By Pia Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny

Opponents of immigration often claim that immigrants, particularly those who are unauthorized, are more likely than U.S. natives to commit crimes and that they pose a threat to public safety. There is little evidence to support these claims. In fact, research overwhelmingly indicates that immigrants are less likely than similar U.S. natives to commit violent and property crimes, and that areas with more immigrants have similar or lower rates of violent and property crimes than areas with fewer immigrants. There are relatively few studies specifically of criminal behavior among unauthorized immigrants, but the limited research suggests that these immigrants also have a lower propensity to commit crime than their native-born peers, although possibly a higher propensity than legal immigrants. Evidence about legalization programs is consistent with these findings, indicating that a legalization program reduces crime rates. Meanwhile, increased border enforcement, which reduces unauthorized immigrant inflows, has mixed effects on crime rates. A large-scale legalization program, which is not currently under serious consideration, has more potential to improve public safety and security than several other policies that have recently been proposed or implemented.

Dallas: Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, 2019. 19p.

By Tom K. Wong

As the Trump administration begins to implement its immigration policy agenda, the issue of local assistance with federal immigration enforcement officials is back in the spotlight. So-called sanctuary jurisdictions are one focus of that debate. Sanctuary counties—as defined by this report—are counties that do not assist federal immigration enforcement officials by holding people in custody beyond their release date. Using an Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, dataset obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, the analyses in this report provide new insights about how sanctuary counties perform across a range of social and economic indicators when compared to non-sanctuary counties.

Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, 2018. 27p.

By Nazgol Ghandnoosh and Josh Rovner

Starting from his first day as a candidate, President Donald Trump has made demonstrably false claims associating immigrants with criminality. As president, he has sought to justify restrictive immigration policies, such as increasing detentions and deportations and building a southern border wall, as public safety measures. He has also linked immigrants with crime through an Executive Order directing the Attorney General to establish a task force to assist in “developing strategies to reduce crime, including, in particular, illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and violent crime,” and by directing the Department of Homeland Security to create an office to assist and publicize victims of crimes committed by immigrants. By surveying key research on immigration and crime, this report seeks to enable the public and policymakers to engage in a more meaningful policy debate rooted in facts. Immigrants’ impact on public safety is a well-examined field of study.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2017. 18p.

By Kristin Littel and Timothy Woods

This report suggests ways to foster partnerships between immigrant advocacy organizations and law enforcement at national, State, and local levels which address the challenges to community policy within immigrant populations. This report summarizes findings on the challenges of interacting with immigrant populations and provides strategies to address these challenges. Issues discussed include: how to address the lack of law enforcement resources, how to address language barriers that exist for law enforcement officers when policing in immigrant communities, how to address inherent immigrant distrust of law enforcement, how to identify community partners, how to develop agency policies locally, what specialized training is needed for law enforcement officers, how to conduct proactive outreach to immigrant populations, what immigrants' concerns are regarding deportation, and what the standard procedures and actions are for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS, 2010. 27p,

By Guillermo Vázquez del Mercado, Luis Félix, and Gerardo Carballo

Gangs and criminal organizations in Central America continue to seek means of adapting to COVID-19 while communities look to build resilience to its effects. The aim of this report is to contribute to the understanding of extortion in an evolving context as pandemic-related mobility restrictions are enforced and lifted in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama.

The report identifies the evolving role of women in gang schemes and dynamics; explores criminal structures in Panama and their relationship with extortion; and highlights trends among extortion practices as they shift to other criminal activities such as large-scale and local trafficking of cannabis and cocaine.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2021. 19p.

By The ADL (Anti-Defamation League), 2022.

