In 2018, the @CatoInstitute’s @AlexNowrasteh and I published a tremendous quantity of original research about U.S. immigration policy #CatoImmigration.
Alex published the first report of its kind comparing illegal and legal immigrant arrest and conviction rates in Texas to U.S.-born Americans, showing that illegal immigrants have much lower conviction and arrest rates including for homicides cato.org/publications/i… 
I published the first ever estimate of terrorism vetting failures, showing that since 9/11, the rate of vetting failure has declined 84 percent, permitting the entry of just 1 radicalized terrorist for every 29 million approvals since 9/11 cato.org/publications/p…
Alex and our colleague Andrew Forrester published a working paper showing that 287(g) programs have no effect on crime and are associated with more violent confrontations with police cato.org/publications/w…
Alex and @Robert_t_Orr coauthored an important report showing that immigrants receive 27 percent fewer benefits from entitlement and welfare programs than US-born citizens. cato.org/publications/i…
My colleague @M_Feeney and I coauthored a paper on border drones showing that drones have led to only 0.5 percent of apprehensions at a cost of $32,000 per arrest, nearly 4 times more than the cost of a normal apprehension
cato.org/publications/i…
cato.org/publications/i…
Alex and Michelangelo Landgrave produced one of the most widely cited #catoimmigration reports ever, estimating the rate of incarceration by immigration status, finding illegal immigrants were half as likely to be behind bars in 2016 as US-born citizens cato.org/publications/i…
I published a report using local data to identify the rate at which U.S. citizens are hit with ICE detainers, finding that U.S. citizens in Travis County, Texas were the targets of at least 1% of detainers (which ICE subsequently had to cancel) cato.org/publications/i…
Andrew Forrester and @AlexNowrasteh produced a report using CPS data showing that immigrants do economically assimilate, but that wages of illegal immigrants are depressed 11% due to government-enforced discrimination. cato.org/publications/i…
I produced the first quantitative analysis of drug smuggling, showing that marijuana legalization has reduced marijuana smuggling between ports of entry by 78% and, as a result, that port inspectors now seize drugs that are 3 times more valuable cato.org/publications/p…
Alex, Andrew, and Cole Blondin published a working paper showing that Jordan’s economic institutions improved dramatically after a mass influx of immigrants, contrary to the predictions of Borjas and others cato.org/publications/w…
I produced the only recent estimate of the education level of immigrants by class of entry using Census data, showing that new diversity and family-based immigrants were 62% more likely to have college degrees than U.S-born citizens cato.org/blog/family-di…
Our good friend Stuart Anderson @NFAPResearch and I produced a series of analyses of the legal immigration effects of various reform plans this year, showing that the White House plan would ban 22 million immigrants over 50 years cato.org/blog/white-hou…
Stuart Anderson @NFAPResearch and I also showed that the 1.8 million Dreamers who Republicans claimed would benefit from their bill were imaginary, that the real number would be much less cato.org/blog/gop-plan-…
Alex found that even states that mandate E-Verify cannot enforce E-Verify, and that nearly half of employers there don’t use the program despite a legal requirement to do so. So much for that magic bullet solution cato.org/blog/businesse…
I looked at whether new immigrants today are more or less likely to have experience with our system of government, finding that just 27% of great wave immigrants came from full democracies compared 64% of recent immigrants—the most ever cato.org/blog/immigrant…
Alex analyzed Canadian terrorist attacks by the ideology of the attacker, finding that anti-Muslim terrorists were more deadly than Islamists in Canada cato.org/blog/toronto-v…
Alex published this analysis finding that crime from Mexico doesn’t “spillover” across the border into the United States, showing that “when Mexican homicide rates go up, American rates tend to go down and vice versa” cato.org/blog/mexico-no…
I showed that if Congress had enacted Trump’s preferred immigration policies in 1965, it would have caused at least a 57% cut to legal immigration. @GSutters made this and the other great graphics in our reports and analyses cato.org/blog/trumps-po…
I found that America ranks 50th in the world in terms of refugee-asylee acceptance from 2012-17. This figure shows the US at the bottom of the top 50. Lebanon was #1 in the world. Its population increased by 15% due to asylees & refugees cato.org/blog/49-nation…
I showed that recent legal immigrants to the United States were as likely as recent legal immigrants to Canada to have a college degree, and that U.S. immigrants were more likely to have an advanced degree. cato.org/blog/new-us-im…
Alex and Andrew produced what I believe is the first effort to identify whether California’s state-wide “sanctuary” policy actually worked to reduce deportations from the state, finding that it may have cato.org/blog/californi…
I analyzed the admission figures for refugees by religion, showing that President Trump has not kept his promise to increase Christian refugee admissions. In fact, he has cut their numbers by 64% compared to Obama cato.org/blog/trump-has…
I produced what I think is the first estimate of the total number of immigrants who have come to the United States from 1783 to 2018, finding that nearly 107 million have come. Most of them ultimately received legal status cato.org/blog/over-100-…
Alex calculated the chance of being murdered in a terrorist attack in the UK at 1 in 1.1 million per year and also showed that the rate of deaths from terrorism has declined significantly there cato.org/blog/chance-be…
I found that Central Americans do assimilate. Most 1st generation learn English, find jobs, and pull themselves out of poverty. Their descendants speak English fluently, have the same level of education as natives, and have lower poverty rates in adulthood cato.org/blog/central-a…
Alex and Michelangelo Landgrave find that illegal immigrants’ low arrest and conviction rates are not caused by them committing crimes and then fleeing the country because clearance rates aren’t lower in places with higher illegal pops. cato.org/blog/police-cl…
I showed that the per-country limits on green cards suppress the average wage offer of new employer-sponsored immigrants to the United States by $11,592 because immigrants with higher wage offers from China & India wait longer. cato.org/blog/higher-pa…
Alex and Andrew analyzed data from Border Patrol showing that the average immigrant apprehended by Border Patrol spends nearly 2 days in Border Patrol detention facilities but with substantial variance between individuals cato.org/blog/apprehend…
I broke down criminal alien arrests by ICE in 2017 by type of conviction, showing that just 11 percent committed violent crimes and that a majority committed victimless crimes, mostly non-DUI traffic violations, drugs, and immigration “crimes” cato.org/blog/criminal-…
I analyzed how Muslim immigration to the United States has changed under Trump, showing that he has cut Muslim refugees by 91%, while reducing immigration from Muslim majority countries 30 percent cato.org/blog/trump-cut…
I found that construction has been facing the tightest labor market on record, with less than 3 unemployed workers per job opening. This was 90 percent lower than in 2009 cato.org/blog/2017-had-…
Alex and I don’t get to collaborate on projects that much, so it was good to end the year with a coauthored analysis of special interest alien apprehensions and terrorism: 45,000 apprehensions but *zero* US attacks cato.org/blog/45000-spe…
I’m sure @AlexNowrasteh will inform me that I’ve left off numerous other research items. And in addition to all this, we published numerous op-eds & other analyses/criticisms of govt or nativist research. You can find all #CatoImmigration publications here cato.org/research/immig…
