IPC Special Report Resources: The Myth of Immigrant Criminality and the Paradox of Assimilation: Incarceration Rates among Native and Foreign-Born Men

IPC Special Report Resources
Spring 2007

Last updated February 15, 2008

The Myth of Immigrant Criminality and the Paradox of Assimilation:
Incarceration Rates among Native and Foreign-Born Men

The Immigration Policy Center (IPC) has released a special report on immigrants and crime. In this IPC report, Ruben Rumbaut and Walter Ewing rebut the common misperception that immigrants are responsible for higher U.S. crime rates.

According to the report, it is a myth that immigrants increase the rate of crime in the United States. Data from the U.S. census and other sources show that for every ethnic group -- without exception -- incarceration rates among young men are lowest for immigrants. This is true especially for the Mexicans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans who make up the bulk of the undocumented immigrant population. Moreover, these patterns have been observed consistently over the last three decennial censuses – a period that includes the current era of mass immigration. And they recall similar national findings reported by three major government commissions during the first 30 years of the 20th Century.

Crime in the United States is not caused or even aggravated by immigrants, say Rumbaut and Ewing, regardless of their legal status. The misperception to the contrary undermines the development of reasoned public policy responses to both crime and immigration.

Read a summary or the full text of the IPC report.

The Immigration Policy Center hosted a telephone conference for the media and policymakers to discuss the IPC's recent Special Report: The Myth of Immigrant Criminality and the Paradox of Assimilation: Incarceration Rates Among Native and Foreign-Born Men by Ruben G. Rumbaut of U.C.- Irvine and Walter A. Ewing, Ph.D., of the Immigration Policy Center. In addition to Prof. Rumbaut, the panelists at the February 26, 2007 conference were Benjamin Johnson, Director of the Immigration Policy Center, and Robert Sampson, head of the Sociology Department at Harvard. You can access a recording of the teleconference in Windows Media (WMA) or read a transcript. A few, short segments of the recording are not audible and IPC apologizes for those interruptions.

Also, more than 130 of the nation's top experts on immigration and crime have told federal and state policy makers that immigration does not lead to higher crime rates. Sociologists, criminologists, and legal scholars signed an open letter on immigrants and crime to President Bush, Members of Congress, and the nation's Governors to argue for an immigration policy based on facts rather than on the myth that increased immigration will lead to increased crime rates.

Additional information on this issue is available through the following links:

www.immigrationpolicy.org

Publications of Professor Ruben Rumbaut, U.C. Irvine

Publications of Professor Robert Sampson, Chair, Department of Sociology, Harvard University

Kristin F. Butcher and Anne Morrison Piehl, Why Are Immigrants' Incarceration Rates So Low? Evidence on Selective Immigration, Deterrence, and Deportation (Working Paper 2005-19). Chicago: Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, November 2005.

Dillingham Immigration Commission, Abstracts of Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 2, 61st Congress, 3rd Session. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1911, p. 159-221.

Matthew T. Lee, Crime on the Border: Immigration and Homicide in Urban Communities. New York: LFB Scholarly Publishing, 2003.

Ramiro Martínez, Jr. and Matthew T. Lee, "On Immigration and Crime," in National Institute of Justice, Criminal Justice 2000: The Nature of Crime, vol. 1 (NCJ 182408). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, July 2000, p. 485-524.

Ramiro Martinez, Jr. and Abel Valenzuela, Jr., eds., Immigration and Crime: Race, Ethnicity, and Violence. New York: New York University Press, 2006.

Eyal Press, "Do immigrants Make Us Safer?" New York Times Magazine, December 3, 2006.

Rubén G. Rumbaut, "Turning points in the transition to adulthood: Determinants of educational attainment, incarceration, and early childbearing among children of immigrants," Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 28, no. 6, November 2005, p. 1041-1086.

Rubén G. Rumbaut and Walter A. Ewing, The Myth of Immigrant Criminality and the Paradox of Assimilation: Incarceration Rates among Native and Foreign-Born Men. Washington, DC: Immigration Policy Center, American Immigration Law Foundation, Spring 2007.

Rubén G. Rumbaut, Roberto G. Gonzales, Golnaz Komaie and Charlie V. Morgan, "Debunking the Myth of Immigrant Criminality: Imprisonment Among First- and Second-Generation Young Men," Migration Information Source (http://www.migrationinformation.org). Washington, DC, Migration Policy Institute, June 2006.

Robert J. Sampson, "Open Doors Don't Invite Criminals: Is Increased Immigration Behind the Drop in Crime?" New York Times (Op-Ed), March 11, 2006.

Robert J. Sampson, Jeffrey D. Morenoff and Stephen Raudenbush, "Social Anatomy of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Violence," American Journal of Public Health, vol. 95, no. 2, February 2005, p. 224-232.

Michael Tonry, ed., Ethnicity, Crime, and Immigration: Comparative and Cross Research Perspectives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.

Contact: Tim Vettel (tvettel@ailf.org) at the American Immigration Law Foundation.