Do Immigrants Really Litter More?

There are very few new arguments in the immigration debate. For generations, people have batted around similar versions of the same argument in favor or against different immigration policies such as how immigrants affect wages, voting, crime, and terrorism. There are other fringe arguments that crop up now and again, but we don’t usually address them because they are so rarely argued. However, the frequency of a formerly-fringe argument against immigration is rising: immigrants should be banned or their numbers significantly reduced because they litter a lot.

At the recent National Conservatism conference, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax argued in favor of restricting non-white immigration to the United States because she said they litter more. My colleague David Bier was heckled at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2018 and asked about immigrant littering. Fox News Tucker Carlson has been bringing up immigrant littering over the years, most recently with the help of City Journal associate editor Seth Barron.

But do immigrants litter more?