whether individuals speak a language other than English in their home. For those indicating yes, it then asks how well they speak English (Siegel et al. 2001). Households in which all adults speak English poorly are defined as “linguistically isolated” (Gostjev and Nielsen 2017; Kubrin and Ousey 2009; Lyons et  al. 2013; Martinez et  al. 2008; Ousey and Kubrin 2009). As the preceding discussion highlights, variations in the definition and measurement of immigration allow researchers to explore nuance and address questions centered on contingencies in the immigration–crime relationship. Extending this

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line of inquiry, a related question is whether the relationship depends on how tolerant or receptive a community is towards inflows of immigrant populations (Portes and Rumbaut 2001). One argument suggests “traditional” immigrant destinations, where immigrants have long-established population bases, are more advantageous contexts for new arrivals. In contrast, “new destination” communities, which lack a preexisting immigrant population base, are less advantageous contexts. These differences in the “context of reception” may moderate the effects that immigration has on crime (Ramey 2013; Ousey and Kubrin 2014). Using census data to quantify between-community differences, researchers investigate whether the nature of the immigration–crime relationship varies across destination contexts (Barranco 2013; Ousey and Kubrin 2014; Ramey 2013; Shihadeh and Barranco 2013; Shihadeh and Winters 2010). Some researchers extend this line of inquiry by analyzing whether variations in the political environment of cities, reflected in minority group involvement in  local government leadership and the existence of pro-immigrant policy, influence the immigration–crime nexus (Lyons et al. 2013). A combination of data sources facilitates this research. Specifically, immigration data are drawn from the U.S. Census, while information on political participation, political leadership, and immigrant-related legislation is accessed from the National Directory of Latino Elected Officials (2000), the National Asian and Pacific American Political Almanac (2000–2001), the Municipal Year Book (2000), the County and City Data Book: 2000 (U.S. Census Bureau 2001) and the National Immigration Law Center (2006). It should be clear by now that the Census is an essential tool for studying immigration and for gauging nuances including the timing of immigration, immigrant race, ethnicity or nationality, immigrant acculturation, and effects of the broader social and political context. However, the Census has key limitations for studying particular questions of interest. Perhaps most notably, census data do not make a distinction between documented and undocumented status. While undocumented immigrants participate in the decennial census and other governmental data collection projects, their legal status is not typically measured (Camarota 2007; Kubrin 2014; Mears 2002). This limitation is critical because undocumented immigrants face more severe legal vulnerability and socioeconomic marginalization than do documented immigrants (Kubrin et  al. 2012; Menjivar and Abrego 2012), and a greater prevalence of undocumented immigrants may intensify competition for low-­ skill jobs (Shihadeh and Barranco 2010) or change the age structure of communities—all with consequences for crime (Light and Miller 2018)—as we explore in Chap. 5. Given the importance of measuring the effects of undocumented immigration on crime, locating data that overcome the limitations of standard census data is essential. Recent research does this using estimates of the undocumented population produced by the Center for Migration Studies, the Pew Research Center, and the Migration Policy Institute (Green 2016; Light et al. 2017, 2020; Light and Miller 2018). These organizations utilize multistep demographic adjustments to American Community Survey data on the foreign-born (collected by the Census) to arrive at estimates of the undocumented population (see Warren 2021 and Pew Research Center 2018 for methodological details). Light and colleagues (Light et al. 2017;

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Light and Miller 2018) use these data to examine how state-level changes in the undocumented immigrant population are associated with crime. In Chap. 5, we discuss findings from these studies. Studies have also begun to consider the impact of immigration-related policies on crime. Most notably, they explore the effects of sanctuary policies, which limit local officials’ involvement in the enforcement of immigration law. Some speculate that such policies compromise public safety, encouraging illegal immigration and weakening efforts to contain it. Measuring the impact of such policies is challenging, however, because relevant data are not available in the U.S. Census, and in fact, no official record or national database on sanctuary policies exists (Martinez-­ Schuldt and Martinez 2017: 10). Researchers address this challenge with a database on sanctuary jurisdictions compiled by the National Immigration Law Center (NILC). Lyons et al. (2013), for example, use NILC data to investigate if cities with sanctuary policies differ from non-sanctuary cities in their homicide and robbery levels. Martinez-Schuldt and Martinez (2017) extend the analysis, exploring whether the adoption of sanctuary policies affected city-level changes in homicide and robbery between 1990 and 2010. Finally, Martinez-Schuldt and Martinez (2021) use NILC data to measure whether sanctuary policies affect the likelihood that crime victims will report their victimization to the police.

Measuring Crime Crime encompasses any violation of criminal law, ranging from misdemeanor infractions to serious felonies. Most criminological research focuses on the latter. This is also true for research on immigration and crime. Police department data serve as the most common data source on community crime rates. In studies focused on larger aggregate units, scholars primarily draw from Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data. Compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the UCR is a voluntary program in which police departments in the U.S. report levels and types of crimes known to them. Analysts typically study patterns and predictors of the most serious offenses, known as “index crimes”: homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, larceny-theft, and arson. As part of the UCR program, additional data on homicide cases including things like demographic characteristics of offenders and victims, methods of killing, suspected motives, and victim–offender relationship are contained in the Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR). Recently, the UCR program transitioned to the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS), which improves on the UCR by collecting detailed incident-level information for a wider array of crimes. Many immigration-crime studies examine index offenses using UCR, SHR, or NIBRS data (Allen and Cancino 2012; Butcher and Piehl 1998; Coronado and Orrenius 2007; Deller and Deller 2010; Green 2016; Martinez 2000; Ousey and Kubrin 2009; Ousey and Kubrin 2014; Reid et  al. 2005; Painter-Davis 2016; Schnapp 2015; Stowell et  al. 2009; Wadsworth 2010). Researchers most often

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concentrate their focus on violent offenses. Case in point: In Ousey and Kubrin’s (2018) meta-analysis, more than 80% of the estimates of the macro-level immigration–crime relationship focused on violent crimes. Only the rare case, such as Light et al’s. (2017) study of DUI and drug violations, examines crimes other than index offenses (see also Green 2016). Reasons for this are not entirely clear. Most theories do not specify that immigration affects violent crime, but not other offense types. A limitation of UCR data is they are readily available only for large geographic units of analysis like cities, counties, metropolitan areas, and states. Thus, researchers studying the immigration–crime relationship across smaller geographies, like census tracts, blocks, or micro-geographic places, must acquire crime data from sources beyond the UCR.  Researchers studying census tracts often obtain crime data by submitting requests to local police departments. With case-level data supplied by the police, researchers can link the addresses/geographic locations of offenses to standard geographic units, like census-tracts, with assistance from spatial data analysis software programs. Once crime data are geocoded, they can be linked to immigration as well as other socioeconomic data derived from sources like the Census. Lee et al. (2001), for example, obtained case-level homicide data with address locations from police departments in Miami, San Diego, and El Paso. The data were geocoded and linked to census-tract immigration data from the 1990 Census. Other studies use similar procedures, linking police and census data, for one, two, or more cities (Cancino et  al. 2009; Emerick et  al. 2014; Graif and Sampson 2009; Kirk and Papachristos 2011; Kreager et al. 2011; Kubrin et al. 2016; MacDonald et al. 2013; Mares 2010; Martinez and Stowell 2012; Martinez et al. 2004, 2008, 2010; Nielsen and Martinez 2003; Nielsen et al. 2005; Stansfield et al. 2013; Stowell and Martinez 2009; Vélez 2009). The creation of an innovative dataset called the National Neighborhood Crime Study (NNCS) has greatly expanded research capabilities. Originally collected by Ruth Peterson and Lauren Krivo, the NNCS contains data on 9593 census tracts located wholly or partially within a representative sample of 91 large U.S. cities. The NNCS links tract-level data on index crimes from local police departments with tract-level information on demographic, social, and economic characteristics as measured in the 2000 Census. Tract-level data are also matched to the socioeconomic characteristics of broader cities in which the census tracts are nested to produce a multilevel dataset (i.e., census tracts nested within cities). The NNCS is an increasingly popular data tool for neighborhood- and multilevel studies of the immigration–crime relationship (Disha 2019; Gostjev and Nielsen 2017; Kubrin and Ishizawa 2012; Ramey 2013; Lyons et al. 2013). Another shortcoming of official crime data—both from the UCR and local police departments—is they reflect only offenses known to law enforcement. This is a problem because many crimes go unreported and are not included in police data. Analyses of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), a nationally representative survey of crime victimization among household members, confirm this fact. NCVS data suggest that less than one-half of property and violent crimes are reported to the police (Gutierrez and Kirk 2017). There are reasons to believe that the underreporting of crime is more acute in immigrant communities (Horowitz

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2001; Gutierrez and Kirk 2017), especially those where undocumented immigrants are concentrated (Light and Miller 2018). Underreporting may occur for several reasons: distrust of authorities, cultural differences in the handling of crime and justice issues, obstacles created by deficits in English-language fluency, lack of knowledge about the American criminal justice system, and fears that police contact will lead to deportation (Davis and Erez 1998; Horowitz 2001; Gutierrez and Kirk 2017; Light and Miller 2018). Because of underreporting concerns, researchers have turned to other data sources. One source is homicide mortality data derived from medical examiner death certificates. These data are compiled into the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Vital Statistics System. Scholars employ vital statistics mortality data to examine the relationship between immigration and homicide rates, in particular (Barranco 2013; Davies and Fagan 2012; Martinez and Stowell 2012; Martinez et al. 2008; Ruther 2013; Shihadeh and Barranco 2010; Shihadeh and Winters 2010). Another useful source is the National Crime Victimization Survey, just mentioned. The Census Bureau conducts the survey to provide nationally representative estimates of violent and property crime victimization. In 2015, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released state-level crime estimates covering the 2000–2012 period, enabling macro-level analyses of the relationship between immigration and victimization. Light and Miller (2018) use state-level NCVS data to analyze the relationship between undocumented immigration and crime, comparing the effects of undocumented immigration on NCVS estimates of robbery, assault, and violent crime rates with effects from analyses that used police-based UCR crime data. Interestingly, they report similar findings using both NCVS and UCR data. Researchers use NCVS data to examine additional important immigration-crime questions, such as whether immigration or immigrant sanctuary policies are related to the reporting of crime to the police (Gutierrez and Kirk 2017; Martinez-Schuldt and Martinez 2021). As we discuss later in the chapter, recent NCVS data may also help researchers explore micro-level connections between immigration status, citizenship status, and victimization (Xie and Baumer 2021). A final alternative crime data source used in macro-level studies is aggregated individual-level survey data. For example, Wright and Benson (2010) use survey data from the Longitudinal Cohort Study (LCS), Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) to estimate the effect of immigrant concentration on intimate partner violence against women in 80 “neighborhood clusters.” As another example, Sampson et al. (1997) used PHDCN data for 343 neighborhood clusters to analyze whether variations in immigrant concentration were related to violent victimization. Although far less common than police data, aggregated survey data are valuable because they rely on first-hand self-reports of individuals experiencing crime. As such, there is less information loss because of disincentives to report to the police, or unintentional errors associated with bureaucratic data processing mechanisms. At the same time, well-designed survey data allow researchers the ability to measure a wide array of micro- and macro-level factors, thereby facilitating more comprehensive and rigorous analyses of the

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immigration–crime connection. However, the cost of collecting survey data needed to support such analyses is very high and therefore, such efforts remain relatively rare.

Data and Measures in Micro-level Studies Micro-level research on immigration and crime interrogates several key research questions: Do immigrants engage in more offending than nonimmigrants? Are immigrants more vulnerable to criminal victimization than native-born individuals? How do the risks of offending and victimization vary across “immigrant generations?” In contrast with the macro-level literature, self-report survey data are the primary tool used by researchers analyzing immigration and crime at the micro-­ level. Criminal records and arrest histories are secondary tools that researchers employ to examine differences in offending among immigrants and nonimmigrants. Studies using survey data test hypotheses from different social theories. A typical survey contains questions designed to measure multiple social concepts. They also include demographic and economic data about individuals, including their age, sex, race, education, and income levels. Because researchers, policy makers, and the general public are concerned about societal consequences of immigration, surveys increasingly obtain country of birth and/or citizenship status information as well. This information gives researchers tools for interrogating whether there are differences in criminal offending and victimization among immigrants and the native-born.

Measuring Immigration In the simplest approach, researchers use survey questions about birth location to make a dichotomous classification that allows criminal offending or victimization to be compared and contrasted for immigrants and nonimmigrants. The National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, for example, asks “Were you born in the US?” In their study of criminal offending among immigrants, Vaughn and Salas-Wright (2018) use responses to this question to categorize respondents as either native-born or foreign-born. Consistent with this, DiPietro et al. (2015) use data from surveys associated with two multisite national program evaluations to study the relationship between immigrant status and violent offending. While the immigrant/native-born dichotomy is a useful starting point, scholars have pushed further. They investigate whether criminal offending or victimization risks change as immigrants become more assimilated into U.S. culture. Primarily, this question is addressed by examining whether offending or victimization varies across immigrant generations, with the expectation that first-generation immigrants are less assimilated than their second- or third-plus generation counterparts.

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3  From Theory to Empirics: Data Requirements for Studying Immigration and Crime

Immigrant generations are defined on the basis of survey questions tapping the birthplace of the respondent, and the birthplace of their parents. DiPietro and McGloin (2012), for example, use survey data from the PHDCN to define three groups: first-generation immigrants as individuals born outside the U.S.; second-­ generation immigrants as individuals born in the U.S. to at least one foreign-born parent; and, third-generation or higher immigrants as individuals born in the United States to U.S.-born parents. Other research uses similar classification strategies with other survey datasets including the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Desmond and Kubrin 2009; Jiang and Peterson 2012; Maldonado-Molina et al. 2011; Reingle et al. 2011), the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997 (Bersani and DiPietro 2016), the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (Peguero 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013), the Pathways to Desistance study (Bersani et al. 2014), and the Crossroads Study (Bersani et al. 2018). An important follow-up question asks how generation effects manifest for specific racial or ethnic groups. To investigate this question, researchers require data allowing a cross-classification of respondents by their self-reported racial or ethnic identity, their country of birth, and their parents’ countries of birth. Maldonado-­ Molina et  al. (2011) and Reingle et  al. (2011) address immigration generation effects of offending among Hispanic adolescents using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Similarly, Peguero (2008) uses Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS) survey data to analyze how Hispanic students classified by immigrant generation differ in terms of their victimization experiences. Other researchers examine immigrant generation effects comparatively, comparing results for multiple racial or ethnic groups. Some analyze broad ethnic or racial groupings such as Latinos, Blacks, Asian Americans, and Whites (Bersani and DiPietro 2016; Peguero 2009, 2011) while others disaggregate immigrants by their country of origin (e.g., Mexico, Cuba, Colombia) to examine differences in generation effects within broad ethnic categories such as Latinos (DiPietro and Bursik 2012; Lopez and Miller 2011; Maldonado-Molina et al. 2011). Although country of birth data are the primary means of assessing immigrant status effects on offending at the micro-level, researchers have made efforts to also examine how alternative measures of cultural assimilation are related to offending and victimization. Parallel to the macro-level literature, the main alternative measure taps into English language usage and competency. Desmond and Kubrin’s (2009) study of adolescent violence using Add Health data employed a proxy of language assimilation, asking respondents which language—English, Spanish, Other—was spoken in their homes. Jiang and Peterson (2012) employ a similar approach studying violence across immigrant generations using Add Health data. DiPietro and Bursik’s (2012) analysis of data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) uses an index of English language proficiency, constructed from four survey questions asking respondents how well they can speak, understand, read, and write English. Peguero (2008) uses Educational Longitudinal Study data to classify individuals according to whether they were native English speakers and if not, how well they were able to speak English ranging from “not well at all” to “very well.” Lastly, Bersani et al. (2014) use data from the Pathways

Data and Measures in Micro-level Studies

37

to Desistance Study to examine the effects on offending of variation in an “Anglo orientation” scale, measured for individuals who identified as Mexican-American. It gauges whether respondents reported speaking English, indicated they enjoyed English language TV, and said they had friends of Anglo origin. Finally, scholars adopting a micro-level focus have begun to examine if classifications by legal status or citizenship status are related to offending and victimization experiences. Focusing on whether undocumented immigrants are more likely to commit crime than documented immigrants or U.S. born individuals, Bersani et al. (2018) use longitudinal survey data from the Crossroads study. The survey asks respondents to self-report their legal immigration status as well as asks about their birthplace and the birthplace of their parents. Using responses to these questions, Bersani and colleagues distinguish between undocumented immigrants, documented immigrants, second-generation immigrants, and the U.S.-born (i.e., with U.S.-born parents). Light et al. (2020), in contrast, rely on official data on birthplace, citizenship status, and legal status, to compare differences in the criminal arrest histories of undocumented immigrants, documented immigrants and native-­born citizens. Their data come from the Texas Computerized Criminal History database (CCH) acquired via a request to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). The data file included information on an arrestee’s place of birth and citizenship status, recorded during their booking. It also included legal immigration status (legal or illegal), supplied to DPS by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). While these studies focus on how offending histories vary by legal status, Xie and Baumer (2021) examine if criminal victimization varies by citizenship status. Using 2017–2018 NCVS data, which includes a new question about the respondent’s citizenship status, they make victimization risk comparisons between U.S. born and foreign-born individuals. They also compare risks of victimization for foreign-born naturalized citizens, foreign-born noncitizens, and a residual group of individuals that did not answer the citizenship question or gave a “don’t know” response.

