We provide evidence that Hispanic citizens receive significantly longer sentences than non-Hispanic citizens in the Federal Criminal Justice System in the United States when a higher number of illegal aliens are apprehended along the southwest border. Apprehensions can increase the salience of Hispanic ethnic identity, which is associated with persistent negative stereotypes, and can also deteriorate attitudes toward Hispanics. We rule out concerns that apprehensions might be conveying legally relevant information to judges. Thus, we provide direct evidence for time-varying discrimination toward Hispanic defendants. Our estimated effect is only at play for defendants without a heavy previous criminal record.
We use cookies to provide you with an optimal website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site as well as cookies that are only used for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, you may not be able to use all of the site's functions.
Cookie settings
These necessary cookies are required to activate the core functionality of the website. An opt-out from these technologies is not available.
In order to further improve our offer and our website, we collect anonymous data for statistics and analyses. With the help of these cookies we can, for example, determine the number of visitors and the effect of certain pages on our website and optimize our content.