A study of 11,500 US neighbourhoods found no evidence that rising unauthorised immigration drives up crime.
Researchers found neighbourhoods with growing undocumented populations saw greater reductions in property crime and no significant change in violent crime.
The study, published in the Journal of Urban Affairs, analysed crime trends in more than 100 US cities between 2010 and 2018.
Researchers said a rise in robberies may reflect undocumented immigrants being targeted as victims, rather than committing more crimes.
A large study of United States neighbourhoods has found no evidence that rising numbers of unauthorised immigrants drive up crime, challenging a long-running claim in American politics, according to researchers at the University of California, Irvine.
The study, published in the Journal of Urban Affairs, analysed crime trends across 11,500 neighbourhoods in more than 100 US cities between 2010 and 2018, covering areas home to about 46 million residents.
Researchers found that neighbourhoods where the share of undocumented residents grew saw greater reductions in property crime and no significant change in violent crime, according to a UC Irvine article.
The study is the first to examine the relationship between unauthorised immigration and crime at the neighbourhood level on such a broad national scale, the researchers said.
“Consistent with the research base more generally, unauthorised immigration does not drive crime rates in US neighbourhoods,” said Charis E Kubrin, the study’s lead author and a professor of criminology, law and society at UC Irvine, according to the university.
The researchers used restricted individual-level Census data accessed through a federal Research Data Center to estimate undocumented populations at the neighbourhood level, applying an imputation method similar to those used by the US Department of Homeland Security, according to UC Irvine.
The study found that, on average, undocumented residents made up 5.6 per cent of neighbourhood populations in 2010, falling to 4.8 per cent in 2018, according to an article in the journal Nature.
The analysis looked at violent crimes, including homicides, robberies and aggravated assaults, as well as property crimes such as burglaries and motor-vehicle thefts. While property crimes and aggravated assaults declined in neighbourhoods with growing undocumented populations, robberies increased, according to the study.
But the researchers said this pattern may point to victimisation rather than offending, because undocumented immigrants are more likely to be paid in cash, less likely to have bank accounts and often reluctant to report crimes to police, according to UC Irvine.
John Hipp, a co-author of the study, said the rise in robberies was consistent with the idea that undocumented immigrants may be disproportionately targeted because of greater involvement in the cash economy, according to UC Irvine.
The study could not definitively confirm the victimisation explanation because the data did not identify the immigration status of crime victims, according to UC Irvine.
The findings support earlier research showing no link between immigration and violent crime in the US and elsewhere, according to Nature.
Researchers said the findings raise questions about immigration enforcement policies that cite public safety as a primary justification, according to UC Irvine.