The internationalization of white supremacy is strengthening a hateful and dangerous ideology. White supremacists around the world are meeting online and in person at conferences, capitalizing on the digitalization of information, which has in turn accelerated the international exchange of ideas. These virtual and actual gatherings provide key opportunities for white supremacists to share ideas and tactics and recruit new followers. Meanwhile, over the past decade, we have seen surging violence in the United States and Europe motivated by right-wing extremism. The perpetrators are connected by an extremist ideology that continues to gain international followers. This report exposes the mutual influence of white supremacists in the United States, Canada and Europe and highlights the danger of these connections. “Hate Beyond Borders” was produced through a collaboration between researchers at ADL’s Center on Extremism in the U.S. and European extremism researchers at the Amadeu Antonio Foundation (Germany), Community Security Trust (UK), Expo Foundation (Sweden), Observatoire des Radicalités Politiques, Fondation Jean Jaurès, (France) and Never Again Association (Poland).

New York: ADL (Anti-Defamation League), 2022. 16p.

By Eunice Hyunhye Cho, Tara Tidwell Cullen and Clara Long

Justice-Free Zones: U.S. Immigration Detention Under the Trump Administration, a research report from the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights Watch, and the National Immigrant Justice Center, provides an in-depth examination of the state of immigrant detention. Through visits to five detention facilities, interviews with 150 detained people, and analysis of government data, this report shines a light onto our nation’s treatment of immigrants. Specifically, the findings illustrate how the immigrant detention system has grown since 2017, the poor conditions and inadequate medical care — even before the COVID-19 outbreak, and the due process hurdles faced by immigrants held in remote locations.

New York: American Civil Liberties Union, 2020. 82p.

By The Southern Poverty Law Center

This report features stories from women swept up in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that began on Jan. 2, 2016. The report by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights found that the federal government has engaged in a needlessly aggressive – and potentially unconstitutional – act against immigrants with these home raids that targeted women and children from Central America.

Montgomery, AL: SPLC, 2016. 28p.

By The United States Commission on Civil Rights

This Statutory Enforcement Report examines the civil rights and constitutional concerns that the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (Commission) “raised with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its component [agencies] over the treatment of adult and minor [immigrant] detainees [who are being] held under federal law in detention centers across the country.” Specifically, this report analyzes the constitutional issues surrounding DHS’s treatment of detained immigrants as well as other selected federal agencies’ efforts to comply with established Performance Based National Detention Standards (PBNDS), the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA), and the federal standards for detaining unaccompanied minor children.

It is within the Commission’s mandate to examine, study, and report upon civil rights violations inconsistent with the federal civil rights laws, the United States Constitution and the federal standards applicable to all persons within the United States and its territories. By statute, the Commission is authorized to examine federal policies and procedures that have a detrimental effect on the equal protection of law guaranteed to all persons under the Constitution. With regard to immigration, in 1980, the Commission released a report entitled The Tarnished Golden Door: Civil Rights Issues in Immigration that examined the civil rights issues surrounding the enforcement of the immigration laws of the United States. That report identified numerous issues surrounding the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) administration and enforcement of U.S. immigration laws. Since the Commission published that 1980 report, however, federal immigration laws and their enforcement practices have undergone numerous, sweeping changes.

Washington, DC: The Commission, 2015. 276p.

By Nina Rabin

Young people in immigrant families are often characterized as a separate population in debates over immigration reform, with distinctive claims and interests as compared to their parents. Bifurcating the undocumented population between children and parents over-simplifies how immigration enforcement impacts families. This article challenges the dichotomy between children and parents by studying how young people who are not direct enforcement targets are nevertheless impacted by immigration enforcement policies, regardless of their own immigration status. These impacts, which I call “secondary immigration enforcement,” often manifest as family separations. To render secondary immigration enforcement visible, I studied 38 young people in Arizona who are living on their own – without either biological parent – at least in part because of immigration enforcement policies. Drawing on in-depth interviews and self-assessments of psycho-social functioning, I describe what secondary immigration enforcement looks like and how it operates. I illustrate that deportation statistics alone fail to capture the extent of immigration enforcement because they do not encompass the complex impacts of secondary enforcement. In addition to the acute disruptions caused by deportations of family members, the young people in the study also experienced family separation as a result of immigration enforcement’s interaction with three other key factors: family dysfunction, extreme poverty, and educational aspirations.