Measuring Crime As any criminologist will tell you, crime has multiple dimensions. It is therefore common for researchers to make distinctions between different crime types (e.g., violent, property, drug, and public-order) and levels of seriousness (e.g., felony, misdemeanor). Researchers also distinguish between offending and victimization, studying predictors of individual variations in crime perpetration as well as the factors putting individuals at elevated risks for crime victimization. Each dimension may have a unique association with measures of immigrant status or assimilation. Hence, there is much to unpack at the micro-level. Researchers exploring immigrant status and crime at this level typically measure crime via self-reports of offending or victimization obtained from surveys. Alternatively, they measure offending with criminal arrest records obtained from federal, state, or local criminal justice agencies. There are strengths and limitations with each data source.

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3  From Theory to Empirics: Data Requirements for Studying Immigration and Crime

The flexibility of survey research makes it a valuable tool for measuring offending. Criminologists can design survey questionnaires to tap into whatever crime types, or dimensions, need explanation. They can also devise sampling strategies so that the data obtained reflect the general population or alternatively, a population subgroup(s), such as previously arrested individuals, or members of a particular ethnic group. Yet studies based on survey datasets are often used in a “secondary data analysis” framework, meaning researchers conducting the study did not design or conduct the original survey. Rather, they use existing survey data to answer a question of interest to them. A consequence of this is scholars studying immigrant status and offending are limited by whatever measures of crime the secondary dataset contains. In some cases, that may be only one or a few questions about offending or victimization. Studies examine the link between immigrant status and criminal offending, broadly defined. Bersani et al. (2014), for instance, create a broad index of “self-­ reported offending” from the Pathways to Desistance study, combining 22 survey items measuring a range of criminal offenses such as murder, rape, vandalism, robbery, shoplifting, motor vehicle theft, prostitution, and the sale of drugs. Bersani et al. (2018) adopt a similar approach in their analysis of data from the Crossroads Study. Other studies, in contrast, examine effects of immigrant status on multiple offense types individually (Vaughn and Salas-Wright 2018), adopting a narrower conceptualization and measurement of crime. They focus on the relationship between immigrant status and a single crime type, such as violent crime (Desmond and Kubrin 2009; DiPietro and McGloin 2012; Jiang and Peterson 2012; Reingle et al. 2011) or a single criminal offense, such as DUI or physical fighting (Maldonado-­ Molina et al. 2011; DiPietro and Bursik 2012). Finally, some research uses survey data to measure arrests for crime, rather than criminal offending per se. For example, Bersani and DiPietro (2016) use the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1997 to examine whether first-, second-, and third-plus generation immigrants exhibited differences in self-reported prevalence and frequency of arrests for any offense other than minor traffic violations. Criminologists studying victimization also consider the effects of immigrant status. Their research reflects variation in definitions and measures of crime. In an analysis of citizenship effects on victimization using NCVS data, Xie and Baumer (2021) create separate measures of violent and property crime victimization. The former combines respondents’ self-reports of rape, sexual assault, aggravated assault, and simple assault victimizations experienced in the past 6 months while the latter taps into self-reports of burglary, motor vehicle theft, and theft victimization in the past 6 months. Peguero (2009, 2013) also examines effects of immigrant status on violent and property victimization, but his analyses use ELS data to examine victimization in a narrower context—among students within schools. Beyond offense and arrest data self-reported by survey respondents, research on the link between immigrant status and offending also relies on “official” arrest history/arrest record data provided by local, state, or federal criminal justice or law enforcement agencies. In some cases, official arrest record data are part of larger studies that use survey methodology. Bersani et al. (2014), for instance, use official

Conclusion

39

arrest data from the Pathways to Desistance Study to analyze whether immigrant generations differed in terms of their longitudinal pattern of arrests. Those arrest records come from the juvenile and adult court record systems in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Maricopa County, Arizona as well as from nationwide FBI arrest records. Likewise, Bersani et  al. (2018) use arrest record data embedded in the Crossroads Study dataset to assess how immigrant generation and legal status is associated with the prevalence and frequency of rearrest among respondents. The southern California probation department and juvenile court provide those data. Other micro-level studies use arrest record data obtained through special data requests to state criminal justice agencies. Orrick et al. (2021), for example, made Public Information Act requests to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the Texas Department of Public Safety. Arrest histories for individuals incarcerated for homicide in Texas correctional facilities were provided. Those data were used to compare life course patterns of arrest for U.S. citizens and foreign-born incarcerated in Texas. Light et al. (2020) also obtained arrest history data from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which included indicators of place of birth and legal status, providing them the opportunity to compare official arrest record histories of undocumented immigrants with legal immigrants and native-born citizens.

Conclusion As documented in this chapter, studying immigration and crime invokes numerous questions at both macro- and micro-levels of analysis. These questions highlight important nuances that emerge from the fact that both immigration and crime are complex and layered social phenomena. Addressing these questions requires data and measures that account for these nuances, some of which are summarized in Table 3.1. At the macro-level, workhorse data sources are government collected or compiled data such as the U.S. Census and the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report. These data are valuable because they provide measures of immigration and crime for communities of varying geographic scales. However, they are not without key limitations, requiring researchers to reach for alternatives including vital statistics mortality data or large-scale survey datasets on offending or victimization. At the micro-level, the primary data sources are researcher-initiated survey studies containing information on individuals’ immigrant status and/or generation as well as self-reported offending or victimization experiences. Several datasets are available, including those with nationally representative general population samples and subnational samples of previously adjudicated individuals. Alternative sources in micro-level analyses include arrest records obtained from state or local governmental criminal justice agencies. As we detail in the next chapter, these data sources and measures reveal key findings that criminologists now know, as well as underscore what remains unknown about the immigration–crime relationship at both the macroand micro-levels.

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3  From Theory to Empirics: Data Requirements for Studying Immigration and Crime

Table 3.1  Data sources and measures of immigration in criminological research Measure Total immigration Recent immigration

Racially and ethnically specific immigration Linguistic isolation/ English proficiency Immigrant concentration index

Level of analysis Data source Macro U.S. Census Bureau (Decennial Census and American Community Survey data) Macro U.S. Census Bureau (Decennial Census and American Community Survey data)

Measure construction example(s) Total foreign-born/Total population

Macro

U.S. Census Bureau (Decennial census and American Community Survey data)

Foreign-born immigrated in last 10 years/Total population (or total foreign-born population) Latino foreign born/Total population; Asian foreign born/Total population

Macro

U.S. Census Bureau (Decennial census and American Community Survey data)

Persons speak English “not well” or “not at all”/Total population

Macro

U.S. Census Bureau (Decennial census and American Community Survey data)

Immigrant status

Micro

Immigrant generation status

Micro

Sum of two or more immigration measures. For example: (total immigration + linguistic isolation) Responses to questions Government-sponsored or “Where were your born?” or researcher-initiated surveys. “What is your country of Examples: National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol birth?” used to create a dichotomous classification: and Related Conditions, National (1) U.S. born and (2) Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Foreign-born Health, Pathways to Desistance Study, Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002, Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study, Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, Crossroads Study, G.R.E.A.T and T.C.C./C.W. program evaluation studies Questions asking respondents Researcher-initiated surveys. about their birthplace and Examples: National Longitudinal birthplace of parent(s) are Study of Adolescent Health, used to classify individuals as: Pathways to Desistance Study, Educational Longitudinal Study of (1) First-generation immigrant (born abroad to foreign-born 2002, Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study, Project on parents), (2) Second-­ Human Development in Chicago generation immigrant (born in Neighborhoods, Crossroads Study the U.S. to foreign-born parents), and (3) Third generation or higher (born in the U.S. to U.S. born parents) (continued)

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Table 3.1 (continued) Measure English language assimilation

Level of analysis Data source Micro Research-initiated surveys. Examples: National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, Children of Immigrants Study, Pathways to Desistance Study

Measure construction example(s) Questions asking respondents: which language is spoken in their homes; how well they speak, understand, read, and write English; Anglo orientation: whether they speak English, enjoy English language TV, and have friends of Anglo orientation

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Reingle, Jennifer M., Wesley G. Jennings, and Mildred M. Maldonado-Molina. 2011. Generational Differences in Serious Physical Violence Among Hispanic Adolescents: Results From a Nationally Representative Longitudinal Study. Race and Justice 1: 277–291. Ruther, Dan. 2013. The Effect of Growth in Foreign Born Population Share on County Homicide Rates: A Spatial Panel Approach. Papers in Regional Science 93: S1–S23. Sampson, Robert J., Stephen W. Raudenbush, and Felton Earls. 1997. Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy. Science 277: 918–924. Schnapp, Patrick. 2015. Identifying the Effect of Immigration on Homicide Rates in U.S. Cities: An Instrumental Variables Approach. Homicide Studies 19: 103–122. Shihadeh, Edward S., and Raymond E. Barranco. 2010. Latino Employment and Black Violence: The Unintended Consequence of US Immigration Policy. Social Forces 88: 1393–1420. ———. 2013. The Imperative of Place: Homicide and the New Latino Migration. The Sociological Quarterly 54: 81–104. Shihadeh, Edward S., and Lisa Winters. 2010. Church, Place, and Crime: Latinos and Homicide in New Destinations. Sociological Inquiry 80: 628–649. Siegel, Paul, Elizabeth Martin, and Rosalind Bruno. 2001. Language Use and Linguistic Isolation: Historical Data and Methodological Issues. In Statistical Policy Working Paper 32: 2000 Seminar on Integrating Federal Statistical Information and Processes, 167–190. Washington, DC: Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology, Office of Management and Budget. Stansfield, Richard, Scott Akins, Ruben G.  Rumbaut, and Roger B.  Hammer. 2013. Assessing the Effects of Recent Immigration on Serous Property Crime in Austin, Texas. Sociological Perspectives 56: 647–672. Stowell, Jacob I., and Ramiro Martinez Jr. 2007. Displaced, Dispossessed, or Lawless? Examining the Link Between Ethnicity, Immigration, and Violence. Journal of Aggressive and Violent Behavior 5: 564–581. ———. 2009. Incorporating Ethnic-Specific Measures of Immigration into the Study of Lethal Violence. Homicide Studies 13: 315–324. Stowell, Jacob I., Steven F.  Messner, Kelly F.  McGeever, and Lawrence E.  Raffalovich. 2009. Immigration and the Recent Violent Crime Drop in the United States: A Pooled, Cross-­ Sectional Time-Series Analysis of Metropolitan Areas. Criminology 47: 889–928. Stucky, Thomas D. 2003. Local Politics and Violent Crime in U.S.  Cities. Criminology 41: 1101–1136. U.S. Census Bureau. 2001. County and City Data Book: 2000. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. Vaughn, Michael G., and Christopher P.  Salas-Wright. 2018. Immigrants Commit Crime and Violence at Lower Rates than the US-Born Americans. Annals of Epidemiology 28: 58–60. Vélez, María. 2009. Contextualizing the Immigration and Crime Effect: An Analysis of Homicide in Chicago Neighborhoods. Homicide Studies 13: 325–335. Wadsworth, Tim. 2010. Is Immigration Responsible for the Crime Drop? An Assessment of the Influence of Immigration on Changes in Violent Crime Between 1990 and 2000. Social Science Quarterly 91: 531–553. Warren, Robert. 2021. In 2019, the U.S.  Undocumented Population Continued a Decade-Long Decline and the Foreign-Born Population Neared Zero Growth. Journal of Migration and Human Security 9: 31–43. Wright, Emily M., and Michael L.  Benson. 2010. Immigration and Intimate Partner Violence: Exploring the Immigrant Paradox. Social Problems 57: 480–503. Xie, Min, and Eric P.  Baumer. 2021. Immigrant Status, Citizenship, and Victimization Risk in the United States: New Findings from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Criminology 59: 610–644.

Chapter 4

Immigration and Crime: What We Know and What Remains Unknown

Previous chapters introduced essential issues, theories, and data sources for investigating the immigration–crime nexus. We now turn our attention to research findings, seeking to extract essential lessons learned from two important and growing bodies of work. First is the macro-level literature, which addresses whether variations in immigration affect crime rates across places. Second is the micro-level literature, which investigates whether an individual’s immigrant status is associated with the likelihood of committing crime. Other important research findings, such as evidence regarding the connection between undocumented immigration and crime and studies of the impact of immigration policy on crime, are addressed in Chaps. 5 and 6, respectively.

The Immigration–Crime Relationship Across Places While early research interest focused heavily on individuals, the rapid proliferation of research aimed at developing an understanding of the macro-level link between immigration and crime has occurred over the past two decades. Studies investigate whether higher or increasing immigration across metropolitan areas, counties, cities, census tracts, block groups, and neighborhood clusters affect crime levels (Akins et al. 2009; Alaniz et al. 1998; Butcher and Piehl 1998; Chavez and Griffiths 2009; Desmond and Kubrin 2009; Feldmeyer and Steffensmeier 2009; Graif and Sampson 2009; Kubrin and Ishizawa 2012; Lee and Martinez 2001, 2002; MacDonald et al. 2013; Martinez 2000; Martinez et al. 2004, 2008b, 2010; Nielsen and Martinez 2003; Nielsen et al. 2005; Ousey and Kubrin 2009, 2014; Reid et al. 2005; Sampson et al. 1997; Stowell and Martinez 2007, 2009; Stowell et al. 2009; Vélez 2009; Lyons et al. 2013; Wadsworth 2010). With substantial research now in the bank, we are in a good position to consider lessons learned from this body of research on immigration and crime. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. E. Kubrin, G. C. Ousey, Immigration and Crime, SpringerBriefs in Criminology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22839-1_4

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Immigration Does Not Increase Crime An essential takeaway from this literature is that higher or increased immigration does not lead to more crime. Although exceptions exist (Shihadeh and Barranco 2010a, b), the vast majority of findings from studies fail to document consistent, systematic evidence of a positive association between immigration and crime. Rather, the most common result is that immigration and crime are not significantly related (Butcher and Piehl 1998; Emerick et al. 2014; Feldmeyer and Steffensmeier 2009; Graif and Sampson 2009; Kirk and Papachristos 2011; Kreager et al. 2011; Stansfield et  al. 2013; Schnapp 2012, 2015; Stucky 2003). Indeed, Ousey and Kubrin’s (2018) meta-analysis indicated that more than 60% of the 543 immigration–crime effects in their data were not significant. Next most common is a finding of a significant negative relationship between immigration and crime (MacDonald et al. 2013; Kubrin and Ishizawa 2012; Martinez et al. 2010; Martinez 2012; Ousey and Kubrin 2009, 2014; Stowell et  al. 2009). According to Ousey and Kubrin (2018), statistically significant negative associations outnumbered significant positive associations by more than two-to-one. Overall, their study reports an average immigration–crime association that is negative and significant but of a very small magnitude. Results from the most recent studies—published after those analyzed in Ousey and Kubrin (2018)—are consistent with these findings (Disha 2019; Green 2016; Kubrin et  al. 2018; Light and Miller 2018; Light et  al. 2017; Wolff et  al. 2018). In essence then, research evidence to date reinforces a conclusion Lee and Martinez (2009) offered nearly 15 years ago: “Contrary to the predictions of classic criminological theories and popular stereotypes, immigration generally does not increase crime and often suppresses it” (p. 3).

 o Dimensions of Immigration Have Different Relationships D with Crime? As pointed out in Chap. 3, immigrants are diverse in terms of race and ethnicity and in levels of human and social capital. Likewise, they enter the U.S. during different decades, come from diverse countries, and experience different socioeconomic circumstances. Each of these potentially affects immigration and its consequences, both for immigrants themselves and for their communities of settlement. Developing an understanding of whether and how these dimensions of diversity affect the immigration–crime relationship is an essential task. To tap into dimensions of diversity, researchers employ different measures of immigration. The standard immigration measure used in research, as noted in Chap. 3, is the total percentage foreign-born. However, to address immigrant diversity, researchers employ alternatives that measure how immigration by specific ethnic groups (e.g., percent Latino foreign-born, percent Asian foreign-born) or immigration during specific periods of time (e.g., percent foreign-born who immigrated in past 10  years, in the 1990s, etc.) affect

