In the 1990s, while there was a large decline in property-related crime along the U.S.Mexico border, violent crime rates began to converge to the national average. At the same time, legal and illegal immigration from Mexico surged and border enforcement rose to unprecedented levels. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between border county crime rates, immigration and enforcement sin...

In the 1990s, while there was a large decline in property-related crime along the U.S.Mexico border, violent crime rates began to converge to the national average. At the same time, legal and illegal immigration from Mexico surged and border enforcement rose to unprecedented levels. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between border county crime rates, immigration and enforcement sin...

While poverty and violence are not limited to one geographic region of the United States, unique demographic and geographic factors pose distinct problems in specific areas. In Escondido, CA, the city council linked poverty and crime to illegal immigration and proposed an ordinance forbidding landlords to rent to illegal immigrants. This article explores that case and examines implications for ...

Dr. Borjas is the Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. This Backgrounder is an expansion of Dr. Borjas’ article, “The Labor Demand Curve Is Downward Sloping: Reexamining the Impact of Immigration on the Labor Market,” published in the November 2003 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics (pp. 1335-1374)....