A new study has found no link between crime rates and undocumented immigration, adding to the existing research that debunks the Trump administration’s racist attempts to paint immigrants as dangerous threats to the United States.

“Consistent with the research base more generally, unauthorized immigration does not drive crime rates in U.S. neighborhoods,” Charis Kubrin, the study’s lead author and University of California, Irvine, Chancellor’s Professor of Criminology, Law and Society, said in a statement. “Honestly, I wasn’t too surprised.”

Some research on the topic already exists at the metropolitan and state levels, but Monday’s study focuses on undocumented residents and crime rates at the neighborhood level across the United States.

“While previous studies are clear about the broader relationship between immigration and crime, say, for city crime rates, none has really adequately addressed the concern I still hear along the lines of, ‘But should I be worried about illegal immigration in my neighborhood, specifically?’” said Stanford University’s Derek Christopher, one of the study’s authors.

An undocumented woman listens to a talk about immigrants’ legal rights and options to prepare their families in case parents are detained or deported, on Jan. 17, 2025, in Florida City, Florida.

Rebecca Blackwell via Associated Press

The study, published in the Journal of Urban Affairs, looked at crime trends across 11,500 neighborhoods in U.S. cities with diverse populations between 2010 and 2018. Researchers found that neighborhoods with growing undocumented populations actually saw falling rates of property crime and no real change in overall violent crime.

Despite those declines, the study saw that one category of violent crime — robberies — went up in those same neighborhoods. But with many undocumented immigrants lacking access to bank accounts and formal financial services — meaning they rely more on cash than other populations — the researchers theorized that they are more likely to be the victims of robberies than perpetrators.

“An increase in robberies, despite decreases in all other crime categories, would be consistent with the idea that undocumented immigrants are disproportionately likely to be targets of robbery given greater involvement in the cash economy,” said UC Irvine’s John Hipp, one of the study’s authors.

“It’s well beyond time to rethink immigration enforcement in this country,” Kubrin said, adding that flawed enforcement also damages trust between immigrants and police while traumatizing relatives — including U.S.-born children — whose parents have been taken by federal agents. “These policies are largely ineffective at enhancing public safety and may actually do more harm than good.”

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