Immigration, Economic Disadvantage, and Homicide

Abstract

In this article, the effect of recent immigration on homicide rates across city of Austin, Texas census tracts is examined. Since 1980, Austin's recent immigrant population increased by more than 580% across the metropolitan area and it is now considered a “pre-emerging” immigrant gateway city to the United States. Therefore the changing population dynamics in Austin provide an excellent opportunity to study the effect of recent immigration on homicide. After controlling for structural predictors of homicide and correcting for spatial autocorrelation, our findings indicate that recent immigration is not associated with homicide.