Assimilation

Studies on programs that randomly allocate refugee immigrants across municipalities find that the assignment of neighborhood impacts immigrant crime propensity, education and earnings. ^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]}

Crime

Germany

The first comprehensive study of the social effects of the one million refugees going to Germany found that it caused "very small increases in crime in particular with respect to drug offenses and fare-dodging." ^{[6] [7]}

A report released by the German Federal Office of Criminal Investigation in November 2015 found that over the period January–September 2015, the crime rate of refugees was the same as that of native Germans. ^[8] According to Deutsche Welle, the report "concluded that the majority of crimes committed by refugees (67 percent) consisted of theft, robbery and fraud. Sex crimes made for less than 1 percent of all crimes committed by refugees, while homicide registered the smallest fraction at 0,1 percent." ^[8] According to the conservative newspaper Die Welt's description of the report, the most common crime committed by refugees was not paying fares on public transportation. ^[9] According to Deutsche Welle's reporting in February 2016 of a report by the German Federal Office of Criminal Investigation, the number of crimes committed by refugees did not rise in proportion to the number of refugees between 2014-2015. ^[10] According to Deutsche Welle, "between 2014 and 2015, the number of crimes committed by refugees increased by 79 percent. Over the same period, however, the number of refugees in Germany increased by 440 percent." ^[10]

In May 2016, Politifact deemed Donald Trump's statement that "Germany is crime-riddled right now" because of migration to Europe" as mostly false. ^[11] The fact-checker noted that Germany's crime rate, particularly the violent crime rate, is far lower than in the United States, and that data suggest that the crime rate of the average refugee is lower than that of the average German. ^[11] In April 2017, the crime figures released for 2016 showed that the number of suspected crimes by by refugees, asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants increased by 50 percent. ^[12] The figures showed that most of the suspected crimes were by repeat offenders, and that 1 percent of migrants accounted for 40 percent of total migrant crimes. ^[12]

A study in the European Economic Review found that the German government's policy of immigration of more than 3 million people of German descent to Germany after the collapse of the Soviet Union led to a significant increase in crime. ^[13] The effects were strongest in regions with high unemployment, high preexisting crime levels or large shares of foreigners. ^[13]

Sweden

Viral falsehoods have circulated in recent years that tie immigrants and refugees to an alleged surge in rapes and crime in Sweden. ^{[14] [15]} According to Jerzy Sarnecki, a criminologist at Stockholm University, "What we’re hearing is a very, very extreme exaggeration based on a few isolated events, and the claim that it’s related to immigration is more or less not true at all." ^{[14] [16]} According to Klara Selin, a sociologist at the National Council for Crime Prevention, the major reasons why Sweden has a higher rate of rape than other countries is due to the way in which Sweden documents rape ("if a woman reports being raped multiple times by her husband that’s recorded as multiple rapes, for instance, not just one report") and a culture where women are encouraged to report rapes. ^[14] Stina Holmberg at the National Council for Crime Prevention, noted that "there is no basis for drawing the conclusion that crime rates are soaring in Sweden and that that is related to immigration". ^[17]

In February 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump asserted that crime was surging in Sweden due to immigration. ^[18] According to FactCheck.Org, Trump's claim was an exaggeration and noted that "experts said there is no evidence of a major crime wave." ^[14] According to official statistics, the reported crime rate in Sweden has risen since 2005 whereas annual government surveys show that the number of Swedes experiencing crime remain steady since 2005, even as Sweden has taken in hundreds of thousands of immigrants and refugees over the same period. ^{[18] [19] [20] [21] [22]} Jerzy Sarnecki, a criminologist at the University of Stockholm, said foreign-born residents are twice as likely to be registered for a crime as native Swedes but that other factors beyond place of birth are at play, such as education level and poverty, and that similar trends occur in European countries that have not taken in a lot of immigrants in recent years. ^[23]

According to data gathered by Swedish police from October 2015 to January 2016, 5,000 police calls out of 537,466 involved asylum seekers and refugees. ^[24] According to Felipe Estrada, professor of criminology at Stockholm University, this shows how the media gives disproportionate attention to and exaggerates the alleged criminal involvement of asylum seekers and refugees. ^[24] Henrik Selin, head of the Department for Intercultural Dialogue at the Swedish Institute, noted that allegations of a surge in immigrant crime after the intake of more than 160,000 immigrants in 2015 have been “highly exaggerated... there is nothing to support the claim that the crime rate took off after the 160,000 came in 2015.” While it’s true that immigrants have been over-represented among those committing crimes — particularly in some suburban communities heavily populated by immigrants, he said — the issue of crime and immigration is complex. ^[14] Speaking in February 2017, Manne Gerell, a doctoral student in criminology at Malmo University, noted that while immigrants where disproportionately represented among crime suspects, many of the victims of immigrant crimes were other immigrants. He also opined that "Immigration will come with some cost, and we will likely have a bit more crime — but that’s in a society with low crime rates and in a society that works really well, so in my opinion, it’s something we can live with". ^[25]

United States

Americans dramatically overestimate the relationship between refugees and terrorism. ^[26]

Economic effects

Studies of refugees' impact on native welfare are scant but the existing literature shows mixed results (negative, positive and no significant effects on native welfare). ^{[27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41]} According to University of California, Davis, labor economist Giovanni Peri, the existing literature suggests that there are no economic reasons why the American labor market could not easily absorb 100,000 Syrian refugees in a year. ^[42] Refugees integrate more slowly into host countries' labor markets than labor migrants, in part due to the loss and depreciation of human capital and credentials during the asylum procedure. ^[43] Refugees tend to do worse in economic terms than natives, even when they have the same skills and language proficiencies of natives. For instance, a 2013 study of Germans in West-Germany who had been displaced from Eastern Europe during and after World War II showed that the forced German migrants did far worse economically than their native West-German counterparts decades later. ^[44] Second-generation forced German migrants also did worse in economic terms than their native counterparts. ^[44]