The Effects of Sanctuary Policies on Crime and the Economy

As the Trump administration begins to implement its immigration policy agenda the issue of local assistance with federal immigration enforcement officials is back in the spotlight. So-called sanctuary jurisdictions are one focus of that debate. Sanctuary counties - as defined by this report - are counties that do not assist federal immigration enforcement officials by holding people in custody beyond their release date. Using an Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, dataset obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center the analyses in this report provide new insights about how sanctuary counties perform across a range of social and economic indicators when compared to nonsanctuary counties. To understand the effects of having a sanctuary policy, we statistically match counties based on a broad range of demographic characteristics and then compare sanctuary counties to nonsanctuary counties to better understand the effects that sanctuary policies have on a local jurisdiction. The data are clear: Crime is statistically significantly lower in sanctuary counties compared to nonsanctuary counties. Moreover economies are stronger in sanctuary counties - from higher median household income, less poverty, and less reliance on public assistance to higher labor force participation, higher employment-to-population ratios, and lower unemployment.