Policy-Induced Migrant Busing and the Effects of Immigration on Crime

• In Event: Effects of Aggressive Immigration Enforcement

Abstract

This paper studies the causal impact of policy-induced migrant inflows on local crime and public safety in the United States, leveraging a unique natural experiment generated by Texas’s immigration-enforcement Operation Lone Star. Beginning in April 2022, Texas authorities bused more than 100,000 migrants from border regions to a small set of destination cities, including New York City, Chicago, Denver, and Washington, D.C., often without advance coordination with receiving jurisdictions. These transfers were politically motivated, largely unanticipated, and plausibly exogenous to local economic conditions and pre-existing crime trends, creating a rare opportunity to identify the effects of sudden migration shocks on urban public safety.
We combine novel administrative data on migrant busing with high-frequency, incident-level crime data from the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and harmonized local law enforcement sources for the period 2021–2024. The busing data provide exact information on origin, destination, arrival dates, and passenger counts, allowing us to construct continuous measures of migrant inflow intensity at the city-month level.
Our empirical strategy exploits variation in both the timing and magnitude of migrant arrivals across cities within a difference-in-differences framework. By comparing changes in crime in receiving cities to those in a carefully constructed control group of non-recipient cities with comparable pre-treatment characteristics and crime trends, we estimate the causal effect of migrant inflows on multiple categories of crime, including violent, property, and public-order offenses. Event-study specifications are used to assess pre-trends and to trace the dynamic evolution of treatment effects over time.
In addition, the paper examines a broad set of mechanisms through which migrant arrivals may influence public safety. First, it evaluates institutional responses by local law enforcement, including changes in investigatory stops and arrests, as well as in the composition of reported offenses. Second, it analyzes behavioral responses among existing residents using a triple-difference framework that compares changes in crime across demographic groups. Third, it explores heterogeneity in effects across cities with differing levels of institutional capacity. Finally, it assesses whether migrant arrivals shape public perceptions of immigration and safety in receiving jurisdictions.
By focusing on sudden, externally imposed migrant inflows rather than endogenous migration patterns, this study contributes to the literature on immigration and crime by addressing longstanding concerns about selection bias. The use of granular administrative data, high-frequency outcomes, and modern econometric methods allows for a more credible assessment of how communities respond to rapid demographic change. In doing so, the paper provides new evidence to inform ongoing policy debates about immigration enforcement, migrant relocation programs, and public safety, as well as broader questions about institutional capacity and the social consequences of migration shocks.

Author

• Jose Bucheli, University of Texas - El Paso
  Presenting Author