Rich a rd Rose n fe I d University of Missouri--St. Louis, National Consortium on Violence ResearchUnderstanding the complex relationship between immigration and crime was once a corc concern of American sociology. Yet the extensive post-1965 wave of immigration to the United States has done little to rekindle scholarly interest in this topic, even as politicians and other public figurcs advocate public policies to restrict immigration as a means of preventing crime. Although both popular accounts and sociological theory predict that immigration should increase crime in areas where immigrants scttle, this study of Miami, El Paso. and San Diego neighborhoods shows that, controlling for other influences, immigration generally does not increase levels of homicide among Latinos and African Americans. Our results not only challenge stereotypes of the "criminal immigrant" but also the core criminological notion that immigration, as a social process, disorganizes communities and increases crime.Understanding the social consequences of immigration and urbanization were instrumental concerns of those who created American sociology as a distinct academic discipline (M. Waters 1999). The founders of the Chicago School of sociology were troubled by the urban problems linked to newcomers, and early sociologists wrestled with the connections between immigration and crime. This anxiety produced some of American sociology's most enduring conceptual and empirical work, including classics on social disorganization (Thomas and Znaniecki 1920; Shaw and McKay 1931) and culture conflict (Sutherland 1934;Sellin 1938). Despite the potentially significant effect of immigration on current levels of crime and the high-profile role of this relationship in the history of the discipline, contemporary sociological studies of the link between crime and immigration are scarce.Direct all correspondence to Matthew T. Lcc.

Emerging research associated with the “immigration revitalization” perspective suggests that immigration has been labeled inaccurately as a cause of crime in contemporary society. In fact, crime seems to be unexpectedly low in many communities that exhibit high levels of the following classic indicators of social disorganization: residential instability, ethnic heterogeneity, and immigration. But virtually all research conducted to date has been cross‐sectional in nature and therefore unable to demonstrate how the relationship between immigration and crime might covary over time. This limitation is significant, especially because current versions of social disorganization theory posit a dynamic relationship between structural factors and crime that unfolds over time. The current study addresses this issue by exploring the effects of immigration on neighborhood‐level homicide trends in the city of San Diego, California, using a combination of racially/ethnically disaggregated homicide victim data and community structural indicators collected for three decennial census periods. Consistent with the revitalization thesis, results show that the increased size of the foreign‐born population reduces lethal violence over time. Specifically, we find that neighborhoods with a larger share of immigrants have fewer total, non‐Latino White, and Latino homicide victims. More broadly, our findings suggest that social disorganization in heavily immigrant cities might be largely a function of economic deprivation rather than forms of “neighborhood” or “system” stability.

Immigration raids exemplify the reach of immigration law enforcement into the lives of Latino community members, yet little research characterizes the health effects of these raids. We examined the health implications of an immigration raid that resulted in multiple arrests and deportations and occurred midway through a community survey of a Latino population. We used linear regression following principal axis factoring to examine the influence of raid timing on immigration enforcement stress and self-rated health. We controlled for age, sex, relationship status, years in the county in which the raid occurred, children in the home, and nativity. 325 participants completed the survey before the raid and 151 after. Completing the survey after the raid was associated with higher levels of immigration enforcement stress and lower self-rated health scores. Findings indicate the negative impact of immigration raids on Latino communities. Immigration discussions should include holistic assessments of health.

Does the ethnic and immigrant composition of a community and existence of immigrant enclaves or barrios influence community level drug violence? This study explores the relationship between these and other factors in Miami and San Diego census tracts. We employ data about the distribution of Cubans, Central Americans, Haitians, Mexicans and Southeast Asians, controlling for social and economic influences of drug versus non‐drug violence. We also analyze the impact of various waves of immigration and immigrant communities to understand the circumstances under which drug violence occurs or is limited at the census tract level. The findings lend some support to the positive and negative aspects of Portes and Rumbaut's (2001) segmented assimilation hypothesis in Miami and San Diego neighborhoods. The strength of this conclusion varies and is contingent upon ethnic composition, new versus old immigration, and the all‐encompassing effects of economic deprivation