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crime across places. Other scholars interested in acculturation employ measures of “linguistic isolation,” or the percent of the foreign-born population speaking English poorly, in their analysis of crime. Do these measurement variations materially affect the immigration–crime relationship? In general, the answer is no (Ousey and Kubrin 2018). No discernible difference in this relationship is found when comparing findings across studies using measures of the total percent foreign-born (Alaniz et  al. 1998; Allen and Cancino 2012; Deller and Deller 2010; Disha 2019; Graif and Sampson 2009; Kirk and Papachristos 2011; Kreager et  al. 2011; Light and Miller 2018; Light et  al. 2017; Martinez et al. 2010; Olson et al. 2009; Ramey 2013; Schnapp 2015; Stucky 2003), recent immigration or period-specific foreign-born (Butcher and Piehl 1998; Chavez and Griffiths 2009; Davies and Fagan 2012; Feldmeyer and Steffensmeier 2009; Feldmeyer et al. 2013; Lee and Martinez 2001; Martinez et al. 2004; Nielsen and Martinez 2003; Nielsen et  al. 2005; Reid et  al. 2005; Schnapp 2012; Vélez 2009; Wadsworth 2010), race/ethnicity-specific foreign-born (Barranco 2013; Davies and Fagan 2012; Feldmeyer 2009; Feldmeyer 2010; Harris and Feldmeyer 2013; Reid et al. 2005; Shihadeh and Barranco 2010a, b; Shihadeh and Barranco 2013; Shihadeh and Winters 2010; Stowell and Martinez 2007), or a combined index of immigration measures (Kubrin and Ishizawa 2012; Lyons et  al. 2013; MacDonald et al. 2013; Maimon and Browning 2010; Mares 2010; Martinez 2012; Martinez et al. 2008a; Ousey and Kubrin 2009, 2014; Sampson et al. 1997; Stowell et al. 2009; Wright and Benson 2010). Moreover, as we discuss in Chap. 5, findings from recent studies focused on undocumented immigration convey a similar message (Light et al. 2017; Light and Miller 2018). Some exceptions to this general pattern exist, however. Studies indicate that measures of Latino immigration have a significant positive association with particular measures of crime, including homicide (Kubrin et al. 2018) or race-specific measures of violence (Harris et al. 2015; Painter-Davis 2016; Shihadeh and Barranco 2010a, b). Still other neighborhood-level research suggests that linguistic isolation has a significant nonlinear relationship—a gradually decreasing positive slope— with homicide (Gostjev and Nielsen 2017). While these findings illustrate departures from the broader conclusion, they appear somewhat idiosyncratically in studies focused on specific racial or ethnic groups, social contexts, or time periods. Additional research is necessary to provide insight on whether these departures from the main takeaway are robust.

 oes the Immigration–Crime Relationship Vary by Size D of Place? As discussed previously, immigration is a process of demographic change regulated by the federal government but with effects that play out locally. As such, there is need for research across geographic communities varying in size from states and large metropolises, to cities and counties, to neighborhoods and rural communities

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to street segments. Largely meeting this need, researchers investigate the immigration–crime connection across diverse geographic units. In a handful of studies, researchers also examine neighborhoods embedded within cities (Lyons et al. 2013; Ramey 2013). Across this body of work, there is a wide range of coverage including studies that selectively examine historically high immigrant cities such as San Antonio, San Diego, Chicago, and Los Angeles (Kubrin and Ishizawa 2012; Lee and Martinez 2001, 2002; MacDonald et  al. 2013; Martinez et  al. 2004, 2008b; Sampson et al. 1997, 2005) as well as those that examine U.S. cities with diverse immigration levels (Lyons et  al. 2013; Ousey and Kubrin 2009, 2014; Wadsworth 2010). Reviewing this literature allows consideration of key questions: Does the evidence differ across varying macro-level units? Does the immigration–crime association appear at some geographic scales, but not others? Do conclusions emerging from research on large geographic places materially differ from those emerging in studies of smaller geographic places? Studies examine the relationship between immigration and crime using larger-­ scale areas such as states, MSAs, cities, incorporated places, and counties as their units of analysis (Allen and Cancino 2012; Barranco 2013; Butcher and Piehl 1998; Feldmeyer 2009; Feldmeyer and Steffensmeier 2009; Feldmeyer et al. 2013; Green 2016; Harris and Feldmeyer 2013; Light and Miller 2018; Light et al. 2017; Martinez 2000; Martinez and Stowell 2012; Ousey and Kubrin 2009, 2014; Reid et al. 2005; Schnapp 2012, 2015; Shihadeh and Barranco 2010a, b, 2013; Shihadeh and Winters 2010; Stowell et al. 2009; Wadsworth 2010). Most focus on the effects of immigration on violent crime. Overall, there is variability in findings. Several studies report that places with higher or increasing immigration have significantly lower crime levels (Feldmeyer et  al. 2013; Martinez 2012; Ousey and Kubrin 2009, 2014; Stowell et al. 2009) or that immigration and crime have no significant relationship (Butcher and Piehl 1998; Feldmeyer and Steffensmeier 2009; Harris and Feldmeyer 2013; Schnapp 2012, 2015), consistent with the body of research as a whole. Yet a small number of studies do document a significant positive association between immigration and some crime types (Green 2016; Harris and Feldmeyer 2013; Martinez 2000; Shihadeh and Barranco 2010a, b). Consistent with the noted variability, Ousey and Kubrin’s (2018) meta-analysis reported that the average immigration–crime effect in larger geographic units was near zero in magnitude and not statistically significant. The immigration–crime relationship is also examined in studies of smaller-scale places like neighborhood clusters (Sampson et  al. 1997; Kirk and Papachristos 2011), census tracts (e.g., Cancino and Martinez 2009; Disha 2019; Kubrin and Ishizawa 2012; Kubrin et al. 2018; Lee et al. 2001; Lyons et al. 2013; MacDonald et al. 2013) and census block groups (Alaniz et al. 1998; Kooi and Patchin 2008). In comparison with research on larger geographic units, these studies more frequently find negative associations (Davies and Fagan 2012; Disha 2019; Kubrin and Ishizawa 2012; MacDonald et al. 2013; Martinez 2012; Martinez et al. 2008a, 2010; Stowell and Martinez 2009). Consistent with this, the average immigration–crime effect in studies of smaller geographic units was negative and statistically

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significant (Ousey and Kubrin 2018). While notably stronger than the near-null association observed in larger area studies, it was still weak in absolute terms. Conspicuously absent from the literature noted above is immigration–crime research on units of analysis smaller than neighborhoods, such as street segments, face-blocks, egohoods, and housing complexes. This is problematic because a growing body of crime and place research suggests that key variations in crime occur across micro-places (Groff et  al. 2010; Hipp and Boessen 2013; Weisburd 2015; Weisburd et  al. 2016), invoking environmental or opportunity theories of crime that draw from social disorganization, routine activities, and crime pattern perspectives.

 oes the Immigration–Crime Relationship Depend D on Crime Type? In Chap. 2, we reviewed theories for why immigration and crime may be related. These arguments generally do not assert that immigration affects violent crime differently than other crime types such as property or drug offenses. Judging by available studies, however, scholars are most interested in the impact on violent crime. Most common in this body of work are macro-level studies of homicide (Akins et al. 2009; Barranco 2013; Emerick et al. 2014; Feldmeyer 2010; Feldmeyer and Steffensmeier 2009; Graif and Sampson 2009; Kirk and Papachristos 2011; Ousey and Kubrin 2009; Lee et al. 2001; Mares 2010; Martinez and Stowell 2012; Martinez et  al. 2010; Nielsen et  al. 2005; Ousey and Kubrin 2014; Schnapp 2012, 2015; Shihadeh and Barranco 2010a, b, 2013; Shihadeh and Winters 2010; Stowell and Martinez 2009; Vélez 2009). Among them, several examine immigration effects on racially- or ethnically disaggregated measures of homicide (e.g., Barranco 2013; Feldmeyer 2010; Feldmeyer and Steffensmeier 2009; Harris and Feldmeyer 2013; Lee et al. 2001) while others investigate effects on motivation-disaggregated homicide types (e.g., Kubrin and Ousey 2009; Ousey and Kubrin 2014; Mares 2010; Martinez et al. 2010). Studies also focus on specific categories of violent crime such as robbery, aggravated assault, or rape (e.g., Cancino and Martinez 2009; Deller and Deller 2010; Feldmeyer 2009; Feldmeyer et al. 2013; Lyons et al. 2013; Reid et al. 2005) or indices of violent crime (e.g., Alaniz et al. 1998; Butcher and Piehl 1998; Davies and Fagan 2012; Kubrin and Ishizawa 2012; Ousey and Kubrin 2009; Ramey 2013). Lastly, some analyses consider the effect of immigration on property crimes or other nonviolent crimes, such as drug offenses (Allen and Cancino 2012; Davies and Fagan 2012; Deller and Deller 2010; Disha 2019; Green 2016; Ousey and Kubrin 2009; Reid et al. 2005; Stansfield et al. 2013). Comparing findings from studies analyzing different crime types suggests three takeaways. First, the conclusion that community-level differences in immigration are not associated with higher levels of crime holds across studies, regardless of whether they are derived from analyses of specific violent crimes, violent crime indices, or from studies of nonviolent offending (Ousey and Kubrin 2018). Second,

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findings do not appear systematically different across studies employing motive-­ disaggregated homicide measures or racially- or ethnically-specific measures of crime (Ousey and Kubrin 2018). Third, the best evidence for immigration’s small crime-inhibiting effect appears in research on homicide, and is least evident in studies that examine property crime (Ousey and Kubrin 2018, but see Disha 2019 for an exception).

I s the Immigration–Crime Relationship Different in Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Research? A salient issue in the research centers on the data and methods employed. Until recently, most research used cross-sectional data, correlating between-community variations in immigration and crime measured simultaneously. A dearth of longitudinal research is a critical limitation because scholars and policymakers seek to know whether inflows of immigrants change communities in ways that lead to more crime. This question implies a causal relationship unfolding over time in a particular sequence—something cross-sectional data are unable to address because they do not capture sequential change. Longitudinal data and methods, if carefully collected and utilized, measure changes in immigration and crime, facilitating specification of the implied causal ordering between them (Mears 2002: 286; see also Lee and Martinez 2002: 378; Lee et al. 2001: 574). Statistical methods for longitudinal data also offer the ability to better control for the influence of unmeasured time-stable factors that may bias results in cross-sectional research (Allison 2005). Hence, while cross-sectional analysis is useful for establishing whether stable features of communities are correlated (i.e., stock effects), longitudinal data are needed to advance understanding of how temporal changes in one social process lead to changes in another (i.e., flow effects) (Ousey and Kubrin 2009: 448). Prior research reveals that cross-sectional and longitudinal studies produce notably distinct findings when analyzing the same relationship between variables (Phillips 2006; Phillips and Greenberg 2008). Does this occur for the immigration– crime nexus? In short, the answer is yes. Given immigration is an inherently dynamic process with effects on communities that play out over time (Ousey and Kubrin 2009: 448), it is not surprising that results differ in studies based on cross-sectional and longitudinal data (e.g., see Stowell et al. 2009; Wadsworth 2010). Indeed, Ousey and Kubrin (2018) find that the immigration–crime relationship was discernibly different in studies using cross-sectional and longitudinal data. On average, the immigration–crime association in cross-sectional research was near zero and was not statistically significant. In contrast, studies based on longitudinal data revealed a modest, statistically significant negative relationship. Evidence of a longitudinal negative association occurs in macro-level studies of varying size units, from states to census tracts (MacDonald et al. 2013; Martinez et al. 2010; Ousey and Kubrin 2009, 2014; Stowell et  al. 2009; Wadsworth 2010) as well as in longitudinal

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analyses of documented and undocumented immigration (Ousey and Kubrin 2009; Martinez et al. 2010; Light and Miller 2018; Light et al. 2017). Given differences in findings, analysts should carefully consider implications of the data used when drawing inferences about the immigration–crime relationship.

 ow Does the Broader Context Affect the Immigration– H Crime Relationship? The context of reception that immigrants face in the communities where they settle is yet another important consideration. Places may differ substantially in terms of their immigrant history and culture, social support systems, economic characteristics, and settlement policies and practices. These differences have potentially salient implications. Researchers are interested in differentiating between established immigrant gateways and new immigrant destinations (Singer 2004). Immigrant settlement patterns prior to 1990 were limited primarily to Southwestern and coastal states, with heavy concentration in major metropolitan areas like New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and Chicago. That has changed somewhat in the decades since, as many immigrants settle outside well-established gateways in a new group of cities and suburbs (Durand et  al. 2000; Lichter and Johnson 2009; Singer et al. 2008). How does the immigration–crime relationship vary across communities in relation to their position as a long-standing or new immigrant gateway? The body of research examining this critical question is small—one reason we call for additional research below—but growing. Lyons et  al. (2013) consider whether cities with politically receptive contexts moderate the neighborhood-level immigration–crime nexus. They hypothesize that places with more favorable immigrant political opportunities, measured as minority political incorporation into elected offices and the presence of pro-immigrant legislation, will have a stronger inverse immigration–crime relationship across neighborhoods. Their findings generally support this expectation. Lyons et al. (2013) suggest this moderating effect occurs because favorable political contexts bolster trust and public social control within immigrant neighborhoods. Studying Chicago and Los Angeles, Kubrin and Ishizawa (2012) examine whether neighborhoods with high levels of immigrant concentration situated within broader immigrant communities (or clusters of immigrant neighborhoods) are more likely to experience lower crime rates, relative to neighborhoods that are more spatially isolated. They find that results diverge across the two cities. In Chicago, immigrant neighborhoods embedded within broader immigrant communities had lower than average violent crime levels. In contrast, similarly situated immigrant neighborhoods in Los Angeles had higher than average crime levels. Thus, the old adage “context matters” remains apt, with immigrant neighborhoods in some cities being safer than in others.

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Other studies support the argument that context matters, finding more evidence of a negative immigration–crime association in traditional immigrant destination/ gateway communities (Ousey and Kubrin 2014, 2018; Painter-Davis 2016; Ramey 2013; Shihadeh and Barranco 2013) and in contexts of greater economic disadvantage (Vélez 2009). Research also suggests that assimilation levels in immigrant communities matter. Drawing from segmented assimilation theory, Disha (2019) examines if the immigration–crime relationship depends on place-level variations in prospects for mainstream, downward, or selective assimilation processes. He finds that the negative association between immigration and crime is attenuated in communities where: the share of recently arrived immigrants is greater, there is greater English language deficiency, a higher share of the foreign-born population is Black, and there is more spatial clustering of high immigrant census tracts. Overall, these results are consistent with the idea that immigration is most likely to have crime-­ inhibiting effects in places where conditions reduce the likelihood of downward assimilation. In summary, macro-level research to date indicates that immigration does not increase crime in communities. If anything, there is a small crime-suppressing impact. That effect is best supported in certain community contexts, namely places where the political and social environment is more tolerant and supportive of immigrants. Moreover, that effect shows up most readily in research that is longitudinal, capturing the dynamics of immigration-induced demographic changes and their effects on crime. Finally, it also appears most prominently in studies of violent crime, especially homicide.

I mmigrant Status, Offending and Victimization: What We Know from Micro-Level Research Research on the question of whether immigrants are more likely to offend has a substantial history. Nearly 90  years ago, the Wickersham Commission wrote a report on “Crime and the Foreign-born” (National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement 1931), which examined immigrants’ involvement in crime and their relationship with the criminal justice system. One notable conclusion is that involvement in crime was lower among immigrants than the native-born (National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement 1931). Almost a century later, has contemporary research produced substantial evidence challenging the Wickersham Commission’s conclusion? The clear answer is no. Recent research bolsters, rather than contradicts, that conclusion. Studies reveal that immigrants have lower involvement than the native-born on an array of crime measures including overall offending (Butcher and Piehl 1998; McCann et al. 2022), violent crime (DiPietro and Bursik 2012; DiPietro and McGloin 2012; Jiang and Peterson 2012; Reingle et al. 2011; Sampson et al. 2005; Vaughn and Salas-Wright 2018; Vaughn et al. 2014), property crime (Vaughn and Salas-Wright 2018; Vaughn

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et al. 2014), drinking and driving (Maldonado-Molina et al. 2011) and school-rule violations (Peguero 2011; Peguero and Jiang 2014). Differences between immigrants and native-born individuals also appear in studies examining arrests, both self-reported and official, again revealing lower levels among the foreign-born relative to the native-born (Bersani and DiPietro 2016; Light et al. 2020; Orrick et al. 2021a). Research on whether the lower arrest likelihood holds for undocumented immigrants is mixed (Bersani et al. 2018; Light et al. 2020). Longitudinal research finds differences in the trajectories, or life-course patterns, of offending for immigrants and nonimmigrants. Relative to the native-born, the foreign-born are less likely to exhibit high-rate persistent patterns of offending (Bersani et al. 2014) and desistance occurs more quickly as they transition to early adulthood (Bersani et al. 2014). Finally, studies of criminal victimization also suggest the foreign-born have a lower likelihood of experiencing violent and property victimization than those who are native-born (Peguero 2008, 2009, 2013; Peguero and Jiang 2014; Xie and Baumer 2021). Some evidence suggests this may differ by nationality or legal status (Caraballo 2021). This finding also extends to studies that examine rates of institutionalization. Butcher and Piehl (2008) find that 18–40 year-old immigrant men were less likely than the native-born to be confined in correctional facilities, mental hospitals, or other institutions. Landgrave and Nowrasteh’s (2018) analysis of national incarceration rates for individuals aged 18–54 finds that both documented and undocumented immigrants had lower incarceration rates than those who are U.S.-born. Finally, Orrick et  al. (2021b) show that homicide incarceration rates in Texas during 2013–2015 were markedly higher for U.S.-born individuals than for foreign-born individuals, including those identified as unauthorized immigrants.

