immigrants. >> They're criminals. That country is no good for a reason. >> Hundreds of thousands of people mass migration. >> According to the American government, Europe faces the real and stark prospect of civilizational eras. The main reason American leaders like Marco Rubio and JD Vance are quite clear. So look, the the greatest threat in Europe is that you've had the leaders of the West decide that they should send millions and millions of unvetted foreign migrants into their countries. That is the biggest threat to Europe. We opened our doors to an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies, the continuity of our culture. This of course refers to the wave of mass migration in 2015 and 2016 when Germany's Angla Merkel famously said, "We're shuffandas. We can do it." An act of kindness indeed. But now 10 years later, was Merkel too naive? According to Trump at the United Nations last year, these immigrants, >> they repaid kindness with crime. Even in >> and in Switzerland, beautiful Switzerland, 72% of the people in prisons are from outside of Switzerland. >> Elon Musk himself has described European immigration as an invasion and agreed with Dr. Ellis Vital from Germany's AFD party that >> they let like millions of people in. They let um um do let them do crimes on our streets like the crime rate are skyrocketing. >> But is it really true? Has Europe become less safe as a result of mass migration largely from outside of Europe? This is such a politicized subject that it's incredibly difficult for people who just want to know what's actually going on to find an unbiased analysis. Right-wing politicians have even accused academics of a left-wing bias on this particular subject. Therefore, we spent weeks reading hundreds of studies trying to find out if either right-wing politicians are cherry-picking data or if academics and activists are leaving out convenient facts. In this process, we spoke to Bonei professor Paulo Pinati who has spent much of his career analyzing this issue from a datadriven perspective and is not afraid to point out problems like >> they don't get a job, the visa expires, maybe they don't have the money to go back to their own country and so they remain in the country and that's kind of if you want the perfect receipt for disaster, right? >> That's right. There are no taboos here at Money and Micro. We just want to know what's going on. But we are also not afraid to call out exaggerations such as the IFD's claim that crime rates are skyrocketing. Since the 1990s, the homicide rate in Europe went down, 36% in Germany, 50% in Spain, 15 in France, 4% in the UK, and an astonishing 82% in Italy. And what makes this even more strikingly is that this decline in deadly violence happened during the same period Europe experienced unprecedented migration with millions arriving from Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. But if that is true, then why are immigrants so over represented in European prisons? Something strange is going on here. Is Europe genuinely facing civilizational erasure? And are European prisons full of immigrants? Clear evidence of that? Here is the truth about Europe's mass migration experience. Okay, to truly understand the impact of migration has had on Europe, we need to go back in time. Europe has essentially seen five big migration waves. The first wave was the so-called guest worker wave that was driven by the need for labor in Western Europe's fast growing economies. First, there were Italians, Spanish, and Greek migrants. And then when those economies started growing quickly themselves, Western Europe started attracting lowskilled workers from Turkey, Morocco, and Yugoslavia. This program stopped after the oil crisis of the 1970s when many jobs disappeared. But many guest workers stayed and on top of that, migration continued for a while as guest workers brought their families to Europe. The second wave was tied to decolonization from the 1950s to 1980s. And during this wave, many refugees from newly independent colonies migrated to their former colonial masters. This wave was possible because during this area, many colonial subjects were technically nationals. And since they often already spoke the language, it was relatively easy for them to move. This is why today there are still many Indonesian descendants in the Netherlands, Algerians and Africans in France, and Indians and Pakistanis in the UK. Third, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, there was a massive migration wave from East to Western Europe. And fourth, in 2015 and 2016, there was a mass migration wave from Syria, North Africa, and Afghanistan to Europe. And finally, in the last few years, millions of Ukrainians migrated to Europe. Each of these migration waves had their own political backlashes. But do people like Trump and JD Vans refer to Eastern Europeans moving to Western Europe when they talk about civilizational eraser? I think this clip from conservative news channel Newsmax makes it quite clear what they really care about. >> 50 million Muslims now live in Europe. At the turn of the century, that number was less than 500,000. as the people who lead these countries try to do what Joe Biden tried to do here and that is fundamentally change the racial and ethnic makeup of a nation and make white Christians a minority in their own country as the attack on western civilization continues. Everyone who lives in Europe knows that there are many different cultures inside Europe. American culture is also quite different from European culture. If we want to see how different then political scientists Inglehart and Welser have given us this map where you can see Protestant Europe, Catholic Europe, Orthodox Europe and the English-speaking world these cultures are distinct but quite close to each other. On the other hand, African Islamic cultures are very different from most European cultures. And look, sharing spaces with people who are culturally distant presents challenges. Should public schools have halal meals? Should burkas be allowed in public institutions? These are valid debates to have. However, the problem with using language like civilizational erasure or about white Christian descendants becoming a minority is that this is just complete and utter excuse my language bull. Take the