I’ve written a number of times about how refugees and illegal immigrants don’t pose any substantial threat to security or jobs, but with Joe Biden lifting the cap on asylum seekers earlier this year, it’s a message that bears repeating.  So new research from the University of Bath duly obliges.

The study examines the refugee situation in North America and Europe between 2014 and 2017, and finds that claims about security and crime risks posed by liberal asylum policies are largely unsubstantiated by any actual evidence.  Indeed, the analysis shows that countries with high levels of refugees per head of the population also have low levels of violent crime.

Violent crime

Rather than refugees, there are numerous other factors that influence the violent crime rate in a country, such as relative poverty levels and gun control.

“Our analysis which compared countries in Europe and North America demonstrates that the argument put forward that progressive asylum policies lead to increased violent crime within societies is simply incorrect,” the researchers say. “Instead, we find that those compassionate countries—those most willing to accept refugees—also have the lowest levels of homicide. This is important evidence to challenge a long-perpetuated myth put forward in countries on both sides of the Atlantic.”

“Of course, other significant factors must be considered in reducing a country’s rate of violent crime—notably topics such as gun control. But crucially, we show that progressive, liberal refugee policies are not the threat that many have painted them as. Countries that are more compassionate towards refugees tend to be more compassionate towards each other and there is no causal path between accepting refugees and increased domestic security troubles.”

The statistics held across 39 different countries, including Germany and Sweden, which are among the states with the highest number of refugees per head of the population.  These countries were among the least violent in the western world, especially compared to the United States, which receives far fewer refugees than the western average.

“From our study we see that emphasizing the value of human life without exception reduces violent crime,” the researchers conclude. “Respect for the lives of refugees and the country’s own people goes hand in hand. One way to start to increase these values must be to stop claiming that compassionate policies towards refugees cost lives.”