Why do Citizens Criminalize Migrants? Experimental Evidence from a Multi-Role Country, Mexico

Abstract

Every year, millions of immigrants arrive in countries that play multiple roles: they expel them, receive them, or shelter them. Sometimes, citizens welcome immigrants with open arms. Other times, they perceive them as potential criminals. Surprisingly, there is little research on the determinants of criminalization in multi-role countries. In this article, we analyze the results from a nationally representative survey experiment where we investigate how two sources of variation (the skin tone and national origin of others) bias citizens’ willingness to blame suspects for crime. We find that individuals criminalize suspects more when they have a darker skin tone and, against expectations, less when they come from El Salvador. Moreover, in exploratory analyses, we find that coloristic bias is exacerbated among individuals with lower levels of education and, surprisingly, among those with a darker skin tone. Also interesting is that we found that, against contact theory, anti-American bias is stronger among Mexicans with direct or indirect cross-national contact. Our results highlight the various degrees to which migratory contexts influence public opinion.