newsmax segment. While 50 million Muslims sounds like a scary big number, this includes Balcon countries and Russian republics that have historically been Muslim. More outrageously, the claim that there were less than 500,000 Muslims in Europe at the turn of the century is just wrong. As you can see here, in the year 2000, there were about 37 million Muslims in Europe. And in 2020, that was about 45 million. To put that into perspective, in this period, the share of Muslims in Europe has been rising slowly from about 4% of all Europeans to 6%. However, if we take into account that migration to Europe is still happening and that Muslims tend to have more children than native Europeans, we do have some credible estimates that in 25 years from now, in 2050, the share of Muslims in many Western European countries will get close to or above 15%. That is quite a big increase from the 6 to 8% that we are seeing in many Western European countries today. But again, just to put these numbers into perspective for our American viewers, the number of black people in America today is about 15%. Saying that Europe faces civilizational erasure due to Muslim migration is like saying that America today is a dominantly African country. It is just complete and utter nonsense. But of course, if you go to certain cities in Europe or especially certain neighborhoods in Europe, it can feel very different. For example, in Brussels about 28% of inhabitants are Muslim or in the poor Brussels neighborhood of Anderle where my colleague Alejandro lives about 30% of inhabitants are Muslims. So of course the rapid transformation of certain cities and neighborhoods has led to cultural tensions there. In fact, besides increased economic inequality and economic stagnation, there's a lot of research that convincingly shows that increased low-skilled migration from non-European countries is a crucial factor needed to explain the rise of far-right parties in Europe. And much like Vines and Trump, farright European politicians like Hungary's Victor Orbin often tell us that if you take masses of non-registered immigrants from the Middle East into your country, you are importing terrorism, crime, anti-semitism, and homophobia. So even though migrants and their descendants remain a minority in Europe, could it still be true that immigrants are making Europe far less safe? This is where we get back to Trump's UN speech. And in Switzerland, beautiful Switzerland, 72% of the people in prisons are from outside of Switzerland. >> First, Trump is not wrong. Immigrants are over represented in European prisons. But as you can see here, Switzerland is an extreme case. In this speech, Trump does not mention that in some striking cases, like in the case of the UK, immigrants are actually under represented in prison, just as they are in other Anglo-Saxon countries like Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. So, what's going on? First, as you can see here, Anglo-Saxon countries tend to attract much more highly educated migrants. these are more likely to find a high-paying job and therefore less likely to commit crimes and end up in jail. The fact that continental European prisons have a lot of immigrants is probably because Europe's immigrants are simply poorer than the average European. It does not necessarily have anything to do with their cultural background. A second powerful explanation is that Europeans are pretty old and immigrants are on average much younger. younger people commit more crimes. So again, this could disprove the narrative that the type of immigration matters. Finally, being in jail more could be because immigrants commit more crimes. But there's also credible research which shows that immigrants are more likely to be held in jail while waiting for the trial because judges often believe they are a higher flight risk than locals, which makes sense, I guess. but that does put them in a worse situation for negotiating deals, especially if they're not fluent in a European language. That being said, nobody knows for sure how big these three effects are. So, all of this research neither proves that immigrants are innocent, but it also does not prove that they are guilty of committing more crimes. But, okay, that means that Trump and Orban could still be right. Migrants could make Europe much less safe. We just need more evidence. So what about the AFD claim that >> the crime rate are skyrocketing >> because of immigrants? Well, in most of Europe, we actually see the opposite. Crime is falling. For example, as you can see here, violent crimes like murders kept on dropping even as the number of migrants in Europe increased. Similarly, petty crime like robbery, burglaries, and theft have dropped in Europe in the same years that immigration increased. This is also true in Germany. However, here we do see a suspicious increase in crime after the massive 2015 migration wave. Crucially, these studies do not distinguish between the background of migrants though. So perhaps the AFD is right about increasing crime because of the massive 2015 2016 Muslim migration wave in Germany. And perhaps even for the rest of Europe, crime could have fallen even faster if it wasn't for all these new immigrants. to separate the effect of migrants from broader effects that are decreasing crime overall, like Europeans getting older and better home and store security systems. Researchers have done several detailed studies about the relationship between crime and migration in the US, Italy, and Germany. They take into account a lot of different factors such as GDP and youth. And surprisingly >> in general the the conclusion is that these increases in migration sometimes very huge increase in migration they have no significant effect on crime rates. >> For example, as you can see here while most migrants came to East Germany between 2008 and 2019, crime has mostly gone up in the west and south of Germany. But if migrants do not clearly increase overall crime even in places like Germany and Italy, how can low-skilled migrants be so over represented in prisons? When we asked Professor Pinati about this, he offered another explanation. Immigrants may be replacing nativeborn offenders in some types of criminal activity. >> So think about the drug sector, drug trafficking, which is a major criminal