Trump's crackdown on immigration has not reduced crime rates among immigrants

Have the Trump administration's aggressive immigration measures reduced immigration crime as promised? A University of Wisconsin-Madison study suggests otherwise, showing that immigrant arrests were largely unaffected by stricter policies. By analyzing arrest data from California and Texas, states with opposing immigration policies, researchers found no significant increase or decrease in immigration crime in the early years of Trump's presidency. The results were published in the scientific journal Crime and criminality.

The Trump presidency marked a period of tightened immigration controls, with policies that prioritized the identification, arrest and deportation of undocumented immigrants. This policy direction was based on the government's argument that stricter immigration enforcement would improve public safety by reducing crime committed by immigrants. To assess whether these policy changes actually had an impact on crime rates among immigrants, researchers examined arrest patterns before and during the first years of Trump's presidency.

“Despite speculation about the effectiveness of the Trump presidency, which promised tougher immigration enforcement against suspected criminal immigrants and a decline in crime rates among immigrants, surprisingly little research has directly examined this speculation. This is an important gap because the purported public safety benefits of immigration enforcement continue to influence public policy today,” the researchers explained.

A unique aspect of this study is its focus on two states with completely different approaches to federal immigration enforcement: Texas and California. While Texas embraced Trump's initiatives and worked closely with federal authorities, California resisted and implemented “safeguards” that protected undocumented immigrants from deportation and limited cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

This contrast created a natural framework for evaluating the effectiveness of Trump's policies. If the administration's approach were effective in reducing immigrant crime, Texas would likely see a significant decline in immigrant arrest rates compared to California.

To examine this question, the research team used comprehensive arrest data from the Texas Computerized Criminal History System and the Criminal Offender Record Information Program in California. These databases provided comprehensive arrest records, including demographic details, and allowed researchers to distinguish between immigrant and nonimmigrant arrests in various crime categories such as violent crimes, property crimes, drug crimes, and traffic crimes.

The study period from 2015 to 2018 was divided into two parts: the two years before Trump's inauguration and the first two years of his presidency. By applying statistical analyzes known as “difference-in-differences” and “difference-in-difference-in-differences,” researchers were able to measure any differences in arrest rates between immigrants and nonimmigrants and between Texas and California over time.

To ensure that the observed effects were not due to other factors, the researchers controlled for factors such as income inequality, racial demographics, structural disadvantage and seasonal trends. These controls helped isolate the specific impact of Trump's immigration policies on arrest patterns by controlling for socioeconomic and demographic influences.

The results showed minimal evidence that Trump's immigration policies significantly affected immigrant crime rates. Arrest rates for both immigrants and nonimmigrants remained relatively stable across most crime categories over the sample period. When it comes to violent crime, arrest rates for immigrants in both Texas and California have been consistently lower than for nonimmigrants, a trend that did not change significantly under Trump's policies.

Property and traffic crimes saw slight decreases in Texas, but this decrease reflected a similar decline in the nonimmigrant population, suggesting that they were unlikely to be a direct result of immigration enforcement initiatives. This finding contradicts the expectation that stricter immigration enforcement would deter crime among immigrants or lead to higher arrest rates, particularly for random crimes such as traffic violations.

These results challenge the assumption that stricter immigration enforcement would reduce immigrant crime rates. In fact, the results suggest that immigrant arrest patterns were very similar to those of the general population, with minimal impact from policy changes at the state or federal level during the early Trump administration.

“When it comes to research on the effects of 'protective policies,' our results are consistent with research indicating that there is a largely unrelated relationship between immigrant protective policies and crime,” the researchers wrote. “That is, in states with markedly different responses to the Trump administration’s immigration policies, we see virtually no change in the apprehension of immigrants compared to nonimmigrants.”

The study, “Have Immigrant Arrest Rates Changed During the Trump Administration?” Evidence From California and Texas,” was authored by Michael T. Light, Laura Boisten and Jungmyung Kim.