Unintended effects of the Alabama HB 56 immigration law on crime: A preliminary analysis

Zhang, Yinjunjie; Palma, Marco A.; Xu, Zhicheng

doi:10.1016/j.econlet.2016.08.026

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…8 8 We note that Zhang, Palma, and Xu (2016) studied Alabama's H.B. 56 bill, passed, in 2011, which, among other things, imposed an E‐Verify requirement on employers.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Immigration enforcement, crime, and demography

Chalfin

Deza

2020

Criminology & Public Policy

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Research Summary This research leverages a remarkable natural experiment created by recent legislation in Arizona to study the impact of labor market immigration enforcement on crime. We show that Arizona's Mexican immigrant population decreased by as much as 20% in the wake of the passage of a broad‐based “E‐Verify” law requiring employers to verify the immigration status of new employees. In contrast to previous literature that studied traditional law enforcement‐based immigration enforcement programs such as “Secure Communities,” we find evidence that labor market‐based immigration enforcement led to a decline in some types of crime– particularly property crimes. Policy Implications It is critical to note that the crime reduction we observe is driven by an unprecedented decline in the share of the immigrant population that is young and male. As such, the effects are purely compositional, suggesting that young immigrant men are no more likely to commit crimes relative to young native men. Given that young immigrant men have high labor market participation and contribute disproportionately to economic output, this research highlights the promise, but also the potentially high costs, of labor market immigration enforcement.

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“…8 8 We note that Zhang, Palma, and Xu (2016) studied Alabama's H.B. 56 bill, passed, in 2011, which, among other things, imposed an E‐Verify requirement on employers.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Immigration enforcement, crime, and demography

Chalfin

Deza

2020

Criminology & Public Policy

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“…Property crime reductions among Hispanics could also be explained by a 9 percent earnings gain for low-skilled natives of Hispanic descent (Orrenius and Zavodny 2015). 18 While it is also possible that our property crime reductions could be explained by outmigration of likely undocumented immigrants (Orrenius and Zavodny 2016;Good 2013) or a decline in victims reporting due to fear of deportation (Zhang et al 2016), we would also expect declines in violent crime if these were the primary channels.…”

Section: E-verify Laws and Criminal Incidents Involving Hispanicsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…5 E-Verify mandates may also reduce crime if low-skilled Hispanic immigrants out-migrate in response to fewer job opportunities or a less welcoming environment for those of Hispanic descent. Finally, E-Verify may reduce reports of criminal activity if E-Verify mandates change the willingness of unauthorized immigrants to report crime (Zhang et al 2016). Thus, the net impact of E-Verify mandates on crime depends on the magnitudes of the policy's effects on (i) immigration-related arrests for undocumented immigrants, (ii) labor market outcomes for lowskilled immigrants (unauthorized and authorized) as well as natives, (iii) mobility of affected workers, and (iv) the distribution of these effects across low-skilled populations with heterogeneous propensities for crime.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Effect of E-Verify Laws on Crime

Churchill¹,

Dickinson²,

Mackay³

et al. 2021

ILR Review

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E-Verify laws, which have been adopted by 23 states, require employers to verify whether new employees are eligible to legally work prior to employment. This study explores the impact of state E-Verify laws on crime. Using data from the 2004–2015 National Incident Based Reporting System, the authors find that the enactment of E-Verify is associated with a 7% reduction in property crime incidents involving Hispanic arrestees. This finding was strongest for universal E-Verify mandates that extend to private employers and its external validity bolstered by evidence from the Uniform Crime Reports. Supplemental analyses from the Current Population Survey suggest two mechanisms to explain this result: E-Verify-induced increases in the employment of low-skilled natives of Hispanic descent and out-migration of younger Hispanics. Findings show no evidence that arrests were displaced to nearby jurisdictions without E-Verify or that violent crime or arrests of African Americans were affected by E-Verify laws. The magnitudes of the estimates suggest that E-Verify laws averted $491 million in property crime costs to the United States.

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“…Each is a case study of a particular state policy and the studies reach nearly opposite conclusions. Zhang et al (2016) used Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) data from 1998 to 2014 to examine the impact of Alabama's HB 56 E-Verify statute on arrests. Using a synthetic control approach, the authors found that the Alabama E-Verify mandate increased violent crime arrests in Alabama by approximately 100 arrests per year for every 100,000 adults, but was statistically unrelated to property crime arrests.…”

Section: E-verify and Crimementioning

confidence: 99%