Generational Status One of the most puzzling and well-documented findings in the literature is that involvement in, or exposure to, crime is higher for U.S.-born children (second generation immigrants) and grandchildren of immigrants (third and higher generation) than for immigrants themselves (Bersani et al. 2014; Jiang and Peterson 2012; Jiang and Peguero 2017; Lopez and Miller 2011; Maldonado-Molina et al. 2011; Morenoff and Astor 2006: 36; Reingle et al. 2011; Rumbaut et al. 2006; Sampson et al. 2005; Taft 1933; Zhou and Bankston 1998). These generational differences appear in studies of both criminal offending (DiPietro and McGloin 2012; Vaughn et  al. 2014; Maldonado-Molina et al. 2011; McCann et al. 2022; Sampson et al. 2005) and victimization (Peguero 2008, 2009). Moreover, they are evident in studies examining immigrants overall (e.g., Jiang and Peterson 2012; Jiang and Peguero 2017; McCann et  al. 2022; Sampson et  al. 2005) and distinct racial-ethnic populations such as Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Whites (Maldonado-Molina et al. 2011; Reingle et al. 2011; Peguero 2011).

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These findings produce what is called the “assimilation paradox” (Rumbaut and Ewing 2007: 2). It is a puzzle to some because traditional thinking about assimilation assumes that over time, immigrants and their descendants gain English-­ language proficiency, become more educated, and acquire U.S. relevant job skills, all of which should improve their overall life chances and reduce crime risk. Yet, as the evidence suggests, the crime reduction benefit of immigration appears to hold only for first generation immigrants—not their children and later generations. What explains these puzzling immigrant-generation effects? While an empirically verified explanation has not yet materialized, scholarship suggests that assimilation processes are likely more diverse than classic assimilation theory indicates. Rumbaut and Ewing (2007), for example, note that “The children and grandchildren of many immigrants—as well as many immigrants themselves the longer they live in the United States—become subject to economic and social forces, such as higher rates of family disintegration and drug and alcohol addiction, that increase the likelihood of criminal behavior” (p. 2). This argument draws from a segmented assimilation perspective, which offers that for some individuals, assimilation is downward, not upward. For these individuals and their children, assimilation into American culture involves exposure to discrimination, intolerance, economic deprivation and the “deviant subcultural values of youth gangs” (Tonry 1997: 21–22; see also DiPietro and McGloin 2012; Le and Stockdale 2008), which encourage rather than limit criminal offending, victimization, and contact with the criminal justice system. The second and later generations may be more vulnerable to crime conducive effects because their pathway to assimilation is especially challenging: “Born or raised in the United States, they [the children of immigrants] inherit their immigrant parents’ customs and circumstances but come of age with a distinctively American outlook and frame of reference and face the often-daunting task of fitting into the American mainstream while meeting their parents’ expectations, learning the new language, doing well in school, and finding decent jobs” (Rumbaut et al. 2006: 65; see also Foner and Dreby 2011; Samaniego and Gonzalez 1999). Zhou and Bankston’s (2006) study of Vietnamese youth in New Orleans’ is illustrative: “On the one hand, the ethnic community was tightly knit and encouraged behaviors such as respect for elders, diligence in work, and striving for upward social mobility into mainstream American society. The local American community, on the other hand, was socially marginalized and economically impoverished, and young people in it reacted to structural disadvantages by erecting oppositional subcultures to reject normative means to social mobility” (Zhou and Bankston 2006: 119). These challenges are not insurmountable, however, as Zhou and Bankston (2006) find that youth who are tightly integrated into ethnic social relationships can be effectively guided away from troubled pathways. To summarize, contemporary micro-level research examining the link between immigrant status and offending suggests four major takeaways. First, immigrants are less likely to engage in crime than are U.S-born individuals. Second, and perhaps in part because of their lower involvement in offending, immigrants are less likely to be arrested or incarcerated for serious offenses than their native-born counterparts. Third, immigrants experience lower levels of criminal victimization. Last,

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the reduced crime benefit that is apparent for foreign-born individuals does not carry over to subsequent generations. These takeaways echo Sutherland’s (1934) argument that acculturation into American society (rather than immigration per se) was a key factor in crime, because as immigrants—and especially their children— gained greater exposure to it, their patterns of criminality increasingly resembled those of native-born U.S. citizens.

 ritical Questions, Unresolved Issues, and New Directions C for Immigration-Crime Research Despite key advances in the literature as well as noteworthy findings, critical questions and unresolved issues remain. Some of these were identified over eight decades ago by Taft (1933) who commented, “…we clearly need to know through unprejudiced study the effect of migration on crime; the relative effects of different nationalities, and of different elements within a nationality. We also need to know the indirect effect through the behavior of the children of immigrants. And if possible we must distinguish between immediate and long-time effects, which may be different or even opposite” (pg. 69). The final section of this chapter discusses these (and other) questions and unresolved issues, identifying promising new directions for research. While there are many, we focus our attention on three: (1) capturing immigrant/immigration diversity; (2) determining how the broader context, including immigration policies and practices, conditions the immigration–crime relationship across communities; and, (3) explaining the immigrant paradox along with why some immigrant communities are among the safest places around.

Accounting for Immigrant/Immigration Diversity The research reviewed in this chapter advances understanding of how an individual’s immigrant status is related to risk of offending and victimization, and also provides insight on the immigration–crime nexus across communities. Even so, particularities of these relationships remain under-examined. First, with few exceptions, research lumps immigrants together, neglecting important differences across groups comprising the foreign-born population. As a result, we believe it is premature to draw firm conclusions about either the micro or macro immigration–crime relationship. To start with, unknown is the extent to which findings are generalizable. Part of this uncertainty stems from scholars’ narrow conceptual treatment of immigration as well as the limited measures employed in their studies. Consider, for example, macro-level research. These studies focus on “immigrant concentration,” defined as “the tendency of immigrants to concentrate geographically by ethnicity or origin

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within the host country” (Chiswick and Miller 2005: 5). As discussed in Chap. 3, scholars frequently use a single indicator of immigrant concentration, the percent foreign born in an area, or combine several measures, such as percent foreign born, percent Latino, and percent persons who speak English not well or not at all, to create an “immigrant concentration index” (Desmond and Kubrin 2009; Kubrin and Ishizawa 2012; Lee and Martinez 2002; Lee et al. 2001; Martinez 2000; Martinez et al. 2004, 2008b; Morenoff and Sampson 1997; Nielsen et al. 2005; Sampson et al. 1997, 2005; Reid et al. 2005; Stowell and Martinez 2007). The problem with these approaches is they discount the widespread diversity among immigrants, a limitation that also characterizes the micro-level literature on immigrant offending. This is surprising because more than 80 years ago, Taft (1933: 74–75) identified variation in arrest rates between immigrants of different nationalities. Moreover, contemporary scholars underscore the need for attention to immigrant diversity, arguing, “The aggregation of subgroups into global ethnic categories confounds cultural, structural, and political differences that may affect the adaptation of the ethnic group to its new locale. The field must try to recapture the rich racial and ethnic distinctions found in…earlier studies” (Bursik 2006: 29; see also Mears 2002: 284; Ousey and Kubrin 2009: 467). Although relatively rare, some scholars heed this call. As one example, Kubrin et al. (2018) capture the rich diversity of immigrant groups in their analysis of the immigration–crime relationship across neighborhoods in Southern California. Their approach adopts multiple strategies, including grouping immigrants by similar racial and ethnic categories, by regions of origination, and by immigrant settlement co-location in the U.S. Kubrin and colleagues find that nuanced measures of immigration outperform traditional measures in explaining variation in crime rates. They also show that insights are gained by distinguishing between diverse groups of immigrants, with some measures positively associated with crime, some negatively associated with crime, and still others showing null effects (see pgs. 17–26 for a full discussion of their findings). While studies like this are a great first step, more research that documents effects of the rich diversity is needed. Given theoretical arguments reviewed in Chap. 2, among the most important dimensions to unpack moving forward are reasons or motives for migration, and citizenship status (the focus of Chap. 5). Here we provide brief rationales for why these distinctions are likely to matter. The reasons individuals migrate powerfully shape their risks of criminality (Tonry 1997: 24). Migration motive can vary along several dimensions, but an oft-­ cited distinction is between economic and noneconomic motives (Bauer et al. 2000; Lee et al. 2001: 573), a focal point of economic theory on the international transferability of human capital (Chiswick 1978, 1986; see Duleep and Regets 1997 for a formal model). Economic theory predicts that immigrants from countries that are similar to the host country with respect to economic development, schooling, language and culture, are better able to assimilate into the labor market due to rapid transferability of the human capital accumulated in their home country. Consequently, these individuals should be less likely to commit crime.

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Consider that noneconomic migrants such as asylum seekers and refugees do not migrate for economic reasons but because of the political situation in their home country. As such, their migration is not carefully planned and they are unable to invest in the transferability of their human capital stock or in country-specific human capital needs of the receiving nation. Consequently, asylum seekers and refugees likely face greater earnings disadvantages compared to those who migrate for economic reasons, with implications for crime. Put another way, immigrants selected for their skills are more likely to succeed in the receiving country’s labor market and to rapidly assimilate into the new economic environment compared to chain migrants or refugees, which means they should be less likely to offend (Bauer et al. 2000). With respect to citizenship status, lack of legal standing is likely to have implications for criminal behavior for several reasons (Light and Miller 2018: 373–374). First, due to marginal labor market skills and lack of economic assets upon arrival, undocumented immigrants may be channeled into structurally disadvantaged communities and, as a result, experience greater exposure to criminogenic conditions such as poverty and joblessness. Moreover, undocumented immigrants likely have fewer legitimate opportunities for upward mobility, increasing their probability of turning to illegitimate economic pursuits, such as robbery or drug dealing. Second, undocumented immigrants are less likely to form effective ties with government officials. Because they often live “shadowed lives” for fear of detection, undocumented immigrants may be less likely to turn to law enforcement authorities and more likely to use violence for dispute resolution. At the same time, the inability to fully engage in civic and political life may undermine undocumented immigrants’ ability to organize collectively around common goals, such as crime reduction in their communities. Finally, population age structure is relevant. The age distribution of the undocumented immigrant population differs from that of the U.S.-born and authorized immigrant populations, with unauthorized immigrants more likely to be young adults, a life-course period when crime and violence peak. Taken together, these reasons underscore why citizenship status may matter for crime. Chap. 5 takes up these arguments and reviews findings from the handful of studies examining both whether undocumented immigrants are at greater risk of offending and whether undocumentedimmigration and crime are associated across communities. In short, researchers must unpack immigration in order to capture the rich diversity that exists focusing on differences among immigrants along several dimensions, including those just discussed. Doing so will enable scholars to address critical questions including, Which immigrant groups are most likely to engage in crime? Which are least likely? How robust is the immigration–crime relationship? What are the appropriate ways to capture varied effects of immigrant groups on community crime rates? Does citizenship status matter? How does motive for migration affect the immigration–crime association? Which immigrant groups have crime reducing effects in neighborhoods? Which have crime enhancing effects?

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The Importance of Broader Context As noted earlier, there has been an explosion of research over the past two decades examining the macro-level immigration–crime relationship. A growing realization emerging from this literature is that the broader context of communities affects the nature of the immigration–crime relationship observed within them. Yet, relatively few studies consider this issue. For this reason, a second gap in our knowledge base is the lack of understanding of how the broader context— particularly, characteristics and histories of immigrant settlement and of immigration-related policies and practices—conditions the immigration–crime relationship across places. Concerning the former, scholars have become increasingly interested in metropolitan immigrant gateways, differentiating between established gateways and new destinations (Singer 2004). As discussed earlier in the chapter, prior to the 1990s, immigrant settlement followed a largely predictable pattern, and was generally limited to Southwestern and coastal states, and metropolitan New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and Chicago. More recently, due to shifts in labor markets among other things, immigrants are increasingly settling outside well-established gateways in a new group of cities and suburbs (Durand et al. 2000; Singer et al. 2008). Many, such as Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Charlotte, are cities with little to no history of immigration while others such as Sacramento, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Seattle, once important gateways in the early part of the twentieth century, have re-emerged as new destinations (Singer et al. 2008). Only a handful of studies, reviewed earlier, consider how different contexts of reception impact the immigration–crime association at the local level. Still, the takeaway message is clear: context matters. That the relationship is varied and contingent depending upon the broader context of reception is underscored in Ousey and Kubrin’s (2018) meta-analysis. Coding for whether estimates of the immigration–crime association in over 50 studies are derived from a subsample of geographic units considered “traditional” immigrant destinations or from a subsample of newly emerging destinations (“new destinations”), Ousey and Kubrin (2018) show that effect size estimates vary significantly across them. While the mean association in the reference group (analyses that do not account for destination context) is significant and negative, it is significantly larger and negative in the more established “traditional” immigrant destination contexts. In contrast, the association is slightly positive (but not significant) in studies focused on new destination contexts. Still, because so few studies examine varying destination contexts (only about 6 percent of effect-size estimates in their sample are from studies that consider different destination contexts), caution should be exercised in interpreting these findings. Clearly, more research is necessary along with studies that are able to discern the mechanisms by which destination context matters. Another important context consideration is the policy environment. While immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, immigration policy, from inception,

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reflects local concerns about immigrant criminality, and an individual’s involvement with the criminal justice system has implications for their immigration status (Fasani et al. 2019). In particular, two components of immigration policy are likely relevant for public safety: how active federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are in referring undocumented individuals for deportation, and how cooperative local governments are with federal agents who attempt to identify noncitizens who commit crimes—policies we discuss at length in Chap. 6. From a theoretical standpoint, it is unclear how aggressive immigration enforcement may affect crime. On one hand, threat of deportation may deter noncitizens (Butcher and Piehl 2007) and may create “coercive mobility,” generating neighborhood instability which weakens ties and undermines informal social control (Rose and Clear 1998). As such, if ICE agents increase enforcement activity in an area, which increases perceived threat of deportation, this should lead to a reduction in offending among immigrants. On the other hand, increased ICE activity may lead some immigrant groups, particularly the unauthorized, to avoid government institutions, including contacting the police in the event they are victimized—a phenomenon known as “system avoidance” (Brayne 2014). A perceived reduction in the probability that an undocumented individual, or someone assumed to be undocumented, will contact the police or cooperate with investigators is likely to increase acquisitive crimes if such individuals are perceived as attractive targets (Hipp et al. 2009). The extent to which local governments actively cooperate with federal immigration enforcement can affect the ability of both institutions to operate as intended. If local governments actively cooperate with ICE agents, this can increase the ability to detect and remove noncitizens who offend, which may enhance public safety through incapacitation (as criminals are deported after conviction or sentencing) and deterrence, as the penalties for criminal behavior will be higher. Alternatively, perceived cooperation of local and federal agents may lead to system avoidance by people who are, or may be perceived to be, noncitizens. To the extent that system avoidance by victims or witnesses reduces crimes known to police, or the ability of police to clear offenses they know about, cooperation could reduce public safety. In short, the immigration–crime relationship is conditioned by the broader context in which communities are situated. Yet few studies consider this. We encourage future researchers to take up this task, focusing specifically on the characteristics and history of broader areas into which migrants settle as well as immigration policy and practice. Addressing this research gap will enable scholars to address critical questions of interest: How does the broader context into which migrants settle condition the local immigration–crime relationship? What aspects of the broader context matter the most? How does immigration enforcement condition the relationship between immigration and crime? Does aggressive immigration enforcement discourage crime victims from coming forward? Do “sanctuary cities” attract crime-prone immigrants, reducing public safety?

