{"id":34334,"date":"2026-08-11T15:42:23","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T19:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/?p=34334"},"modified":"2026-08-11T09:45:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T13:45:01","slug":"large-scale-study-finds-no-link-between-crime-and-unauthorized-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/2026\/08\/large-scale-study-finds-no-link-between-crime-and-unauthorized-immigration\/","title":{"rendered":"Large-scale study finds no link between crime and unauthorized immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"

For more than two decades,\u00a0Charis E. Kubrin<\/a>\u00a0has followed the data wherever it leads. As UC Irvine<\/strong> Chancellor\u2019s Professor of Criminology, Law and Society, she has built a career studying one of America\u2019s most politically charged questions: does immigration drive crime?<\/p>\n

Now, in one of the most geographically detailed studies of its kind ever conducted, Kubrin and colleagues have an answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsistent with the research base more generally, unauthorized immigration does not drive crime rates in U.S. neighborhoods<\/strong>,\u201d says Kubrin, the study\u2019s lead author. \u201cHonestly, I wasn’t too surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n

Co-authored with Derek Christopher of Stanford University, Cheyenne Hodgen of UC Irvine, Xiaoshuang Iris Luo of the University of Akron, and John Hipp of UC Irvine, theirs is the\u00a0first study to examine the unauthorized immigration-crime relationship<\/a>\u00a0at the neighborhood level on such a sweeping national scale. Their research, published today in the\u00a0Journal of Urban Affairs<\/em><\/a>, tracked crime trends across 11,500 neighborhoods \u2014 representing 46 million residents \u2014 in diverse U.S. cities between 2010 and 2018.<\/p>\n

What they found: neighborhoods where the share of undocumented residents grew actually saw greater reductions in property crime and no significant change in violent crime, contrary to what many claim.<\/p>\n

The gap between what researchers know and what the public believes is nothing new, Kubrin notes.<\/p>\n

\u201cNearly 100 years ago, the Wickersham Commission published a report showing that involvement in crime is lower among immigrants<\/strong> than the native born,\u201d she says, \u201ca finding that made its way onto the front page of the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0in an article titled, \u2018Wickersham Board Frees Foreign-Born of Big Crime Blame.\u2019 That title says it all.\u201d<\/p>\n

To estimate the undocumented population at the neighborhood level, the research team accessed restricted individual-level Census data through a federal Research Data Center (RDC) and then applied an imputation method similar to those used by the Department of Homeland Security.<\/p>\n

Here is where they relied upon the expertise of Christopher, who received his training at UC Irvine, earning an economics Ph.D. in 2022 before joining Stanford.<\/p>\n

Christopher is one of few academic researchers to have published work leveraging such a method.<\/p>\n

\u201cDifferent versions of these methods have been around for decades. How else would anyone be able to know roughly how many undocumented people are in the United States?,\u201d he says. \u201cAt UCI, I encountered a paper with an adaptation of the methods that I found credible and wondered, \u2018why aren\u2019t more researchers using this?\u2019 So, I reproduced this method and adapted it for a different dataset to address other unanswered questions about the role of undocumented status. But our study, to my knowledge, is the first to apply these methods to the rich data that only exists in the RDC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previous research examined the unauthorized immigration-crime link only at the state and metropolitan-area levels, the researchers say.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile previous studies are clear about the broader relationship between immigration and crime, say, for city crime rates, none has really adequately addressed the concern I still hear along the lines of, \u2018but should I be worried about illegal immigration in my neighborhood, specifically?\u2019 \u201d Christopher explains. \u201cI\u2019m an economist by training, but part of the reason I love working in criminology is that when we provide answers to real concerns like these, we\u2019re not just helping the general public understand, we\u2019re also helping law enforcement understand where to target their efforts to be most effective.\u201d<\/p>\n

One study finding required closer examination.<\/p>\n

While property crime fell and aggravated assaults declined significantly in neighborhoods with growing undocumented populations, robberies went up.<\/p>\n

Does that mean undocumented immigrants are committing more crimes?<\/p>\n

The research team says the evidence points in the opposite direction \u2014 toward victimization, not perpetration<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn increase in robberies, despite decreases in all other crime categories, would be consistent with the idea that undocumented immigrants are disproportionately likely to be targets of robbery given greater involvement in the cash economy,\u201d Hipp explains.<\/p>\n

Because many undocumented individuals lack access to bank accounts and formal financial services, they are more likely to carry cash, making them attractive targets, Hipp notes. Fear of deportation also makes them reluctant to report crimes to police, leaving them more vulnerable. Researchers call it the \u201cWalking ATM\u201d phenomenon, and prior neighborhood-level studies have found consistent evidence for it.<\/p>\n

The study cannot definitively confirm the victimization explanation since the data don\u2019t identify the immigration status of crime victims, but the pattern across all other crime categories makes it the most plausible interpretation, according to the researchers.<\/p>\n

Findings from the study raise questions about the effectiveness of current immigration policies.<\/p>\n

The federal government is spending billions on immigration enforcement, citing public safety as the primary justification. Kubrin says there is little evidence to back up that claim.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s well beyond time to rethink immigration enforcement in this country,\u201d she emphasizes. \u201cThese policies are largely ineffective at enhancing public safety and may actually do more harm than good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enforcement policies, she argues, are built on a flawed premise<\/strong> of widespread immigrant criminality. Beyond that, she says:<\/p>\n