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Does Halting Refugee Resettlement Reduce Crime? Evidence from the US Refugee Ban

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  • Masterson, Daniel

    (Immigration Policy Lab)

  • Yasenov, Vasil

Abstract

Many countries have reduced refugee admissions in recent years, in part due to fears that refugees and asylum seekers increase crime rates and pose a national security risk. Existing research presents ambiguous expectations about the consequences of refugee resettlement on crime. We leverage a natural experiment in the US, where an Executive Order by the president in January 2017 halted refugee resettlement. This policy change was sudden and significant – it resulted in the lowest number of refugees resettled on US soil since 1977 and a 66% drop in resettlement from 2016 to 2017. In this letter we find that there is no discernible effect on county-level property or violent crime rates.

Suggested Citation

  • Masterson, Daniel & Yasenov, Vasil, 2018. "Does Halting Refugee Resettlement Reduce Crime? Evidence from the US Refugee Ban," SocArXiv w2x7p, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:w2x7p
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/w2x7p
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Verme, Paolo & Schuettler, Kirsten, 2021. "The impact of forced displacement on host communities: A review of the empirical literature in economics," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).

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