No link between immigration, higher crime

The tragic death of Mollie Tibbetts has fueled a new round of debate over whether immigrants commit more crime. But let’s focus on what the data and research tell us about the issue.

Years of research — using different sources of data, at different levels of analysis, conducted in different time periods, by different authors — continue to show the same finding: Immigrants do not commit crime at higher rates than native-born Americans, and more immigration, in the aggregate, does not lead to more crime. Period.

Some readers will bypass this round of science and then say, “Well, it’s illegal immigration” or “undocumented immigrants” that we’re worried about and point to Tibbetts’ death as an example of a failed immigration or border system. Although we have no precise number of undocumented immigrants, four scientific studies conducted by various researchers using different data sources, including one I was part of, provide no evidence linking illegal im- migration to crime.

We need to follow what the data say. The debate about immigration and crime tends to be one informed more by opinion than data when it should be the other way around. Alex R. Piquero

The University of Texas at Dallas Dallas