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Theory Testing Findings from the literature discussed earlier in this chapter, both on the immigrant-­ offending nexus and the immigration–crime nexus, raise theoretical questions. Of greatest interest, perhaps, is the question of what mechanisms account for findings at both micro and macro levels. To date, relatively few studies directly take up this question. Hence, when it comes to immigration and crime, the theories reviewed in Chap. 2 remain “largely undeveloped and untested” (Mears 2002: 287; see also Kubrin 2013; Kubrin and Desmond 2015; Ousey and Kubrin 2009). One issue is that we describe an “immigration–crime link,” implying the two go hand in hand, yet it is often unclear what dynamics underlie this connection or just how immigration and crime are thought to be related. Mears (2002: 285) underscores this ambiguity when he argues, “Many people assume that an ‘immigration-­ crime’ nexus exists. But what exactly is this nexus? For example, does it mean that immigrants, as a whole, are more likely than non-immigrants to be criminals when they enter the U.S.? That they are more likely to become criminals after entering the U.S.? That immigration causes immigrants, non-immigrants, or both to engage in more crime than if there were no immigrants or no changes in immigration flows? Such questions illustrate the importance of clarifying precisely what is meant by an immigration-crime nexus.” A related issue is how this nexus plays out at varying levels of analysis. As noted above, despite theories that consider how and why crime occurs at micro-places, no research that we are aware of considers how these insights apply to the study of immigration and crime. Yet, an extensive body of work at the community level that employs social disorganization theory to understand the immigration–crime link across communities reveals a missed opportunity. Consistent with arguments made by crime and place scholars (Weisburd et al. 2016), we suggest researchers should aim to bridge opportunity and social disorganization theories at smaller units of analysis to help explain variation in crime rates across, for example, street segments, in immigrant communities. To understand criminal activity, opportunity theories look at varying interactions among offenders, victims, and places, recognizing the relevance of all three in explaining crime. Social disorganization theory, by contrast, considers broader community-level structural conditions like poverty, racial and ethnic heterogeneity, and residential instability, as well as community-­ level mechanisms such as informal social control, social ties, and collective efficacy, for understanding crime. That is, opportunity theories focus on the specific criminal act, while social disorganization theory focuses on the larger environment in which the criminal act occurs. Research on micro-places links these two perspectives (Weisburd et  al. 2016), and could inform future research on immigration and crime. Even concretely specifying the theoretical links, relatively few studies empirically test them, leaving us essentially in the dark about the underlying nature of the immigration–crime nexus. While a handful of studies at both micro (Jiang and Peguero 2017) and macro (Desmond and Kubrin 2009; Kim et  al. forthcoming;

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Kubrin and Desmond 2015; Kubrin et  al. 2019; MacDonald and Saunders 2012; Ousey and Kubrin 2009) levels test various theories, Mears (2002: 284) argues that “On the whole…empirical tests of these different theories fail to assess adequately the role of key variables such as ‘social disorganization,’ ‘strain,’ ‘cultural values’…” This is problematic because, as discussed in Chap. 2, most theories predict the immigration–crime relationship is indirect, operating through demographic, economic, cultural and family structures and processes (Kubrin 2013; Kubrin and Desmond 2015; Ousey and Kubrin 2009). In short, although researchers have conducted literally dozens of empirical studies, at both the micro and macro levels, documenting an “immigrant paradox” and “immigration paradox” with respect to crime (Lee and Martinez 2006: 90; Peterson and Krivo 2005: 346; Taft 1933: 76), they have yet to compellingly explain these paradoxes. At the same time, this has not deterred scholars from theorizing the mechanisms by which immigrants are less-crime prone than their native-born counterparts and some immigrant neighborhoods produce less crime. As reviewed in Chap. 2, arguments at both levels abound, with explanations ranging from immigrant selection effects to formal social control to immigration revitalization to employment and ethnic entrepreneurship. Still, questions remain: Why are the foreign-­born less likely to offend relative to their native-born counterparts? What aspects of assimilation lead to greater offending levels among immigrants? Why are some immigrant neighborhoods among the safest places around? In addressing these questions, researchers, no doubt, will confront obstacles, perhaps the greatest of which involve solving conceptual complexities and data limitations highlighted in Chap. 3. Specific challenges include overcoming the limits of widely available data to measure the most salient theoretical concepts, and finding sufficient data allowing researchers to test theoretically motivated intervening processes.

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Mares, Denis. 2010. Social Disorganization and Gang Homicides in Chicago: A Neighborhood Level Comparison of Disaggregated Homicides. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 8: 38–57. Martinez, Jr Ramiro, and Jacob I.  Stowell. 2012. Extending Immigration and Crime Studies: National Implications and Local Settings. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 641: 174–191. Martinez, Jr Ramiro. 2000. Immigration and Urban Violence: The Link Between Immigrant Latinos and Types of Homicide. Social Science Quarterly 81: 363–374. Martinez, Jr Ramiro, Matthew T. Lee, and Amie L. Nielsen. 2004. Segmented Assimilation, Local Context and Determinants of Drug Violence in Miami and San Diego: Does Ethnicity and Immigration Matter? International Migration Review 38: 131–157. Martinez, Jr Ramiro, Richard Rosenfeld, and Denis Mares. 2008a. Social Disorganization, Drug Market Activity, and Neighborhood Violent Crime. Urban Affairs Review 43: 846–874. Martinez, Jr Ramiro, Jacob I.  Stowell, and Jeffrey M.  Cancino. 2008b. A Tale of Two Border Cities: Community Context, Ethnicity, and Homicide. Social Science Quarterly 89: 1–16. Martinez, Jr. Ramiro, Jacob I. Stowell, and Matthew T. Lee. 2010. Immigration and Crime in an Era of Transformation: A Longitudinal Analysis of Homicides in San Diego Neighborhoods, 1980–2000. Criminology 48: 797–829. McCann, Wesley S., Saijun Zhang, and Frances D. Boateng. 2022. Immigrants, Crime, and the American Dream: Testing a Segmented Assimilation Theory of Crime. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 66: 560–586. Mears, Daniel P. 2002. Immigration and Crime: What’s the Connection? Federal Sentencing Reporter 14: 284–288. Morenoff, Jeffrey D., and Avraham Astor. 2006. Immigrant Assimilation and Crime: Generational Differences in Youth Violence in Chicago. In Immigration and Crime: Race, Ethnicity, and Violence, ed. Ramiro Martinez Jr. and Abel Valenzuela, 36–63. New  York: New  York University Press. Morenoff, Jeffrey D., and Robert J. Sampson. 1997. Violent Crime and the Spatial Dynamics of Neighborhood Transition: Chicago, 1970–1990. Social Forces 76: 31–64. National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement. 1931. Report on Crime and the Foreign Born. Washington DC: US Government Printing Office. Nielsen, Amie L., Matthew T. Lee, and Ramiro Martinez. 2005. Integrating Race, Place and Motive in Social Disorganization Theory: Lessons from a Comparison of Black and Latino Homicide Types in Two Immigrant Destination Cities. Criminology 43: 837–872. Nielsen, Amie L., and Ramiro Martinez, Jr. 2003. Reassessing the Alcohol-Violence Linkage: Results from a Multiethnic City. Justice Quarterly 20: 445-469. Olson, Christa Polczynski, Minna K.  Laurikkala, Huff-Corzine Lin, and Jay Corzine. 2009. Immigration and Violent Crime: Citizenship Status and Social Disorganization. Homicide Studies 13: 227–241. Orrick, Erin A., Chris Guerra, and Alex R. Piquero. 2021a. Criminal Careers and Immigration: An Analysis of Offending Over the Life Course Among Homicide Inmates in Texas. Crime and Delinquency. https://doi.org/10.1177/00111287211039996. Orrick, Erin A., Alexander H.  Updegrove, Alex R.  Piquero, and Tomaslav Kovandzic. 2021b. Disentangling Differences in Homicide Incarceration Rates by Immigration Status: A Comparison in Texas. Crime & Delinquency 67: 523–550. Ousey, Graham C., and Charis E. Kubrin. 2009. Exploring the Connection between Immigration and Violent Crime Rates in U.S. Cities, 1980–2000. Social Problems 56: 447–473. ———. 2014. Immigration and the Changing Nature of Homicide in US Cities, 1980-2010. Journal of Quantitative Criminology 30: 453–483. ———. 2018. Immigration and Crime: Assessing a Contentious Issue. Annual Review of Criminology 1: 63–84. Painter-Davis, Noah. 2016. Immigration Effects on Violence Contextualized: The Role of Immigrant Destination Type and Race/Ethnicity. Sociological Perspectives 39: 130–152. Peguero, Anthony A. 2008. Is Immigrant Status Relevant in School Violence Research? An Analysis with Latino Students. Journal of School Health 78: 397–404. ———. 2009. Victimizing the Children of Immigrants. Youth & Society 41: 186–208.

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———. 2011. Immigration, Schools, and Violence: Assimilation and Student Misbehavior. Sociological Spectrum 31: 695–717. ———. 2013. An Adolescent Victimization Immigrant Paradox? School-Based Routines, Lifestyles, and Victimization Across Immigration Generations. Journal of Youth and Adolescence 42: 1759–1773. Peguero, Anthony A., and Xin Jiang. 2014. Social Control Across Immigrant Generations: Adolescent Violence at School and Examining the Immigrant Paradox. Journal of Criminal Justice 42: 276–287. Peterson, Ruth D., and Lauren J. Krivo. 2005. Macrostructural Analyses of Race, Ethnicity, and Violent Crime: Recent Lessons and New Directions for Research. Annual Review of Sociology 31: 331–356. Phillips, Julie A. 2006. Explaining Discrepant Findings in Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Analyses: An Application to U.S. Homicide Rates. Social Science Research 35: 948–974. Phillips, Julie A., and David Greenberg. 2008. A Comparison of Statistical Methods for the Analysis of Criminological Panel Data. Journal of Quantitative Criminology 24: 51–72. Ramey, David M. 2013. Immigrant Revitalization and Neighborhood Violent Crime in Established and New Destination Cities. Social Forces 92: 597–629. Reid, Lesley Williams, Harald E.  Weiss, Robert M.  Adelman, and Charles Jaret. 2005. The Immigration-Crime Relationship: Evidence across US Metropolitan Areas. Social Science Research 34: 757–780. Reingle, Jennifer M., Wesley G. Jennings, and Mildred M. Maldonado-Molina. 2011. Generational Differences in Serious Physical Violence Among Hispanic Adolescents: Results From a Nationally Representative Longitudinal Study. Race and Justice 1: 277–291. Rose, Dina R., and Todd R. Clear. 1998. Incarceration, Social Capital and Crime: Implications for Social Disorganization Theory. Criminology 36: 441–480. Rumbaut, Ruben G., and Walter A.  Ewing. 2007. The Myth of Immigrant Criminality and the Paradox of Assimilation: Incarceration Rates among Native and Foreign-Born Men. Washington, D.C.: Immigration Policy Center, American Immigration Law Foundation. Rumbaut, Ruben G., Robert G. Gonzales, Golnaz Komaie, Charlie V. Morgan, and Rosaura Tafoya-­ Estrada. 2006. Immigration and Incarceration: Patterns and Predictors of Imprisonment Among First- and Second-Generation Young Adults. In Immigration and Crime: Race, Ethnicity, and Violence, ed. Ramiro Martinez and Abel Valenzuela, 64–89. New  York: New  York University Press. Samaniego, Roxana Y., and Nancy A.  Gonzalez. 1999. Multiple Mediators of the Effects of Acculturation Status on Delinquency for Mexican American Adolescents. American Journal of Community Psychology 27: 189–210. Sampson, Robert J., Stephen W. Raudenbush, and Felton Earls. 1997. Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy. Science 277: 918–924. Sampson, Robert J., Jeffrey D.  Morenoff, and Stephen Raudenbush. 2005. Social Anatomy of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Violence. American Journal of Public Health 95: 224–232. Schnapp, Patrick. 2012. Macro-level Research on Immigration and Crime in the Contemporary USA: Problems and Simple Solutions. International Journal of Criminology and Sociological Theory 5: 999–1015. ———. 2015. Identifying the Effect of Immigration on Homicide Rates in U.S.  Cities: An Instrumental Variables Approach. Homicide Studies 19: 103–122. Shihadeh, Edward S. and Lisa Winters. 2010. Church, Place and Crime: Latinos and Homicide in New Destinations. Sociological Inquiry 80: 28–649. Shihadeh, Edward S., and Raymond E. Barranco. 2010a. Latino Employment and Black Violence: The Unintended Consequence of US Immigration Policy. Social Forces 88: 1393–1420. ———. 2010b. Latino Employment and Non-Latino Homicide in Rural Areas: The Implications of U.S. Immigration Policy. Deviant Behavior 31: 411–439. Shihadeh, Edward, and Raymond E. Barranco. 2013. The Imperative of Place: Homicide and the New Latino Migration. Sociological Quarterly 54: 81–104.

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Chapter 5

Undocumented Immigration

As should be apparent by now, researchers have dedicated substantial time and effort to studying the immigration–crime relationship. We learned from the previous chapter that public perception about this relationship does not always align with empirical reality. Macro-level research indicates that immigration does not increase crime in communities—if anything, there is a small crime-suppressing impact— while micro-level research suggests immigrants are less likely to engage in crime than are U.S-born individuals, although the reduced crime benefit does not appear to carryover to subsequent generations. At the same time, there remains a great deal to learn as the final discussion in Chap. 4 reminds us. Perhaps of greatest interest is the role of legal status, that is, whether immigrants legally reside within the U.S. or not. According to the Department of Homeland Security, lawful permanent residents (LPRs) are persons who have been granted lawful permanent residence in the U.S. They are also known as “green card” recipients and more colloquially as “documented” or “authorized” immigrants. “Undocumented” or “unauthorized” immigrants, by contrast, have not been granted lawful permanent residence and live in the U.S. illegally. Despite this key distinction, legal status is frequently ignored in research. Indeed, the vast majority of studies reviewed, at both macro- and micro-levels, does not differentiate between documented and undocumented immigrants in their analyses. To be fair, this is due to significant data challenges, something we discuss in detail below. Still, undocumented immigrants can be quite distinct from documented immigrants—from their demographic and socioeconomic profiles to why they migrate to the U.S. to how they are treated once they get here. For this reason, it is problematic to assume that findings from the literature on the foreign-born as a whole generalize to undocumented immigrants in particular. This raises critical questions: Are undocumented immigrants more likely to offend than their documented counterparts or native-born individuals? How are undocumented immigration and crime related across communities, if at all?

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. E. Kubrin, G. C. Ousey, Immigration and Crime, SpringerBriefs in Criminology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22839-1_5

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This chapter takes up these questions, explains why this focus is essential given public perception, and reviews the handful of recently published studies that determine whether undocumented immigrants are overrepresented in crime statistics and whether the presence of undocumented immigrants across places leads to higher crime rates. The chapter concludes by underscoring challenges associated with conducting research on undocumented immigration, focusing on data limitations.

Context To some degree, the term “immigrant” is misleading. This is because it encompasses many distinctive statuses. For instance, an immigrant can hold the status of being “first-generation” or “second-generation” and “documented” or “undocumented.” This heterogeneity generates diverse life experiences for immigrants. It can also lead to disparate treatment by members of the host country. Indeed, when it comes to public opinion in the U.S., legal status is perhaps the defining immigrant characteristic, especially in the context of crime. As we’ve described throughout the Brief, the words “immigration” and “crime” are frequently linked in the minds of Americans, and immigrants are often touted as responsible for rising crime rates. This is especially true for immigrants who are undocumented (Light and Miller 2018: 370). Few would disagree undocumented immigrants are routinely depicted in the media and by politicians as a threat to the very fabric of society, as hordes of dark bodies running rampant across the border and ruining our communities, and as a foreign “Other” bringing “Americans” into poverty and undermining “American” language and culture (Trager and Kubrin 2018, see also Chavez 2001; Santa Ana 2002; Schrag 2010). As we emphasize throughout, these depictions have real-world consequences. Such images and discourse propel institutions at the federal, state, and local levels to take steps to protect residents against the alleged threats presented by “illegals” or “aliens” (Eagly 2010; Koulish 2010; Provine et al. 2016). We detail these efforts in Chap. 6 but among the most salient are recent policies which criminalize legal status, leading to the criminalization of undocumented immigrants, or “crimmigration” (Stumpf 2006), given that prior to their enactment, being in the U.S. illegally was not considered a crime but a civil offense. Whatever the policy, it is the perception of danger and criminality among undocumented immigrants that has captured the public imagination and pushed the implementation of exclusionary, anti-immigrant policy. To this point, the framework within which communities used to think about security—street crime, lack of respect for community values, avoiding external dangers—is now intertwined with concerns about legal status and fears of foreign others (Kubrin and Trager 2014). Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, for instance, the federal government instituted law enforcement measures that targeted individuals of particular nationalities in the name of national security. And, recent laws combine (some might say inflate) anti-terrorism concerns with renewed attempts to control undocumented immigration (Ewing 2008: 7).

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Such perception and policy are rooted in a narrow definition of who is undocumented. Contrary to popular belief, an “undocumented immigrant” is not only a young man who illegally crosses the U.S–Mexico border in search of employment. Undocumented immigrants also include individuals who were granted entry through work or travel visas, which they eventually overstayed. In other words, there is significant heterogeneity, even within the designation of “undocumented”—a point often left out of the conversation. What do we know about unauthorized immigrants in the U.S., both historically and today? Documenting the precise number of unauthorized individuals—along with their background characteristics—is an impossible task. Yet estimates can give us an idea. According to the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), which uses data from the U.S.  Census Bureau and the U.S.  Department of Homeland Security and employs a unique methodology developed by MPI researchers in partnership with demographers at Pennsylvania State University and Temple University, in 2018 there were an estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the country, down slightly from 12.3 million in 2007—a figure consistent with estimates provided by the Department of Homeland Security, Pew Research Center and the Center for Migration Studies (Capps et al. 2020: 4). The number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. has largely stabilized over the past decade, rebounding slightly after a dip immediately following the recession of 2008–09. This pattern of little growth and even decline in the unauthorized immigrant population follows a long period of high growth through the 1990s and early 2000s, as Fig. 5.1 reveals.

