An estimated half-million New Yorkers are undocumented. Whether they’ve lived here for two months or 20 years, they came to this city of immigrants—a place where more than a third of the population was born in another country—looking for the same things that have brought newcomers here for centuries: work and school opportunities, religious freedom, family, and a haven from violence, persecution, political upheaval, and natural disaster.

The link between immigration and crime exists in the imaginations of Americans, and nowhere else.The link between immigration and crime exists in the imaginations of Americans, and nowhere else.