Over the last 30 years, thousands of dead Latino migrant bodies have been found along the United States-Mexico boundary. These casualties are directly related to the Border Patrol’s “prevention through deterrence” (PTD) policing strategy, which funnels crossing migrants into remote and deadly deserts, mountains, and waterways. In response, local residents have created various formal and informal organizations to help provide life-saving aid to vulnerable crossing migrants. However, President Trump and Border Patrol agents have sought to criminalize and stop the work of humanitarian aid volunteers at the border. The data presented in this brief reveal that the American public overwhelmingly (87%) opposes—including the vast majority of Republicans (71%)—the criminalization of humanitarian aid workers at the border. 

Los Angeles: UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Initiative, 2020. 6p.

By George Fishman

  • Juveniles commit a large number of serious offenses. In 2020, there were 1,353 known juvenile homicide offenders. In 2019, juveniles constituted 21 percent of all arrests for robbery, 20 percent for arson, 17 percent for car theft, 12 percent for burglary, 10 percent for larceny-theft and weapons offenses, eight percent for murder, and seven percent for aggravated assault. In 2012, the last year for which data is available, juveniles accounted for 14 percent of all arrests for forcible rape. • Despite the successful framing of DREAMers and DACA recipients as young people with no criminal records, it turns out that many were affiliated with gangs and many had arrest records when granted DACA benefits, and many others saw their DACA status terminated because of criminal activity. As USCIS has admitted, “[t]he truth is that we let those with criminal arrests for sexually assaulting a minor, kidnapping, human trafficking, child pornography, or even murder be provided protection from removal.” • Juvenile perpetrators are much more likely to be processed through a juvenile justice system than a criminal court. The Los Angeles County District Attorney made the decision (still largely in effect) to not send any juveniles to criminal court, no matter the gravity of their crimes. • Most juveniles adjudicated delinquent in juvenile court are not placed into any sort of out-of-home detention, including for such offenses as aggravated assault and robbery. • Congress has determined that all aliens (regardless of their immigration status) are subject to removal upon conviction for a wide range of crimes. Congress has also determined that aliens are subject to mandatory detention and are ineligible for a wide range of immigration benefits and relief upon conviction for a wide range of crimes.

Washington, DC: Center for Immigration Studies, 2022. 33p.   

By Matt O’Brien, Spencer Raley and Casey Ryan

Advocates of open borders are fond of claiming that illegal aliens commit fewer crimes than native-born U.S. citizens. That makes perfect sense, they assert, because illegal aliens do not wish to be brought to the attention of law enforcement and risk deportation from the United States. In fact, this report finds that in the states examined, illegal aliens are incarcerated up to five and a half times as frequently as citizens and legal immigrants.

Washington, DC: The Federation For American Immigration Reform, 2019. 20p.

By Michelangelo Landgrave and Alex Nowrasteh

Illegal immigration and the crimes illegal immigrants commit are notoriously difficult to measure. This policy analysis is the latest paper in a series that attempts to answer that question by estimating illegal immigrant incarceration rates in the United States by using the American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample from the U.S. Census. This analysis goes beyond previous studies in the series as it updates our residual estimation method based on new research. Furthermore, we apply the updated methods to estimate the illegal immigrant incarceration rates in earlier years.

Washington, DC: CATO Institute, 2020. 16p.

By Annie Laurie Hines and Giovanni Peri

This paper analyzes the impact of immigrant deportations on local crime and police efficiency. Our identification relies on increases in the deportation rate driven by the introduction of the Secure Communities (SC) program, an immigration enforcement program based on local-federal cooperation which was rolled out across counties between 2008 and 2013. We instrument for the deportation rate by interacting the introduction of SC with the local presence of likely undocumented in 2005, prior to the introduction of SC. We document a surge in local deportation rates under SC, and we show that deportations increased the most in counties with a large undocumented population. We find that SC-driven increases in deportation rates did not reduce crime rates for violent offenses or property offenses. Our estimates are small and precise, so we can rule out meaningful effects. We do not find evidence that SC increased either police effectiveness in solving crimes or local police resources. Finally, we do not find effects of deportations on the local employment of unskilled citizens or on local firm creation

Bonn, Germany: IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, 2019. 42p.