Tucson: The University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law, 2017. 37p.

By Izabella Majcher and Michael Flynn

This Global Detention Project Special Report, commissioned by the Norwegian Red Cross, systematically compares conditions and operations at detention centres in five European countries to identify practices that may be used to develop “harm reducing” strategies in detention. The report, which the Norwegian Red Cross commissioned in an effort to identify possible reforms in Norway’s detention practices, addresses several key questions:

In Norway’s Trandum Detention Centre, multiple reports have highlighted an overzealously punitive and restrictive detention regime where detainees consider themselves to be “treated as criminals” even though they are not serving criminal prison sentences. Despite repeated recommendations from relevant experts, including the country’s Parliamentary Ombudsman, many important reforms have not been implemented.

The report highlights several key areas for promoting reforms, both at Trandum and in other facilities across Europe, including: placing immigration detainees in the custody of social welfare institutions rather than public security agencies; reforming operating rules on everything from food preparation to electronic communications; and shedding detention centres of carceral elements, including the aspect of guards and staff members and the internal layout and regime of detention centres.

Geneva: Global Detention Project, 2019. 86p.

By Pia Orrenius

Border enforcement of immigration laws raises the costs of illegal immigration, while interior enforcement also lowers its benefits. Used together, border and interior enforcement therefore reduce the net benefits of illegal immigration and should lower the probability that an individual will decide to illegally migrate. While empirical studies find that border and interior enforcement serve as deterrents to illegal immigration, immigration enforcement is costly and carries unintended consequences, such as a decrease in circular migration, an increase in smuggling, and higher prevalence of off-the-books employment and use of fraudulent and falsified documents.

Bonn: Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), 2019.. 11p.

By Brian Bell

Immigration is one of the most important policy debates in Western countries. However, one aspect of the debate is often mischaracterized by accusations that higher levels of immigration lead to higher levels of crime. The evidence, based on empirical studies of many countries, indicates that there is no simple link between immigration and crime, but legalizing the status of immigrants has beneficial effects on crime rates. Crucially, the evidence points to substantial differences in the impact on property crime, depending on the labor market opportunities of immigrant groups.

Bonn: Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), 2019. 11p.

By Burgund Isakov, Anita, Husremović, Dženana, Krasić, Bogdan, Marković, Violeta, Milic, Nikolina, Ristić, Tatjana, Trkulja, Alina, Žegarac, Nevenka

In this report, Save the Children and the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Sarajevo present in-depth research into the level and types of violence that children experience while attempting to reach Western Europe via the Balkans route, the circumstances of that violence, and the policies and practices that exist to support children. They also make recommendations for governments, NGOs and other stakeholders to strengthen the protection and support available to these children.

Every child who participated in this research recounted being subjected to physical, psychological, sexual or other types of violence, directly or indirectly. This violence occurred in their country of origin, during their journey, when crossing borders, in reception, asylum and detention centres, in squats, in the street and in the workplace.

The research was conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, key transit countries on the threshold of the European Union and on the way to Western Europe. It is based on in-depth interviews with 48 children aged between 13 and 19 years old. This report also draws on focus group discussions with 27 professionals in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, mostly field workers who had extensive experience working with refugee and migrant children, and an extensive literature review. The findings of this research were analyzed thematically and interpreted within several keys: using ecological systems theory, an approach based on the rights of the child, and on trauma and resilience-based knowledge.

Belgrade: Save the Children International, Save the Children North West Balkans, 2022. 122p.