Fig. 5.1  Undocumented Immigrants in the U.S., 1990–2018. (Source: https://www.pewresearch. org/fact-­tank/2019/06/12/5-­facts-­about-­illegal-­immigration-­in-­the-­u-­s/ft_19-­06-­12_5factsillegali mmigration_us-­unauthorized-­immigrant-­total/)

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At the same time, there are notable changes in the characteristics of this population over the past two decades, according to MPI. The origin countries of unauthorized immigrants have shifted, for example, as the number of unauthorized immigrants from Mexico has dropped and populations from other world regions, particularly Asia and Central America, have continued to grow (Capps et al. 2020: 1). In 2018, though their share was shrinking, Mexicans still accounted for about half of all unauthorized immigrants. Mexico and Central America remain far and away the greatest source region for unauthorized immigrants—with two-thirds of the total—while Asia comes in second with 14% (see Fig. 5.2). Additional noteworthy trends about this population include: • Unauthorized immigrants’ share of the total U.S. foreign-born population fell from 30% in 2007 to 23% in 2018, while the share comprised by authorized immigrants—especially naturalized citizens, or persons aged 18 and over who become citizens—rose. This shift suggests the foreign-born population overall is becoming better socially and politically integrated;

Regions of Origin and Tops Countries within Them for Unauthorized Immigrants in the United Stated, 2018 Caribbean,4%

Dominican Republic: 47% Haiti: 22% Jamaica: 19% Trinidad and Tobago: 5% Other: 8%

South America, 7%

Mexico and Central America, 68% Mexico: 75% El Salvador: 10% Guatemala: 8% Honduras: 5% Other: 2%

Colombia: 23% Brazil: 18% Ecuador: 17% Peru: 13% Other: 28%

Europe, Canada, Ocean, 6% United Kingdom: 9% Canada: 9% Germany: 8% Poland: 7% Other: 67%

Asia, 14% Africa, 2% India: 32% Nigeria: 18% China/Hong Kong: 26% Ghana: 10% The Philippines: 16% Korea: 8% Kenya: 8% Ethiopia: 7% Other: 19% Other 65%

Source:These 2018 data result from MPI analysis of data from the 2014-18 ACS, pooled , and the 2008 SIPP, weighted to 2018 unauthorized immigrant population estimated provided by van Hook.

Fig. 5.2  Undocumented Immigrants’ Regions of Origin, 2018. (Source: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/mpi-­unauthorized-­immigrants-­stablenumbers-­ changingorigins_final.pdf)

Theoretical Perspectives Related to Legal Status

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• About 1.6 million unauthorized immigrants were married to U.S. citizens and another 675,000 were married to lawful permanent residents in 2018. At the same time, 4.4 million U.S.-citizen children had at least one unauthorized immigrant parent, as did 100,000 LPR or nonimmigrant children; • In 2018, 15% of unauthorized immigrants had a temporary status or deferral of deportation with work authorization, including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) beneficiaries, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders, and asylum applicants granted employment authorization; • Although more dispersed across the country than in the past, unauthorized immigrants remain concentrated in certain states. In 2018, almost one-quarter lived in California, and nearly half lived in either California, Texas, or New York. At the local level, one-fifth resided in the counties where four major cities—Los Angeles, New York, Houston, and Chicago—are located (Capps et al. 2020: 1–2). Whether these levels and trends will continue depends on the ongoing impact of immigration policy changes implemented under the Trump administration as well as those more recently pursued by the Biden administration. Additional factors including the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state of the U.S. economy, and conditions in major sending countries occupy a critical role as well.

Theoretical Perspectives Related to Legal Status In Chap. 2 we reviewed leading theories on the immigration–crime nexus. Recall some propose mechanisms whereby immigrant status may be associated with increased offending or whereby increased immigration leads to more crime, whereas others reject these positions, offering reasons why immigrants may be less crime-­ prone than their native-born counterparts and why immigration can reduce crime. Several of these theories are especially relevant when considering legal status (Light and Miller 2018: 373–375). One common assumption is that undocumented immigrants have a greater criminal propensity because they are disproportionately likely to be poor young males who arrive from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and other Latin American countries to work in low-wage jobs requiring little formal education (Rumbaut and Ewing 2007: 4). These background characteristics related to age, sex, socioeconomic status, and education level suggest undocumented immigrants will offend at higher rates compared to their documented counterparts and the native-born. At the same time, undocumented immigrants possess certain characteristics that dampen their likelihood of offending, according to some theories. In contrast to the experience of documented immigrants, undocumented immigrants face unique hardships and encounter significant trials and tribulations associated with entering the U.S. Undocumented individuals—especially those who cross the border illegally—often resort to physically demanding routes of migration that require walking for days on end with no place to rest or shelter with minimal food intake. These

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immigrants leave their home countries and families behind, willing to endure the journey and start from scratch to better the standard of living for themselves and their families. This reality and desire to migrate manifests characteristics like ambition, hard work, resilience, and a willingness to delay gratification—traits not typically associated with criminality (Butcher and Piehl 2005). That undocumented immigration is selective in this way suggests that unauthorized immigrants are less likely to offend, a conclusion reinforced by the fact that, facing the constant threat of deportation, undocumented immigrants have more to lose if they violate the law—deterrence theory in action. Other characteristics related to legal status matter theoretically. For instance, due to limited financial means, undocumented, more so than documented, immigrants settle in structurally disadvantaged communities where criminogenic conditions prevail, providing increased opportunities for drug dealing and joining gangs (Ousey and Kubrin 2009). At the same time, immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally are excluded from the formal labor market, limiting their means of earning a living. Feasible jobs are likely to be low-skilled and pay less, conditions which can lead to economic hardship and create pressure to take advantage of unlawful means of financial acquisition. Legal status also shapes immigrants’ interactions with law enforcement specifically, and the criminal justice system more generally, with consequences for crime. Being undocumented often means having to “live in the shadows” (Aranda 2016); lack of legal status, in particular, can hinder unauthorized individuals from seeking assistance from law enforcement when conflicts arise or when they’ve been victimized. Consistent with this, immigrants from certain cultures tend not to rely on legal authorities for personal dispute resolution, preferring instead to take matters into their own hands or keep their problems private (Trager and Kubrin 2014) while still others carry a sense of distrust for legal systems and the police from their country of origin, believing that legal involvement is ineffective (Khashu et  al. 2005). As a result, according to some perspectives, undocumented immigrants may resort to violence as a form of dispute resolution (Black 1983). These perspectives provide compelling explanations for why legal status is likely to matter when examining the immigration–crime nexus. But what does the empirical evidence say? To answer this question, we turn to findings from the handful of studies, at both the macro- and micro-levels, that take legal status into account.

A Developing Body of Empirical Research Only a few years ago scholars lamented “…we know little about the criminological consequences of undocumented immigration” (Light and Miller 2018: 370) and argued that “research on undocumented immigration remains a substantial lacuna in immigration-crime research” (Light and Miller 2018: 371). Indeed, one was hard-­ pressed to find any large-scale empirical study on undocumented immigration and crime, despite strong claims about a link. Fortunately, this is no longer the case

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today. Researchers have developed creative methods to identify and estimate the undocumented population in order to study their offending patterns and determine whether their greater presence in an area is associated with increased crime rates. Considering the macro-level undocumented immigration–crime association, among the first major studies published are those by Michael Light and his colleagues (Light et  al. 2017; Light and Miller 2018). Light et  al. created a unique dataset that combines newly developed estimates of the unauthorized population (from two sources, the Center for Migration Studies and the Pew Research Center) with criminal, socioeconomic, and demographic information from other sources. In a series of papers, Light and colleagues use these data to analyze how the presence of undocumented immigration is associated with different types of crime across 50 states (and Washington, D.C.) from 1990–2014. In the most popular of these papers, Light and Miller (2018) conduct the first longitudinal analysis of the macro-level relationship between undocumented immigration and violent crime. Findings reveal that undocumented immigration does not increase violence; rather, the relationship is negative or null, depending on the violent crime type. Light and Miller (2018) confirm these findings in robustness checks that address questions related to selective migration (i.e., whether the observed negative finding is biased by undocumented immigrants relocating to areas to avoid violence) and under-reporting (i.e., whether those who lack legal status may be hesitant to report violent victimizations to avoid detection from legal officials). Notably, these results are consistent with those from an earlier cross-sectional study; also using state-level data, Green (2016: 519) does “not find a relationship between immigrant population size by any measure and violent crime.” Light and Miller’s (2018) results are also consistent with research that analyzes the impact of unauthorized immigration on crime across U.S. metropolitan areas and finds that “as immigration—in this case, unauthorized immigration specifically—increases in metropolitan areas, crime decreases” (Adelman et al. 2020: 18). A related study by Light and colleagues examines the influence of undocumented immigration on various drug and alcohol problems including drug arrests, drug overdose fatalities, driving under the influence (DUI) arrests, and DUI deaths (Light et al. 2017). Light et al. (2017: 9) find that increased undocumented immigration is significantly associated with reductions in drug arrests, drug overdose deaths, and DUI arrests, net of other factors (there is no significant relationship between increased undocumented immigration and DUI deaths). They conclude, “Our study does not contradict assertions that drugs are smuggled across the US border (they are) or that individual undocumented immigrants have been arrested for drunk driving (they have). Our findings do, however, significantly undermine arguments that the public is at greater risk for DUI or drug problems as a result of undocumented immigration. If anything, we suggest the opposite” (pg. 1453) (but see Green 2016). While only a handful of macro-level studies exist, it is noteworthy that their findings thus far are consistent with Ousey and Kubrin’s (2018) meta-analysis on the aggregate immigration–crime nexus. Results from this small but growing literature are beginning to converge on the conclusion that fears about undocumented

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immigrants driving crime rates up are, essentially, unfounded (but see Cebula and Koch 2008 for an exception with respect to the crime of identity theft). Are similar findings reported in micro-level studies? Here, too, we turn to research by Light and colleagues (Light et  al. 2020) that compares crime rates between undocumented immigrants, documented immigrants, and native-born U.S. citizens in Texas from 2012 to 2018 using arrest data from the Texas Department of Public Safety. Employing linear regression and time-series analyses, they find that for violent, property, and drug crime “…undocumented immigrants have substantially lower rates of crime compared to both native U.S. citizens and legal immigrants” and that “…over the 7y period from 2012 to 2018, the proportion of arrests involving undocumented immigrants in Texas was relatively stable or decreasing” (p.  32345). In their study comparing recidivism outcomes of 192,556 formerly incarcerated native- and foreign-born individuals released from Florida prisons, Ramos and Wenger (2020) find this relationship extends to recidivism. In particular, they report that immigrants are less likely to reoffend than their native-born peers. Research by Bersani et al. (2018), however, offers a more mixed picture. Using data on male, first-time juvenile offenders from southern California to examine the association between undocumented immigration and crime among youthful offenders, Bersani et  al. (2018) find that undocumented immigrants have lower self-­ reported offending prevalence than documented immigrants and the native-born, and that after a first arrest their offending rates decline over time at a greater rate than all other groups. Bersani et  al. (2018) also discover, however, that undocumented immigrants are more likely to be re-arrested than their native-born and documented counterparts. Although they cannot identify the mechanisms creating the divergence between offending and arrests over time for undocumented juvenile offenders, their findings uncover an important area for further research. Clearly, as is also true in the case of macro-level studies, more research is needed to reach definitive conclusions.

Moving Forward Amidst Data Challenges The call for more research confronts a daunting reality—a “paucity of data accounting for unauthorized immigrants separately” (Light and Miller 2018: 371). While estimates can be useful, “Until recently, researchers have not had access to trustworthy estimates of the undocumented population” (Light and Miller 2018: 379). This suggests data limitations will continue to present a significant challenge moving forward. Perhaps the greatest obstacle is found in official crime data. As noted, official crime data do not capture an individual’s immigrant status (e.g., native born vs. foreign born), limiting researchers’ ability to ascertain the true distribution of criminals who are immigrants, let alone distinguish between documented and undocumented immigrants, obscuring this important distinction. In fact, the inability to make the latter distinction is not unique to official crime data but characterizes all national data sets that researchers employ. While undocumented residents do, in

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fact, respond to government surveys such as the Decennial Census and the Current Population Survey, these surveys do not ask the foreign-born about their legal status. It is for this reason, Mears (2002: 285) argues, “…we lack reliable and accurate data about inflows and outflows of immigrants as a whole, much less along ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ dimensions.” Immigration and crime researchers must continue to find creative ways to overcome these data challenges moving forward.

References Adelman, Robert M., Yulin Yang, Lesley Williams Reid, James D. Bachmeier, and Mike Maciag. 2020. Using Estimates of Undocumented Immigrants to Study the Immigration-Crime Relationship. Journal of Crime and Justice 44 (4): 375–400. Aranda, Roy. 2016. Living in the Shadows: Plight of the Undocumented. Journal of Clinical Psychology: 72795–72806. Bersani, Bianca E., Adam D.  Fine, Alex R.  Piquero, Laurence Steinberg, Paul J.  Frick, and Elizabeth Cauffman. 2018. Investigating the Offending Histories of Undocumented Immigrants. Migration Letters 15: 147–166. Black, Donald. 1983. Crime as Social Control. American Sociological Review 48: 34–45. Butcher, Kristin F., and Anne M. Piehl. 2005. Crime and immigration: Further Evidence on the Connection. Chicago, Ill: Work. Pap., Fed. Reserve Bank. https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-­/ media/research-­and-­data/events/. Capps, Randy, Julia Gelatt, Ariel G.  Ruiz, Soto, and Jennifer Van Hook. 2020. Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States: Stable Numbers, Changing Origins. Washington, D.C.: Migration Policy Institute. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/ unauthorized-­immigrants-­united-­states-­stable-­numbers-­changing-­origins. Cebula, Richard J. And James V. Koch. 2008. “The Impact of Undocumented Immigration on ID Theft in the United States: An Empirical Study.” The Open Economics Journal 1:37–46. Chavez, Leo R. 2001. Covering Immigration: Popular Images and the Politics of the Nation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Eagly, I.V. 2010. Prosecuting immigration. Northwestern University Law Review 104 (4): 1281–1359. Ewing, Walter A. 2008. Opportunity and Exclusion: A Brief History of US Immigration Policy. Washington, DC: Immigration Policy Center. http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/ special-­reports/opportunity-­and-­exclusion-­brief-­history-­us-­immigration-­policy. Green, David. 2016. The Trump Hypothesis: Testing Immigration Populations as a Determinant of Violent and Drug-Related Crime in the United States. Social Science Quarterly 97: 506–524. Khashu, Anita, Robin Busch, Zainab Latif, and Francesca Levy. 2005. Building Strong Police-­ Immigrant Community Relations: Lessons from a New  York City Project. New  York: Vera. https://www.vera.org/downloads/publications/Building-­Strong-­police-­immigrant-­community-­ relations.pdf. Koulish, R. 2010. Immigration and American Democracy: Subverting the Rule of Law. New York: Routledge. Kubrin, Charis E., and Glenn Trager. 2014. Immigration and Crime in U.S. Communities: Charting Some Promising New Directions in Research. In The Oxford Handbook on Ethnicity, Crime, and Immigration, ed. Sandra M.  Bucerius and Michael Tonry, 529–550. New  York: Oxford University Press. Light, Michael, and Ty Miller. 2018. Does Undocumented Immigration Increase Violent Crime? Criminology 56: 370. Light, Michael, and T. and Ty Miller. 2017. Does Undocumented Immigration Increase Violent Crime? Criminology 56: 370–401.

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Light, Michael T., Ty Miller, and Brian C.  Kelly. 2017. Undocumented Immigration, Drug Problems and Driving Under the Influence in the United States, 1990–2014. American Journal of Public Health 107: 1448–1454. Light, Michael T., Jingying He, and Json P.  Robey. 2020. Comparing Crime Rates between Undocumented Immigrants, Legal Immigrants, and Native-Born US Citizens in Texas. PNAS 117: 32340–32347. Ousey, Graham C., and Charis E. Kubrin. 2009. Exploring the Connection between Immigration and Crime Rates in U.S. Cities, 1980–2000. Social Problems 56: 447–473. Provine, M., M.W. Varsanyi, P.G. Lewis, and S.H. Decker. 2016. Policing Immigrants: Local Law Enforcement on the Front Lines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ramos, Javier, and Marin R.  Wenger. 2020. Immigration and Recidivism: What is the Link? Justice Quarterly 37: 436–460. Rumbaut, Ruben G., and Walter A.  Ewing. 2007. The Myth of Immigrant Criminality and the Paradox of Assimilation: Incarceration Rates among Native and Foreign-Born Men. Washington, D.C.: Immigration Policy Center, American Immigration Law Foundation. Santa Ana, O. 2002. Brown Tide Rising: Metaphors of Latinos in Contemporary American Public Discourse. Austin: University of Texas Press. Schrag, P. 2010. Not Fit for Our Society: Immigration and Nativism in America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Stumpf, Juliet. 2006. The Crimmigration Crisis: Immigrants, Crime, and Sovereign Power. American University Law Review 56: 367–419. Trager, Glenn, and Charis E.  Kubrin. 2014. Complicating the Immigration-Crime Nexus: Theorizing the Role of Gender in the Relationship between Immigration and Crime. In The Oxford Handbook of Gender, Sex, and Crime, ed. Rosemary Gartner and Bill McCarthy, 527–548. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2018. Aligning Public Policy, Criminological Theory, and Empirical Findings on the Immigration-Crime Relationship. In Criminology and Public Policy: Putting Theory to Work, ed. Scott Decker and Kevin Wright, 146–168. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Chapter 6

Harsh, Restrictive, and Exclusionary: How Do Immigration Policies and Practices Matter?

