From Portes and Stepnick 1985: “The federal government’s refusal to grant either group political asylum deprived them of benefits under the new 1980 Refugee Act. Although subsequent congressional action alleviated this situation, emergency aid was limited and most of it lapsed by 1983. Lacking either jobs or government assistance, many refugees were compelled to rely on private charity or to invent jobs in a burgeoning “informal” economy in Miami.” So technically, they received some aid—I’ll edit accordingly, thanks for the flag—but considerably less than most refugees.
To quote Billy and Packard 2020, “Our results are at least – in part driven by negative selection of Cubans… a segment of this group even held felony records by US standards” Some of these negatively selected migrants were eventually deported in 2017!
That’s their… headline result? “We do not find, however, any evidence for a systematic link between the scale of refugee immigration (and neither the type of refugee accommodation or refugee sex ratios) and the risk of Germans to become victims of a crime in which refugees are suspects” (pg. 3), “refugee inflows do not exert a statistically significant effect on the crime rate” (pg. 21), “we found no impact on the overall likelihood of Germans to be victimized in a crime” (pg. 31), “our results hence do not support the view that Germans were victimized in greater numbers by refugees” (pg. 34).
That’s their… headline result? “We do not find, however, any evidence for a systematic link between the scale of refugee immigration (and neither the type of refugee accommodation or refugee sex ratios) and the risk of Germans to become victims of a crime in which refugees are suspects” (pg. 3), “refugee inflows do not exert a statistically significant effect on the crime rate” (pg. 21), “we found no impact on the overall likelihood of Germans to be victimized in a crime” (pg. 31), “our results hence do not support the view that Germans were victimized in greater numbers by refugees” (pg. 34).
I haven’t read their paper, but the chart sure seems like it establishes a clear correlation. Also, the quotes you are saying seem to be saying something else, claiming that “greater inflow was not correlated with greater crime”, which is different than “refugees were not particularly likely to commit crimes against Germans”. Indeed, at least on a quick skim of the data that Larks linked, the that statement seems clearly false (though it might still be true that for some reason it is not as clear that greater immigration inflow is necessarily correlated with greater crime, since it might lower crime in other ways, though my best guess is that claim is being chosen as a result of a garden of forking paths methodology).
They say: “We found no impact on the overall likelihood of Germans to be victimized in a crime”. That is, refugees were not any likelier than Germans to commit crimes against Germans.
Furthermore, in a post I am working on now, I will discuss why such charts—I look at one simply comparing the % of of a given ethnicity in prison to the % in a population—do not tell you all that much:
“We might overestimate the rate of immigrant crime because:
Immigrant and native-born populations differ. Crime is disproportionately committed by young men (under 30 years old). If the immigrant population contains a lot of young men, and the native population skews older, one could end up with immigrants overrepresented in the prison system even if natives and immigrants are equally likely to commit crimes over their lifetime.
Racial or ethnic bias in the justice system could lead to more convictions for immigrants than the native-born, even if they are committing crimes at the same rate.
The crimes immigrants may have committed could be immigration offenses. In the US, 86% of undocumented people charged with a crime are charged not with a violent or property crime, but with being in the country without permission. The native-born cannot commit immigration offenses in their home country, so mechanically, immigrants commit more immigration offenses than the native born.
I’m also fairly certain this isn’t the kind of crime most people worry about when they worry about immigrants and crime.
On the other hand, this graph might underestimate immigrant crime if:
Criminal immigrants are deported and thus don’t appear in the prison statistics.
Immigrants commit crimes against other immigrants. There is data suggesting that immigrants are less likely to report crimes to law enforcement; this might allow criminals who target this population to get away with more.”
So technically, they received some aid—I’ll edit accordingly, thanks for the flag—but considerably less than most refugees.
There is a huge difference between ’they were at some times not approved for this specific type of aid” and “work or starve”. There is no way that the US in the 1980s would tolerate mass starvation like this—even if the federal government hadn’t stepped in, the individual states, churches, charities, families etc. would not have allowed that to occur.
To quote Billy and Packard 2020...
If you read the prior sentence in that article, you will see they are basically assuming the negative selection to be true, and don’t engage with my argument that positive selection effects also existed at all:
Accounting for migrant selection lies outside the scope of our project and the available data.
I don’t think the fact that some were eventually deported shows very much. I’m not denying that some of them were criminals—I’m just claiming that there are also significant positive selection effects. Since you’re not saying that they were all eventually deported, and I’m not saying that every single migrant was a great person, I don’t think the mere fact that some were deported is very strong evidence either way.
That’s their… headline result?
No, it is not. You discussed whether refugees were “particularly likely to commit crimes”. This is a simple statistic—you take crimes committed and divide by population. It is the statistic shown in the chart I included. As far as I am aware, basically every source agrees that this wave of refugees commit crimes at well above the rates of natives.
In contrast, my understanding is the Huang and Kvasnicka paper you quoted do a series of regressions to try to establish whether the scale of immigration changed the amount of crimes that refugees committed. This is a different question. It could (hypothetically) be the case that refugees were committing crimes at a very high rate, and then this fell in 2015 but was still higher than the native rate—if this was the case then this paper would show the opposite result to what we are discussing.
I am also very skeptical of the paper because the garden of branching paths issue seems so large—they declined to publish simple statistics and opted for much more complicated regressions instead which matched the results they clearly ideologically favoured—but this is beside the point because, even if their paper had no issues, it simply answers a different question.
It’s possible I’ve misunderstood this issue. If that’s the case I’d love to see the explanation for the difference between this paper’s complex methodology and the simple approaches which overwhelmingly suggest the opposite.
I am not sure how to prove to you that people need income in the United States.
