By Ana María Ibáñez, Sandra V. Rozo and Dany Bahar

Do undocumented migrants change their propensity to report or commit a crime after receiving a regular migratory status? This paper studies a massive amnesty program that gave regular migratory status to over 281,000 undocumented Venezuelan migrants in Colombia. Findings suggest that the amnesty did not result in more crimes committed by Venezuelan migrants, only an increase in the number of crimes they reported. Results are very strong for reports of domestic violence and sex crimes and are almost entirely driven by Venezuelan women, suggesting that empowerment is an important mechanism underlying the behavior change.

Policy Research Working Paper 9833. New York: The World Bank, 2021. 48p.