Do immigrants threaten my safety?
Watch this brief video where Zeke Hernandez discusses how immigration contributes to safer communities.
Key Insights On immigration and Public Safety
- Immigrants commit fewer crimes than natives, especially undocumented immigrants.
- Perception vs. Reality: Even though immigrants do not increase crime, evidence shows that people strongly believe that they do. This creates unnecessary fear of newcomers and leads us to irrational actions like overspending on needless protective measures.
- The media plays a critical role in how we perceive immigrant criminality, often distorting the issue in ways that enhance fear
- The real security threat: Missing out on the key talent, innovation, and economic gains brought by immigrants can create serious national security threats.
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How To Talk About Immigration
Conversations about immigration can be challenging due to its politicization, leading to avoidance, echo chambers, or confrontations.
This guide offers principles based on expert research and the author’s experiences, aimed at facilitating constructive discussions about immigration.
Case studies/examples
Contributions of Immigrants to the Manhattan Project
- J. O’Neill, “Einstein-Szilard Letter,” American Institute of Physics, accessed July 26, 2024, https://history.aip.org/history/exhibits/einstein/essay-einstein-szilard.htm.
- “Enrico Fermi,” Atomic Heritage Foundation, accessed July 26, 2024, https://www.atomicheritage.org/profile/enrico-fermi.
Contributions of Immigrants to the Space Race
- “Wernher von Braun,” NASA, accessed July 26, 2024, https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/history/vonbraun/bio.html.
Risk Comparisons in Public Safety
- Emmanuelle Saliba, “You’re More Likely to Die Choking than Be Killed by Foreign Terrorists, Data Show,” NBC News, February 1, 2017, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/you-re-more-likely-die-choking-be-killed-foreign-terrorists-n715141.
Innovations in Technology
- Steven Levy, “Huawei, 5G, and the Man Who Conquered Noise,” Wired, November 16, 2020, https://www.wired.com/story/huawei-5g-polar-codes-data-breakthrough/.
Prompting Meaningful Dialogue
- Why is the myth of immigrant criminality so prevalent?
- What steps can communities take to further enhance safety through inclusive immigration policies?
- What are the most important technologies of the last decades that have contributed to national security? How much have immigrants contributed to the development of those technologies?
Further reading and research:
Gallup, “Immigration,” accessed August 15, 2023, https://news.gallup.com/poll/1660/Immigration.aspx.
Amina Dunn, “Shifting Public Views on Legal Immigration into the U.S.,” Pew Research Center, June 28, 2018, https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/06/28/shifting-public-views-on-legal-immigration-into-the-u-s/.
Christian Gunadi, “On the Association Between Undocumented Immigration and Crime in the United States,” Oxford Economic Papers 73, no. 1 (January 1, 2021): 200–224, https://doi.org/10.1093/oep/gpz057.
Graham C. Ousey and Charis E. Kubrin, “Immigration and Crime: Assessing a Contentious Issue,” Annual Review of Criminology 1, no. 1 (2018): 63–84, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-criminol-032317-092026.
Michael T. Light, Jingying He, and Jason P. Robey, “Comparing Crime Rates Between Undocumented Immigrants, Legal Immigrants, and Native-Born US Citizens in Texas,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 51 (December 22, 2020): 32340–47, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2014704117.
Ran Abramitzky, Leah Platt Boustan, Elisa Jacome, Santiago Pérez, and Juan David Torres, “Law-Abiding Immigrants: The Incarceration Gap Between Immigrants and the US-Born, 1850–2020,” Working Paper 31440, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2023, https://doi.org/10.3386/w31440.
Katherine Benton-Cohen, Inventing the Immigration Problem: The Dillingham Commission and Its Legacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018).
Rubén G. Rumbaut, “Undocumented Immigration and Rates of Crime and Imprisonment: Popular Myths and Empirical Realities,” SSRN Scholarly Paper, August 1, 2008, https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1877365.
David K. Hausman, “Sanctuary Policies Reduce Deportations Without Increasing Crime,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 44 (November 3, 2020): 27262–67, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2014673117.
Elina Treyger, Aaron Chalfin, and Charles Loeffler, “Immigration Enforcement, Policing, and Crime,” Criminology and Public Policy 13, no. 2 (2014): 285–322, https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12085.
Nicolás Ajzenman, Patricio Dominguez, and Raimundo Undurraga, “Immigration, Crime, and Crime (Mis)Perceptions,” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 15, no. 4 (2023): 142–76, https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20210156.
Casey T. Harris and Jeff Gruenewald, “News Media Trends in the Framing of Immigration and Crime, 1990–2013,” Social Problems 67, no. 3 (August 1, 2020): 452–70, https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spz024.
“New Study Examines How TV Portrayals of Immigrants Affect Real-Life Actions and Attitudes,” USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, September 30, 2020, http://annenberg.usc.edu/news/research-and-impact/new-study-examines-how-tv-portrayals-immigrants-affect-real-life-actions.
Mathieu Couttenier, Sophie Hatte, Mathias Thoenig, and Stephanos Vlachos, “Anti-Muslim Voting and Media Coverage of Immigrant Crimes,” Review of Economics and Statistics, December 20, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01152.
Andrea Figueroa-Caballero and Dana Mastro, “Examining the Effects of News Coverage Linking Undocumented Immigrants with Criminality: Policy and Punitive Implications,” Communication Monographs 86, no. 1 (January 2, 2019): 46–67, https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2018.1505049.
René D. Flores, “Do Anti-Immigrant Laws Shape Public Sentiment? A Study of Arizona’s SB 1070 Using Twitter Data,” American Journal of Sociology 123, no. 2 (September 2017): 333–84, https://doi.org/10.1086/692983.
Tianyuan Luo and Cesar L. Escalante, “Stringent Immigration Enforcement and the Mental Health and Health-Risk Behaviors of Hispanic Adolescent Students in Arizona,” Health Economics 30, no. 1 (2021): 86–103, https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.4178.
Julia Shu-Huah Wang and Neeraj Kaushal, “Health and Mental Health Effects of Local Immigration Enforcement,” International Migration Review 53, no. 4 (December 1, 2019): 970–1001, https://doi.org/10.1177/0197918318791978.
Elina Treyger, Aaron Chalfin, and Charles Loeffler, “Immigration Enforcement, Policing, and Crime,” Criminology and Public Policy 13, no. 2 (2014): 285–322, https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12085.
Petra Moser, Alessandra Voena, and Fabian Waldinger, “German Jewish Émigrés and US Invention,” American Economic Review 104, no. 10 (October 2014): 3222–55, https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.104.10.3222.
Petra Moser and Shmuel San, “Immigration, Science, and Invention: Lessons from the Quota Acts,” SSRN Scholarly Paper, March 21, 2020, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3558718
Kirk Doran and Chungeun Yoon, “Immigration and Invention: Evidence from the Quota Acts,” Working Paper, University of Notre Dame, n.d.
NAFSA, “Losing Talent: An Economic and Foreign Policy Risk America Can’t Ignore,” NAFSA: Association of International Educators, 2020, https://www.nafsa.org/policy-and-advocacy/policy-resources/losing-talent-economic-and-foreign-policy-risk-america-cant-ignore.
Britta Glennon and Saerom Lee, “The Effect of Immigration Policy on Founding Location Choice: Evidence from Canada’s Start-up Visa Program,” working paper, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 2023, https://www.nber.org/papers/w31634.
“Technologies for American Innovation and National Security,” The White House, February 7, 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/02/07/technologies-for-american-innovation-and-national-security/.