As I say below, they say: “We found no impact on the overall likelihood of Germans to be victimized in a crime”. That is, refugees were not any likelier than Germans to commit crimes against Germans. I said: “In Germany, refugees were not particularly likely to commit crimes against Germans”. I have accurately reported their results.
I discuss below why simple descriptive statistics are insufficient to tell you if a group commits more crime than other groups.
From Portes and Stepnick 1985: “The federal government’s refusal to grant either group political asylum deprived them of benefits under the new 1980 Refugee Act. Although subsequent congressional action alleviated this situation, emergency aid was limited and most of it lapsed by 1983. Lacking either jobs or government assistance, many refugees were compelled to rely on private charity or to invent jobs in a burgeoning “informal” economy in Miami.” So technically, they received some aid—I’ll edit accordingly, thanks for the flag—but considerably less than most refugees.
To quote Billy and Packard 2020, “Our results are at least – in part driven by negative selection of Cubans… a segment of this group even held felony records by US standards” Some of these negatively selected migrants were eventually deported in 2017!
That’s their… headline result? “We do not find, however, any evidence for a systematic link between the scale of refugee immigration (and neither the type of refugee accommodation or refugee sex ratios) and the risk of Germans to become victims of a crime in which refugees are suspects” (pg. 3), “refugee inflows do not exert a statistically significant effect on the crime rate” (pg. 21), “we found no impact on the overall likelihood of Germans to be victimized in a crime” (pg. 31), “our results hence do not support the view that Germans were victimized in greater numbers by refugees” (pg. 34).
I haven’t read their paper, but the chart sure seems like it establishes a clear correlation. Also, the quotes you are saying seem to be saying something else, claiming that “greater inflow was not correlated with greater crime”, which is different than “refugees were not particularly likely to commit crimes against Germans”. Indeed, at least on a quick skim of the data that Larks linked, the that statement seems clearly false (though it might still be true that for some reason it is not as clear that greater immigration inflow is necessarily correlated with greater crime, since it might lower crime in other ways, though my best guess is that claim is being chosen as a result of a garden of forking paths methodology).
They say: “We found no impact on the overall likelihood of Germans to be victimized in a crime”. That is, refugees were not any likelier than Germans to commit crimes against Germans.
I said: “In Germany, refugees were not particularly likely to commit crimes against Germans”. I have accurately reported their results.
Furthermore, in a post I am working on now, I will discuss why such charts—I look at one simply comparing the % of of a given ethnicity in prison to the % in a population—do not tell you all that much:
“We might overestimate the rate of immigrant crime because:
Immigrant and native-born populations differ. Crime is disproportionately committed by young men (under 30 years old). If the immigrant population contains a lot of young men, and the native population skews older, one could end up with immigrants overrepresented in the prison system even if natives and immigrants are equally likely to commit crimes over their lifetime.
Racial or ethnic bias in the justice system could lead to more convictions for immigrants than the native-born, even if they are committing crimes at the same rate.
The crimes immigrants may have committed could be immigration offenses. In the US, 86% of undocumented people charged with a crime are charged not with a violent or property crime, but with being in the country without permission. The native-born cannot commit immigration offenses in their home country, so mechanically, immigrants commit more immigration offenses than the native born.
I’m also fairly certain this isn’t the kind of crime most people worry about when they worry about immigrants and crime.
On the other hand, this graph might underestimate immigrant crime if:
Criminal immigrants are deported and thus don’t appear in the prison statistics.
Immigrants commit crimes against other immigrants. There is data suggesting that immigrants are less likely to report crimes to law enforcement; this might allow criminals who target this population to get away with more.”
There is a huge difference between ’they were at some times not approved for this specific type of aid” and “work or starve”. There is no way that the US in the 1980s would tolerate mass starvation like this—even if the federal government hadn’t stepped in, the individual states, churches, charities, families etc. would not have allowed that to occur.
If you read the prior sentence in that article, you will see they are basically assuming the negative selection to be true, and don’t engage with my argument that positive selection effects also existed at all:
I don’t think the fact that some were eventually deported shows very much. I’m not denying that some of them were criminals—I’m just claiming that there are also significant positive selection effects. Since you’re not saying that they were all eventually deported, and I’m not saying that every single migrant was a great person, I don’t think the mere fact that some were deported is very strong evidence either way.
No, it is not. You discussed whether refugees were “particularly likely to commit crimes”. This is a simple statistic—you take crimes committed and divide by population. It is the statistic shown in the chart I included. As far as I am aware, basically every source agrees that this wave of refugees commit crimes at well above the rates of natives.
In contrast, my understanding is the Huang and Kvasnicka paper you quoted do a series of regressions to try to establish whether the scale of immigration changed the amount of crimes that refugees committed. This is a different question. It could (hypothetically) be the case that refugees were committing crimes at a very high rate, and then this fell in 2015 but was still higher than the native rate—if this was the case then this paper would show the opposite result to what we are discussing.
I am also very skeptical of the paper because the garden of branching paths issue seems so large—they declined to publish simple statistics and opted for much more complicated regressions instead which matched the results they clearly ideologically favoured—but this is beside the point because, even if their paper had no issues, it simply answers a different question.
It’s possible I’ve misunderstood this issue. If that’s the case I’d love to see the explanation for the difference between this paper’s complex methodology and the simple approaches which overwhelmingly suggest the opposite.
I am not sure how to prove to you that people need income in the United States.
As I say below, they say: “We found no impact on the overall likelihood of Germans to be victimized in a crime”. That is, refugees were not any likelier than Germans to commit crimes against Germans. I said: “In Germany, refugees were not particularly likely to commit crimes against Germans”. I have accurately reported their results.
I discuss below why simple descriptive statistics are insufficient to tell you if a group commits more crime than other groups.