This guide begins by describing the problem of exploiting women who have been trafficked into the United States, and the aspects of human trafficking that contribute to it. Throughout the guide, the word “trafficked” shall mean internationally trafficked, unless otherwise stated. Additionally, the guide’s focus is on the final period inthe process of trafficking at which women are further exploited by those into whose hands they are passed. This is the poi nt at which human trafficking becomes a problem for local police and so the guide identifies a series of questions that can help analyze local problems related to trafficking. Finally, it reviews responses to the exploitation of trafficked women and examines what is known about the effectiveness of these responses from research and police practice.

Read more at the Center for Problem Oriented Policing

Edited by Andrea Di Nicola, Andrea Cauduro, Marco Lombardi and Paolo Ruspini

Who is the client of trafficked prostitution? What fuels the demand for trafficked prostitution as opposed to other forms? Which are the most effective policies for what type of prostitution? The research in this book aims to answer these questions with an innovative approach. The editors have explored the hidden world of human trafficking for prostitution and profiled its clients. In doing so, they have refuted some common stereotypes about clients while inspiring the elaboration of balanced guidelines for managing prostitution, protecting the victims and thus tackling its undesired trafficking component.

Cham: Springer, 2008. 266p

Edited by Matthew J Gibney and Randall Hansen

Immigration and Asylum: From 1900 to the Present is an introduction to the key concepts, terms, personalities, and real-world issues associated with the surge of immigration from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. It focuses on the United States, but is also the first encyclopedic work on the subject that reflects a truly global perspective. With contributions from the world's foremost authorities on the subject, Immigration and Asylum offers nearly 200 entries organized around four themes: immigration and asylum; the major migrating groups around the world; expulsions and other forced population movements; and the politics of migration. In addition to basic entries, the work includes in-depth essays on important trends, events, and current conditions.

Santa Barbara, CA:: ABC-CLIO Press, 2005. 3vols. (1095p.)

By Australia. Parliament. House of Representatives, Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, Human Rights Subcommittee.

This report examines the global prevalence of human organ trafficking and the scope of Australian participation within this illicit trade. The report further considers international frameworks to combat organ trafficking and organ transplant tourism and specifically recommends that Australia sign and ratify the Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs.

The report further recommends that the Australian Government pursue a range of measures to strengthen Australia’s involvement in international efforts to combat human organ trafficking, improve relevant data collection, support public health education programs, strengthen Australia’s legal prohibitions on organ trafficking, and thoroughly investigate reforms that would enhance Australia’s domestic organ donation program.

Canberra: Australian Parliament, 2018. 178p

By INTERPOL

With this strategic analytical report, INTERPOL, under the European Union funded project ENACT, assesses how trafficking in human beings for the purpose of organ removal (THBOR) affects North and West Africa and to what extent this crime connects both regions with other parts of the world. Globally, when the supply of organs cannot be fulfilled by ethical transplant practices the supply is often done with illegally sourced organs. This implies that organs have been purchased from individuals that have been coerced, through a wide range of means, into having their organ(s) removed. Moreover, THBOR is reported to be a highly lucrative form of human trafficking, with victim-donors receiving only a small fraction of the total amount of money that organ buyers are willing to pay to brokers and the medical sector for the sourcing of organs. While this type of trafficking is believed to be largely underreported, it is important for law enforcement agencies in North and West Africa to have a nuanced approach to THBOR and to set priorities, so as to identify potential victims, investigate trafficking in human being cases that can be motivated by the organ trade and target criminal networks that facilitate THBOR.

ENACT. 2021. 38P.

By Arthur Caplan, Beatriz Domínguez-Gil, Rafael Matesanz and Carmen Prior

Trafficking in human beings is a real and growing problem all over the world. Human beings are bought and sold as a commodity. The criminals responsible for these massive violations of human rights and the rule of law are buying and selling human beings for different reasons, but the trafficking for the purpose of the removal of organs is clearly one of its most abhorrent forms. In spite of that, this form of trafficking has been relatively unknown and insufficiently researched.

Strasbourg Cedex: Directorate General of Human Rights and Legal Affairs, Council of Europe and the United Nations, 2009. 103p.