The Effects of Undocumented Mexican Immigration on Victimization Rates Across a Sample of U.S. Cities

• In Event: Latinos, Immigrants, and the Importance of Police Views and Emerging Issues

Abstract

Criminological studies published over the past two decades overwhelmingly reveal that immigrant concentration is often associated with lower rates of crime or at worse, yields no effect. Yet, research on the immigration-crime nexus has yet to establish whether undocumented immigrants, specifically, affect crime and victimization in the aggregate. Building on the work of Martinez-Schudlt and Martinez (2017), we examine whether the undocumented adult Mexican immigrant population affects crime and victimization levels across a sample of large U.S. cities from 2000 to 2019. We address this question by drawing on data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Public Use Microdata Areas (PUMA) files and victimization information from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS).

Authors

• Zariah Pettus, Sam Houston State University

• Javier Ramos, Sam Houston State University