As noted in the introductory chapter, the U.S. has experienced diverse waves of immigration over the course of its history. Despite variations in the historical period or origins of immigrants, new arrivals are consistently viewed as racially, ethnically, religiously, or politically suspect (Ewing 2012). Recall that alongside feelings of pride about residing in a nation of immigrants, Americans express concerns about immigrants’ integration into society and most of all worry that immigrants bring crime. The zeitgeist then, as now, is one of ambivalence. Immigration policies reflect this collective ambivalence. As Ewing (2012) describes it, the history of immigration policy in the U.S. is one of both “opportunity and exclusion.” On the one hand, immigration was not numerically restricted or regulated until 100 years after the “founding” of the nation. On the other hand, once introduced, restrictions were biased against particular groups or nationalities, including criminals, prostitutes, and Chinese contract laborers. A review of history reveals that, broadly speaking, the rules governing immigration in the U.S. change frequently and often arbitrarily. They commonly ignore historical forces driving immigration, diverge from U.S. economic interests, are contradictory, and appear to be shaped more by public fears and anxieties than by sound public policy (Ewing 2012: 1–2). Even today, “…the United States remains as collectively conflicted as ever when it comes to the issue of immigration” (Ewing 2012: 7). Thus, while some contemporary immigration policies and practices are welcoming and integrative, they exist alongside—and are far outnumbered by—others, which are characterized as harsh, restrictive, and exclusionary.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. E. Kubrin, G. C. Ousey, Immigration and Crime, SpringerBriefs in Criminology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22839-1_6

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Harsh, Restrictive, and Exclusionary Harsh, restrictive, and exclusionary immigration policies and practices have become the norm today. Examples of this abound. First, it is challenging and costly to obtain citizenship through proper legal channels (though there are differences in citizenship attainment associated with characteristics like origin, immigrant visa class, and mode of entering as a newly arriving immigrant or as a nonimmigrant (Woodrow-­ Lafield et al. 1994; Yang 1994)). Among applicants who have the time and resources to apply, “What is striking—and strikingly unappreciated in both public and scholarly discourse—is that thousands of applicants are denied naturalization each year” (Ryo and Humphrey 2022: 14–15). Denials have been steadily increasing even as the total number of (nonmilitary) naturalization applications increased in the past decade, from about 697,700 in 2010 to about 962,700 in 2020, reflecting a roughly 38 percent increase (Ryo and Humphrey 2022: 16–17). Indeed, in 2010, around 56,200 applications were denied, a figure which grew to over 80,200 in 2020. At its peak in the past decade, the highest number of denials in a given year reached almost 97,000 in 2019 (Ryo and Humphrey 2022: 16–17). Beyond increasing denials, the current system also suffers from problems of delay for applicants, a situation exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic (Ryo and Humphrey 2022: 18). In recent years, the backlogs are so substantial that a class action lawsuit has been filed against U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to identify reasons for the delays. These trends, according to Ryo and Humphrey (2022: 19), reveal that North’s (1987) decades-old characterization of the U.S. naturalization process as a “long grey welcome” continues to be apt. Second, deportations of immigrants are among the highest in the U.S. history. Policies designed to accelerate deportations were introduced decades ago. For millions of unauthorized immigrants, the Crime Bill signed into law by President Clinton made deportation a constant threat, made it harder for undocumented immigrants to “get legal,” and expanded deportation eligibility in three ways (Rosenblum and Meissner 2014). One involved an expansion of an existing category of laws to increase the likelihood of removal and speed up the expulsion process. Another centered on increasing numbers of immigration enforcement personnel and building up enforcement infrastructure and technology. Finally, a third laid the groundwork for operational and policy decisions that increased barriers to obtaining legal status for undocumented immigrants. The result of these changes was the removal of a record number of unauthorized immigrants at a furious pace (Kubrin 2021). Deportations increased dramatically from roughly 70,000 in 1996 to nearly 420,000 in 2012 (Rosenblum and Meissner 2014: 10), earning the U.S. a reputation as a “deportation nation” (Kanstrom 2007). While lower today, removals remain high compared to historical norms (see Fig.  6.1), and deportation operations continue to be central to the “formidable machinery” of immigration enforcement (Rosenblum and Meissner 2014: 10). Third, there has been a steep rise in laws that criminalize immigrant status, most notably Arizona’s SB1070 passed by voters in 2010. Among other things, SB1070

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U.S. deportations of immigrants slightly up in 2018 In thousands, by fiscal year and criminal status

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Fig. 6.1  U.S. Deportations 2001–2018. (Source: Pew Research Center, https://www.pewresearch. org/wp-­content/uploads/2020/08/ft_2020.08.20_immigrants_11.png?resize=640,385)

made it a misdemeanor for undocumented immigrants to be within Arizona state lines without legal documents, required authorities to investigate an individual’s legal status during an arrest when there is “reasonable suspicion” that an individual is undocumented, and allowed state and local police to detain anyone thought to be in the country illegally. Although ultimately deemed unconstitutional, SB 1070 generated copycat laws. Among them are Georgia’s HB 87 (2011), which required private employers to use an employment eligibility verification system and provided authority for law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration laws and to verify the status of foreign nationals; Florida’s HB 1C (2010), which made it unlawful for undocumented immigrants in Florida to apply for work or work as an independent contractor and forbade employers from hiring immigrants if they are aware of illegal status; and, Alabama’s HB 56 (2011), among the harshest, which prohibited police officers from releasing an arrestee before their immigration status is determined, did not allow undocumented immigrants to receive any state benefit, prohibited them from enrolling in public colleges and applying for work or soliciting work in a public space, prohibited landlords from renting property to undocumented immigrants and employers from hiring them, and required residents to prove they are citizens before they become eligible to vote. Critics argue that these initiatives produced the criminalization of undocumented immigrants, or “crimmigration” (Stumpf 2006), because before their enactment, being in the U.S. illegally was a civil not criminal offense. Fourth, there is ongoing effort to have local law enforcement police immigrants in new and complex ways, referred to as “the devolution of immigration enforcement” (Provine et al. 2016). Historically, the federal government was solely responsible for enforcing immigration law, while the state and local police lacked the

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power to do so. This has changed over the last several decades, as recent immigration legislation encourages “shared responsibility.” Spurred by policies such as the Secure Communities Program, the Criminal Alien Program, and 287g agreements that —in different but complementary ways—provided necessary resources and training, local officials have become more proactive in enforcing immigration statutes, a trend we explore in greater depth later on in the chapter. Fifth, immigration detention, including policies of detaining individuals suspected of visa violations, illegal entry or unauthorized arrival, and individuals potentially subject to deportation for violations, has risen dramatically—a trend described as “striking” (Chacon 2014: 621), as revealed in Fig.  6.2. Indeed, the number of people held on an average day by Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), and its predecessor The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), has grown more than 20-fold since 1979 (https://www.themarshallproject. org/2019/09/24/detained). At the same time, the average number of days in detention has risen dramatically from 3 in 1979 to 33 in 2019. Not surprisingly, federal spending on detention has grown concomitantly. In 2010, fiscal year ICE custody operations appropriations totaled $1.8 billion; just 8 years later, in 2018, that figure rose to $3.1 billion (https://github.com/themarshallproject/dhs_immigration_ detention). What caused this growth in immigrant detention? Certainly, the devolution policies just described played a major role. Beyond that, growth in immigration detention is intertwined with national security concerns as the U.S. government used detention as a key response to widespread concern over national security in the wake of al-Qaeda’s September 11, 2001 attack on the U.S. (Chacon 2014: 621). Whatever the sources, critics underscore the point that immigration detention is a civil matter and as such, detained individuals are not entitled to the same protections that apply if they were being detained for a crime, most notably constitutional protections against lengthy pretrial detention and the right to counsel at the government’s expense. For this reason and others—being separated from family, residing

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Fig. 6.2  Immigrant detention, 1979–2019. (Source: https://github.com/themarshallproject/dhs_ immigration_detention/blob/61401a674f79680b18717d992808f5284a42c031/detention.csv)

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in inadequate conditions, and lack of easy access to medical services—detention is considered punitive and is experienced as such by immigrants (Chacon 2014). Finally, there are former President Trump’s executive orders, the effects of which the U.S. is still experiencing today. Two hundred days into his Presidency, Donald Trump signed a record-number 42 executive orders, directing members of the executive branch to follow new policy or directive. Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, by comparison, had signed only half as many executive orders at the same point in their terms in office. Many of President Trump’s orders were aimed at immigrants and their control. The Executive Order on Border Security, for example, instructed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to begin construction of a 1900-mile long wall along the southern border with Mexico. It also called for “beefing up” the border with 5000 additional patrol agents, directed DHS to construct detention facilities at or near the southern border, and assigned asylum officers and immigration judges to those facilities to conduct interviews and hearings. Another, the Executive Order on Interior Enforcement, forbade sanctuary jurisdictions (discussed below) from receiving federal grants, and encouraged increased policing of immigrants at the local level by directing DHS to enter into 287g agreements and by reinstituting the Secure Communities Program, which had gone defunct during the Obama administration. This order also mandated an increase of 10,000 additional ICE agents and called for the creation of a new office, VOICE (Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement), to serve the needs of victims and their families who have been affected by crimes committed by individuals with a nexus to immigration. Yet a third, the Executive Order on Refugees (often referred to as the travel ban), severely limited the flow of individuals from certain countries into the U.S. Notably, this harsh, restrictive, and exclusionary immigration policy and practice rests on a fundamental assumption of immigrant criminality—an assumption that does not bear out empirically, as Chaps. 4 and 5 of this Brief have convincingly demonstrated. At the same time, these policies and practices, as hinted at above, are best understood as extensions of policies and practices enacted decades prior.

Broader Policy Context The above-mentioned policies and practices did not appear overnight, nor did they emerge from nowhere. Legislation advanced decades prior—during the 1980s and 1990s—helped set the stage. Signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), for example, was the first major revision of America’s immigration laws in decades. It passed after years of acrimonious debate (Kubrin 2021). What IRCA may be best known for is providing a foundation for the “thickening of the border” (Rosas 2015: 119), with increased funding for policing efforts, equipment, and technology, as well as detention

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centers. These border initiatives were significantly enhanced just a few years later when President Bill Clinton authorized the 1994 Crime Bill. In a speech delivered in 1993, President Clinton announced a multiyear immigration initiative, marking the starting point of his administration’s plan for large-scale immigration reform. Undergirding the plan was a recognition of the benefits—and challenges—associated with immigration to the U.S. Among the latter was “a legacy of more than 3.5 million [undocumented] immigrants, uncontrolled movement across the Southwest border, and growing concern about the State and local fiscal impact of [undocumented] immigration” (President’s Report). Against this backdrop, Clinton signed The Crime Bill into law on September 13, 1994, authorizing $3 billion over 5 years to achieve five key initiatives: (1) strengthen border control, (2) expedite deportation for undocumented individuals and those with criminal convictions, (3) reform the asylum-seeking process, (4) develop a database to track immigrants’ legal status, and (5) reimburse states for the costs of incarcerating undocumented immigrants convicted of crimes (see Kubrin 2021 for a discussion of each of these). Initiatives that expanded many of these strategic goals later appeared in the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA), signed into law by President Clinton in 1996. Consistent with the Crime Bill, IIRAIRA sought to strengthen the rule of law by “cracking down on illegal immigration at the border… and in the criminal justice system—without punishing those living in the United States legally.” These initiatives invented immigration enforcement as we know it today.

Case Study—Devolution of Immigration Enforcement As mentioned in passing earlier in the chapter, state and local law enforcement have faced increasing demands to become more involved in enforcing immigration laws in their communities, something to which they had not been accustomed. Historically, immigration enforcement was left to the federal government. But over the past few decades, legislation has been introduced to create closer ties between local police departments and federal officials tasked with immigration enforcement. Until the early 2000s, a long-standing policy of the Department of Justice prohibited the local enforcement of civil immigration violations. As such, state and local police were not empowered to arrest and detail violators, something that was considered the special responsibility of the (then) Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS). In 2002, the Bush Administration’s Office of Legal Counsel issued a memorandum claiming that local law enforcement officials now have “inherent” authority to make arrests for civil immigration violations, overturning earlier interpretations of federal law. Local officials became empowered—indeed, were strongly encouraged—to police immigration in their communities (Kubrin and Trager 2014), thus marking the beginning of the “devolution of immigration enforcement” (Koulish 2010; Provine et al. 2012). Strategies for getting local law enforcement

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involved followed two tracks. First, measures granted local police the authority to identify and begin the process of deporting unauthorized immigrants. And second, the federal government offered incentives and inducements to local police agencies, and even individual police officers, encouraging them to become more proactive in enforcing immigration statutes. Several policies and practices illustrate the devolution of immigration enforcement. Among the most widely recognized are 287(g) agreements or partnerships, which authorize federal authorities to deputize local law enforcement agencies to perform tasks such as screening individuals for their immigration status, issuing detainers to hold potential violators, and issuing charging documents to initiate removal proceedings. Although 287(g) agreements were authorized as part of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA), discussed earlier, the first 287(g) agreement was implemented in 2002 after the law was given new urgency following the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. The number of state and local law enforcement agencies with 287(g) agreements increased to 72 in 2011 before declining to 35 by the end of the Obama Administration. In 2017, President Trump issued Executive Orders 13,767 and 13,768, directing executive agencies to encourage maximum participation of local law enforcement agencies in the 287(g) Program. During the Trump Administration, from January 2017 until September 2020, the number of agreements increased by more than 300 percent, from 35 to 150 (Congressional Research Service 2021). Another example is Secure Communities, a program implemented by the federal government to improve the efficiency of interior immigration enforcement and to enhance the capacity for targeting deportable individuals with criminal convictions, referred to as “criminal aliens.” In particular, Secure Communities provides a system that automatically transmits and checks fingerprints against the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT), which contains information on known immigration violators, known and suspected terrorists, and “criminal aliens,” among others. A fingerprint match prompts Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC) officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to investigate, determine the individual’s immigration status, and forward their conclusion to the relevant ICE field office. If ICE decides to take action, a detainer is issued to the law enforcement agency requesting that the individual be detained for up to 48 hours so that ICE can assume custody. Finally, there is the Criminal Alien Program, which provides ICE-wide direction and support in the identification, arrest, and removal of priority “criminal aliens” who are incarcerated within federal, state, and local prisons and jails as well as at-­ large “criminal aliens” who have circumvented identification. Advocates describe these programs and partnerships (see Fig. 6.3) as a “force multiplier” to enhance interior immigrant enforcement by federal officials (Kubrin 2014: 3). Significant funding was awarded to develop these policies, particularly the 287(g) Program (Congressional Research Service 2021). At the same time, the federal government threatened to withhold federal funds from jurisdictions that did not comply with these policies and practices.

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Fig. 6.3  Devolution policies and practices

Criticism Recent immigration enforcement efforts have faced widespread scrutiny. According to critics, the devolution of what was largely an exclusive federal responsibility has meant that not just law enforcement agencies but local mayors, county executives, city councils, state attorneys general, hospital administrators, housing inspectors, emergency room workers, and ESL program coordinators—to name a few—have been pressed into the role of immigration enforcement. There are reasons for concern. For starters, devolution policies and practices do not enhance public safety, as originally thought. One study of Secure Communities, for example, found the program was associated with a less than 1% reduction in murder, rape, larceny, and vehicle theft (Treyger et al. 2014). Another reports it had “no observable effect on the overall crime rate” (Cox and Miles 2013:abstract). These findings are consistent with related studies on the effects of local involvement in immigration law enforcement more generally (Kirk et al. 2012; Koper et al. 2013). Why is this the case? Devolution’s foundational assumptions are flawed. Contrary to popular belief, and as reviewed extensively in Chaps. 4 and 5, research finds immigrants are not more crime-prone than their native-born counterparts and immigration to an area does not

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cause crime rates to rise. At the same time, devolution does not target the right offenders. The pettiest of offenders constitute the bulk of those identified. Treyger et al. (2014) found that the most radical expansion of “criminal aliens” removed between 2004 and 2012 was for, of all things, traffic offenses. But it’s not just that devolution policies are ineffective; they may end up doing more harm than good (Kubrin 2014). Police-community relations can break down. Enforcing immigration law counteracts efforts to engage more closely with the community (Armenta 2018; Kirk et al. 2012; Provine et al. 2016). Police require the trust and cooperation of residents, including immigrants, to do their job effectively. They also rely on the willingness of victims and bystanders to cooperate with investigations (Kubrin 2014; see also Martinez-Schuldt and Martinez 2021). Deteriorating relations with police may cause crime to increase. Immigrants may choose not to report crime or victimization to law enforcement authorities because they fear the police, exacerbating victims’ vulnerability and emboldening criminals. Beyond the impact on public safety, there are potential abuses with devolution policies and practices. Police officers who prefer more aggressive immigration enforcement, for example, might make arrests for offenses that otherwise would be too petty, in an attempt to screen a person through Homeland Security databases (Kubrin 2014). This could lead to racial profiling and more lawsuits against police departments. Finally, devolution policies have significant human costs. The individual being deported is not the only one affected: innocent family members, especially children, remain behind and become victims (Kubrin 2014). The Urban Institute assessed the impact of immigration workplace raids on children and families. The results are frightening. Among the many impacts, the children left behind bear the psychological trauma of having a parent deported, experience economic insecurity, and face the prospect of foster care (Chaudry et al. 2010).

