Neighbourhoods across the United States that experienced a growth in their undocumented population also saw property-related and violent crime fall, not rise, according to an analysis of 11,500 neighbourhoods in more than 100 cities.

In a paper published in the Journal of Urban Affairs on 10 August1, researchers combined estimates of numbers of undocumented residents with crime statistics from between 2010 and 2018.

“Our study is the first to analyse these numbers across neighbourhoods and using such a diverse national sample,” says co-author Charis Kubrin, a criminologist at the University of California, Irvine. “That’s important because neighbourhoods are very proximate spaces to people. That’s where perceptions form.”