enterprise in most cases, right? So if you were trying to buy drugs 20 years ago, the dealer probably was going to be a native, right? Um if you buy drugs nowadays, uh the dealer is going to be a member of some foreign criminal group, right? But in the end, the amount of drugs that is sold in the street is still going to be the same. It depends more on other it depends more on the demand for drugs. In other words, and honestly, this is something I absolutely did not expect when starting the research for this video, it is possible that yes, immigrants commit more crimes than native people. And yet, they do not increase crime overall. Just like immigrants may take low-skilled jobs like fruit picking from native Europeans, they may actually also simply take crime jobs from native Europeans as well. So for instance, what we observe in these very large criminal uh networks involving drug trafficking is that the natives they are still part of the networks but they climb up to the higher levels of the organization while the lower level like the retail seller in the street the drug dealer in the street is going to be an immigrant different from 20 years ago. Still, I have to be honest. We don't have enough data to completely, without a doubt, confirm that this is what happened. But it could explain why even in detailed studies, big migration waves do not seem to lead to more crime, but they could lead to a higher number of criminals in jail that are immigrants. So, okay, there you have it. The evidence is actually pretty clear. Conclusion. Even for extremely detailed recent studies, >> the conclusion is that these increases in migration, sometimes very huge increase in migration, they have no significant effect on crime rates. So no, Europe is not at risk of civilizational erasure. And even recent migration waves have not caused crime to skyrocket. That's right. Here I am, an ex-academic in his ivory tower telling ordinary people, "Move along, folks. There's nothing to see here. Research says immigration is fine. You should just open your borders and let the immigrants come." If that is making you feel unsafe or uneasy, well, you are wrong. No. Just because the truth is not on one extreme does not mean that the truth is on the other extreme. Immigrants from distant cultures always cause tensions. But one key factor that often gets overlooked is access to jobs. If asylum seekers and migrants are not allowed to work legally, they can end up stuck. Their visa might expire. They might not have money to return home. And without access to regular jobs, yeah, some may turn to illegal ways of making money like drug dealing or burglary. The work that professor pinati has shown that when immigrants uh receive legal status, they are finally able to obtain legal status and therefore the right to work in the official economy, the probability of committing crimes decreases by 50%. It's cut by half. Right? So the takeaway should be that if you do want to have some migration, it's essential to do it orderly. This can also explain that a recent study did find that one year after the relatively chaotic 2015-16 migration wave, there was actually a significant wave of increased burglaries and theft in Germany. So there was some truth to what the AFD politicians said to Elon Musk. Another thing is that you want to make sure that migrants and their children are able to integrate into society and that they do not all end up in some isolated ghettos such as the French ban or in Brussels suburbs like Ander. On top of that, one major limitation of the research that we've discussed today is that it looks at migrants but not at their children. Recent research shows that in countries like Austria, the Netherlands, France, and Denmark, children of immigrants from the first two waves often have a harder time moving up in life compared to children of native parents who grew up with the same level of poverty. This may actually help explain why second generation immigrants in, for example, Denmark are actually more likely to end up in prison than both their parents, on the one hand, migrants, and native Danish children. Finally, we should be open to the possibility that men from countries with more traditional attitudes toward women are on average more likely to engage in sexual violence. This should not be entirely surprising since we know that men with sexist attitudes are more likely to commit violence against women. Worryingly, a recent study from Lund University found that 63% of those convicted of rape in Sweden have an immigration background. This massive over representation decreased a bit after controlling for soio economic factors and for substance abuse and mental health conditions, but it did not disappear completely. So yeah, even if migration has not clearly made Europe less safe overall, there are still real serious problems that need to be studied and more importantly fixed. However, these problems are clearly not big enough that it is something that Donald Trump should be worried about. Talking about sex offenders, perhaps he should worry a bit more about the fact that his government is actively protecting the associates of a convicted pedophile and that Trump and his friends are over represented in the Epstein files. Maybe it's a bit much to call that civilizational erasure, but it does look a lot like civilizational decline all the way from here in Europe. But yeah, that's my take. What do you think? And if you're looking for more of these types of honest datadriven discussions, I highly recommend you continue with our advertising sponsor, The Economist. Specifically, check out this surprising story about how illegal immigration to Europe is dropping at an astonishing rate. And then follow up with this article about a migration scheme that even populists love. And finally, read this analysis on why Trump's zero migration policy will make America poorer and less innovative. As these articles show, The Economist delivers insights to let you see the bigger picture and think for yourself. This is why I often use them as a source when I make these videos, and it's why I highly recommend you subscribe to The Economist, which I'm excited to say has agreed to give a special 35% discount for money macro viewers. 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