The Fight Against Devolution Today, many local jurisdictions reject devolution efforts through sanctuary policies, which expressly limit local officials’ involvement in the enforcement of federal immigration law. Sanctuary jurisdictions are towns, cities, and even states, where local officials push back against the enforcement priorities of the federal government, and the demands of their state legislatures, and continue to emphasize the role of the police in serving all residents. In Skogan’s (2009: 198) words: “When it comes to policing, what supposed sanctuary cities have in common is that their police have been instructed to make enforcement of immigration laws a very low priority. They do not participate in the 287(g) Program. They may not ask apparent immigrants about their status or even place of birth, perhaps even when they arrest them. They frequently prohibit officers from inquiring about citizenship when they apprehend them for minor traffic offenses or misdemeanors. They do not immediately turn people with suspect documentation over to federal immigration

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authorities. They do not make arrests based on immigration holds placed in the national ‘wanted persons’ database. They certainly do not make inquiries about the status of crime victims or people they interview during investigations.” This does not mean that residents in sanctuary jurisdictions are insulated from any immigration enforcement, rather the goal is to limit local enforcement’s role, leaving this task to the federal government, as was historically the practice in the U.S. Not surprisingly, the anti-immigrant lobby has pushed back hard against the sanctuary movement. They suggest sanctuary jurisdictions “breed crime” by encouraging illegal immigration and undermining federal enforcement efforts—arguments Donald Trump frequently touted during his presidency (https://www.nbcbayarea. com/news/local/They-­B reed-­C rime-­P resident-­Trump-­T hreatens-­o n-­F ox-­t o-­ Defund-­California-­if-­it-­Becomes-­Sanctuary-­State-­412881453.html). Indeed, Trump’s executive orders claimed “These jurisdictions have caused immeasurable harm to the American people and to the very fabric of our Republic” (https://www. whitehouse.gov/presidential-­actions/executive-­order-­enhancing-­public-­safety-­ interior-­united-­states/). Do sanctuary policies, in fact, threaten public safety? Only a handful of studies attempt to answer this question but their findings are remarkably consistent: sanctuary jurisdictions are not associated with higher crime rates. Martinez-Schuldt and Martinez (2017) examine whether the adoption of city-­ level sanctuary policies increase homicide and robbery rates in 107 U.S. cities over three decades. Their findings show that the adoption of sanctuary policies is associated with a reduction in robberies and has no impact, one way or another, on homicide. Another study by O’Brien et  al. (2019) analyzes the effects of sanctuary policies on violent and property crime rates across a matched sample of U.S. cities. They report slightly more crime in sanctuary cities but the effects are very small and not statistically significant. A third study by Hausman (2020) estimates the effect of sanctuary policies on both deportations and crime across U.S. counties. Hausman (2020) finds that sanctuary policies reduced deportations by about one-third (relative to the counterfactual trend in those counties) between 2010 and 2015 (such policies had an even larger effect on deportations of people with no convictions, which fell by over half, and had no consistent effect on deportations of people with violent convictions). More relevant here, Hausman (2020) finds that sanctuary policies had no effect on crime rates (pg. 27,262). Bolstering these findings are results from a related study, which assesses crime rates in the aftermath of California becoming a sanctuary state (Kubrin and Bartos 2020). The passage of Senate Bill 54, which made California a sanctuary state in 2017, was immediately blamed for rising crime rates, a claim absent empirical investigation. Using a novel method of policy analysis to compare crime rates in California with and without SB54, Kubrin and Bartos (2020) find that the legislation’s impact on statewide violent and property crime was null. Stated alternatively, SB54 did not have a significant impact on either violent or property crime. As Martinez et al. (2018: 8) conclude in a review of the research, “Findings from the robust literature on the immigration-crime link…as well as those from recent studies examining the relationships between limited cooperation policies and crime are clear…Neither immigration nor limited cooperation policies are directly

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positively associated with higher rates of crime.” Yet Martinez and his colleagues also acknowledge that, “Despite these consistent and reliable findings, many policymakers continue to question unauthorized migration and limited cooperation policies on the basis of public safety concerns” (pg. 8). What are the implications for crime policy in the U.S.? Immigration policy?

Policy Implications The findings reviewed in this chapter, reinforced by a substantial literature which shows that immigrants are less crime prone than their native-born counterparts and that immigration to an area does not cause crime rates to rise, suggest that little is to be gained in terms of crime control by adopting devolution policies and punishing sanctuary jurisdictions specifically or, more broadly, by enacting harsh, restrictive, and exclusionary policies aimed at immigrants and immigration (Kubrin and Bartos 2020). This conclusion is echoed by other scholars, including Gottfredson and Hirschi (2020: 166), who ask: “Could changes in immigration policy be an effective way to affect the crime problem in the United States?” After reviewing the extensive literature and discussing the nature of crime as well as immigration, they conclude: “Overall, immigrants to the United States appear to have similar or lower rates of crime as those of established citizens—an established finding for legal immigrants and the most plausible hypothesis for illegal immigrants as well. It is thus not legitimate to blame the street crime problem on immigration and to suggest that major reductions in crime in the United States will follow from any proposed changes to immigration policies” (pg. 183). Gottfredson and Hirschi also point out that any significant criminal justice costs associated with immigration are not due to crime as critics of sanctuary policies claim, but rather are (paradoxically) associated with the enforcement of immigration-related policies. It is for these reasons scholars maintain that the “discourse has less to do with crime and safety concerns and more with what Chavez (2008) describes as the ‘Latino Threat’ narrative as well as public conceptualizations of what [it] means to be ‘real American.’ That is, the ‘rule of law’ trope often deployed by opponents of limited cooperation policies serves as a color-blind, race-neutral guise for xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment, which are ultimately products of a larger racialized social system…We believe this helps explain why certain segments of the polity continue to recycle empirically inaccurate arguments that limited cooperation policies and noncitizens, more broadly, represent public safety concerns” (Martinez et al. 2018: 9). What will happen next? The future of immigration policies and practices, including those reviewed in this chapter, remains unknown. Yet, as part of a commitment to “modernize” and “restore humanity and American values to our immigration system,” President Joe Biden has sent a sweeping reform bill to Congress. It prioritizes “keeping families together, growing the economy, responsibly managing the border

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with smart investments, addressing the root causes of migration from Central America, and ensuring that the U.S. remains a refuge for those fleeing persecution.” With this new federal agenda, comprehensive immigration reform has been vaulted to the forefront of public discourse once again. Of course, we cannot predict if things will really change or if reform will simply look like, as it often does, business as usual.

References Armenta, Amada. 2018. Policing and Punishing Illegality in the United States. In The Routledge Handbook of Immigration and Crime, ed. Holly Ventura Miller and Anthony Peguero, 236–247. London: Routledge. Chacon, Jennifer M. 2014. Immigration Detention: No Turning Back? South Atlantic Quarterly 113: 621–628. Chaudry, Ajay, Randy Capps, Juan Manuel Pedroza, Rosa Maria Castañeda, Robert Santos, and Molly M.  Scott. 2010. Facing Our Future Children in the Aftermath of Immigration Enforcement. Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Chavez, Leo R. 2008. The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Congressional Research Service. 2021. The 287(g) Program: State and Local Immigration Enforcement. Report Accessed Here: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11898. Cox, Adam B., and Thomas J.  Miles. 2013. Policing Immigration. University of Chicago Law Review 80: 87–136. Ewing, Walter A. 2012. Opportunity and Exclusion: A Brief History of U.S. Immigration Policy. Washington, DC: Immigration Policy Center. Gottfredson, Michael, and Travis Hirschi. 2020. Modern Control Theory and the Limits of Criminal Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hausman, David K. 2020. Sanctuary Policies Reduce Deportations Without Increasing Crime. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117 (44): 27262–27267. Kanstrom, Daniel. 2007. Deportation Nation: Outsiders in American History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kirk, David, Andrew V. Papachristos, Jeffrey Fagan, and Tom R. Tyler. 2012. The Paradox of Law Enforcement in Immigrant Communities: Does Tough Immigration Enforcement Undermine Public Safety? The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 641: 79–98. Koper, Christopher S., Thomas M.  Guterbock, Daniel J.  Woods, Bruce Taylor, and Timothy J.  Carter. 2013. The Effects of Local Immigration Enforcement on Crime and Disorder. Criminology & Public Policy 12: 239–276. Koulish, Robert. 2010. Immigration and American Democracy: Subverting the Rule of Law. New York: Routledge. Kubrin, Charis E. 2014. Secure or Insecure Communities?: Seven Reasons to Abandon the Secure Communities Program. Criminology & Public Policy 13: 323–338. ———. 2021. Control and Compassion: The 1994 Crime Bill and Immigration. Council on Criminal Justice. https://counciloncj.foleon.com/reports/crime-­bill/iv-­immigration/. Kubrin, Charis E. and Glenn Trager. 2014. “Immigration and Crime in U.S. Communities: Charting Some Promising New Directions in Research.” Pp. 529-550 in Sandra M. Bucerius and Michael Tonry (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook on Ethnicity, Crime, and Immigration. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Kubrin, Charis E., and Bradley Bartos. 2020. Sanctuary Status and Crime in California: What’s the Connection? Justice Evaluation Journal 3: 115–133. Martínez, Daniel E., Ricardo D.  Martínez-Schuldt, and Guillermo Cantor. 2018. Providing Sanctuary or Fostering Crime? A Review of the Research on ‘Sanctuary Cities’ and Crime. Sociology Compass 12 (e12547): 1–13. Martinez-Schuldt, Ricardo D., and Daniel E. Martinez. 2017. Sanctuary Policies and City-Level Incidents of Violence, 1990 to 2010. Justice Quarterly 36: 567–593. ———. 2021. Immigrant Sanctuary Policies and Crime-Reporting Behavior: A Multilevel Analysis of Reports of Crime Victimization to Law Enforcement, 1980 to 2004. American Sociological Review 86 (1): 154–185. North, David S. 1987. The Long Grey Welcome: A Study of the American Naturalization Program. International Migration Review xxi (2): 311–326. O’Brien, Benjamin Gonzalez, Loren Collingwood, and Stephen Omar El-Khatib. 2019. The Politics of Refuge: Sanctuary Cities, Crime, and Undocumented Immigration. Urban Affairs Review 55: 3–40. Provine, Doris Marie, Monica Varsanyi, Paul G.  Lewis, and Scott H.  Decker. 2012. Growing Tensions between Civic Membership and Enforcement in the Devolution of Immigration Control. In Punishing Immigrants: Policy, Politics and Injustice, ed. Charis E. Kubrin, Marjorie S. Zatz, and Ramiro Martinez Jr. New York: New York University Press. Provine, Doris Marie, Monica W. Varsanyi, Paul G. Lewis, and Scott H. Decker. 2016. Policing Immigrants: Local Law Enforcement on the Front Lines. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rosas, Gilberto. 2015. The Border Thickens: In-Securing Communities after IRCA. International Migration 54: 119–130. Rosenblum, Marc R., and Doris Meissner. 2014. The Deportation Dilemma: Reconciling Tough and Humane Enforcement. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. Ryo, Emily, and Reed Humphrey. 2022. Citizenship Disparities. Forthcoming in Minnesota Law Review. Skogan, Wesley G. 2009. Policing Immigrant Communities in the United States. In Immigration, Crime and Justice, ed. William F. McDonald. New York: Emerald Group. Stumpf, Juliet. 2006. The Crimmigration Crisis: Immigrants, Crime, and Sovereign Power. American University Law Review 56: 367–419. Treyger, Elina, Aaron Chalfin, and Charles Loeffler. 2014. Immigration Enforcement, Policing, and Crime Evidence from the Secure Communities Program. Criminology & Public Policy 13: 285–322. Woodrow-Lafield, Karen A., Xu Xiaohe, Thomas Kersen, and Bunnak Poch. 1994. Naturalization of U.S. Immigrants: Highlights from Ten Countries. Population Research and Policy Review 23 (3): 187–218. Yang, Philip Q. 1994. Explaining Immigrant Naturalization. International Migration Review 28 (3): 449–477.

Chapter 7

Conclusion

Although the United States was founded by immigrants leaving one country in search of more freedom and better opportunities in another, immigration has long been a contentious and troubled issue for the country. Despite their importance to both historical and contemporary American life, immigrants continue to conjure negative impressions. These impressions are rooted in a key assumption: that immigration and crime go hand in hand. In this Brief, we interrogate this assumption, discussing the most salient questions, theories, data, research findings, and policies relevant to the immigration–crime nexus. Just as there are plausible reasons—theoretical and otherwise—to believe that immigration and immigrants are associated with crime, there are seemingly as many sound and logical arguments which suggest the opposite. Efforts to examine the precise mechanisms underlying these theories are still rudimentary, in part because researchers, to date, have been limited by available data. Yet, there are sizable bodies of scholarship at both the macro- and micro-levels that offer key insights into the nature of the immigration–crime relationship. These bodies of work are diverse—in the specific questions asked, the populations studied, and the data and measures used. This diversity is essential because immigration is complex, and immigrants differ from one another in key ways that matter for crime. At the same time, important commonalities in research findings allow us to offer conclusions. One is simply that long-standing concerns about immigration as a major source of crime are unfounded. At the macro-level, the vast majority of studies indicate that places experiencing more immigration have less (or roughly equivalent) crime as places experiencing less immigration. Immigration’s crime suppressing impact is most notable for violent crime, especially homicide, and in places where there are well-established immigrant populations and where the social and political environments, and municipal policies, are pro-immigrant. At the micro-level, studies consistently document that foreign-born individuals—first-­ generation immigrants—are less involved in crime as both offenders and victims compared to the native-born, including the children of immigrants (i.e., the second © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. E. Kubrin, G. C. Ousey, Immigration and Crime, SpringerBriefs in Criminology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22839-1_7

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generation). This pattern of findings—negative or null relationships between measures of immigration and crime—is also evident in studies of undocumented immigrants specifically. Despite what empirical research says, immigration policy in the U.S. remains harsh, restrictive, and exclusionary, reflecting policies and practices from federal to local levels that target immigrants, immigrant families, and immigrant communities in the name of public safety. But to what end? If the foundation of these policies is an assumed link between immigration and crime, which does not bear out empirically, they are likely to fail. Even worse, they may introduce new public safety challenges that affect both immigrants and the native-born alike. Crime policy, including that related to immigration, should be based on empirical reality, not stereotype and moral panics. For much of our history, this has not been the case. We hope that, moving forward, the substantial body of work that now exists on the immigration–crime nexus can serve as the foundation for policy-making in this area. And we hope that this Brief, which documents that work, is a useful resource.

Index

C Citizenship, 34, 35, 37, 38, 58, 59, 82, 89 Concepts, 5, 16, 29, 35, 63 Crime, 3–6, 9–22, 27–39, 47–63, 71, 72, 75–79, 81, 82, 84–86, 88–91, 95, 96 Criminal alien program, 84, 87 Crimmigration, 6, 72, 83 Cross-sectional, 52, 53, 77 Culture, 3, 10, 14, 20–22, 35, 53, 56, 58, 72, 76 D Data, 4–6, 27–41, 47, 48, 52, 53, 63, 71–73, 77–79, 95 Demographic, 10, 11, 21, 31–33, 35, 49, 54, 63, 71, 77 Deportation, 12, 34, 61, 75, 76, 82–84, 86, 90 Destination context, 31, 60 Detention, 84, 85 Devolution of immigration enforcement, 6, 83, 86–91 E Empirical evidence, 76 G Generational status, 55–57

I Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA), 86, 87 Immigrant diversity, 48, 58 Immigrants, 1–6, 9–22, 27–41, 47, 48, 50, 52–63, 71–79, 81–89, 91, 95, 96 Immigration, 1–6, 9–18, 20–22, 27–41, 47–63, 71–79, 81–92, 95, 96 Immigration reform and control act (IRCA), 85 L Legal status, 11, 31, 37, 39, 55, 71, 72, 75–77, 79, 82, 83, 86 Longitudinal, 34, 36–41, 52–55, 77 M Macro-level, 5, 9, 10, 27–29, 33–36, 39, 47, 50–52, 54, 57, 60, 62, 63, 71, 77, 78, 95 Measurement, 30, 38, 49 Micro-level, 5, 9, 17–20, 27, 28, 34–39, 47, 54–56, 58, 71, 76, 78, 95 Moral panic, 2, 3, 96 P Peer influence, 18, 19, 22 Policy, 2–6, 28, 31, 32, 34, 35, 47, 53, 57, 60, 61, 72, 73, 75, 81–92, 95, 96 Policy context, 85

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 C. E. Kubrin, G. C. Ousey, Immigration and Crime, SpringerBriefs in Criminology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22839-1

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98 S Sanctuary status, 90 Secure communities, 84, 85, 87, 88 Social control, 10–12, 15, 16, 21, 53, 61–63 T Theory, 4, 5, 9–22, 27–39, 47, 48, 51, 54, 56, 58, 62, 63, 75, 76, 95

Index Theory testing, 62, 63 287g, 84, 85 U Undocumented, 3, 4, 6, 9, 11, 18, 31, 32, 34, 37, 39, 47, 49, 53, 55, 59, 61, 71–79, 82, 83, 86, 96 Units of analysis, 27–35, 50, 51, 62