Demographic Change and Ethnically Motivated Crime: The Impact of Immigration on Anti-Hispanic Hate Crime in the United States

Abstract

In recent years, Hispanic immigration to the United States has become a politically charged public issue, with significant consequences for immigration policies, communities, individual immigrants, and the U.S. residents who resemble them in language, customs, and appearance. We examine one possible collateral consequence of the fear and tension surrounding recent immigration trends, anti-Hispanic hate crime. Drawing on traditional theories of intergroup conflict—and particularly minority threat theory—we hypothesize that recent changes in Hispanic immigration are positively related to hate crimes targeting Hispanics. We find support for this hypothesis in a multivariate state-level panel analysis of anti-Hispanic hate crime from 2000 to 2004. Other predictions, however, are not supported. We conclude that the impact of immigration patterns on hate crime is an important area for continued criminological inquiry and that the notion of cultural threat should receive greater attention as studies of intergroup conflict move beyond the Black—White dichotomy.