RT Article
T1 Did Immigrant Arrest Rates Change During the Trump Administration? Evidence From California and Texas
JF Crime & delinquency
VO 70
IS 12
SP 3182
OP 3215
A1 Light, Michael T.
A2 Boisten, Laura
A2 Kim, Jungmyung
LA English
YR 2024
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1907407650
AB Despite substantial legal and policy debates, whether immigrant arrest rates changed during the Trump presidency remains surprisingly understudied. This is partially because immigration status is rarely available in crime data. We address this gap by applying difference-in-differences (DD) and difference-in-difference-in-differences (DDD) estimations to detailed arrest data from Texas and California from 2015 to 2018. We find little evidence, descriptive or otherwise, to suggest that the transition from the Obama to the Trump administration had a meaningful impact on immigrant arrests, whether measured as violence, property, drug, or traffic offenses. These results suggest that the immigration enforcement initiatives under President Trump did not deliver on their crime reduction pledges, but they also provide little evidence of over-policing of immigrants in discretionary actions such as traffic arrests.
K1 Trump administration
K1 Arrests
K1 Immigration
DO 10.1177/00111287231218704