Grabbing the wrong end of the stick. An academic specialty.

Hmm. The flow of reasoning seems inverted. From Exporting Murder: US Deportations and the Spread of Violence by Christian Ambrosius, David A Leblang. From the Abstract:

Existing literature on cross-national variation in violence has paid little attention to the transnational transmission of crime. One such channel is the forced return of migrants with a penal record in their country of temporary residence. Responding to this research gap, we study the effect of US deportations of convicts on levels of violent crime in deportees’ country of origin for a cross-country panel of up to 123 countries covering the years 2003 to 2014. We find a strong and robust effect of the deportation of convicts on homicide rates in countries of origin, which is to a large degree driven by deportations to Latin America and the Caribbean. An additional inflow of ten deportees with a prior criminal history per 100,000 increases expected homicide rates by roughly two. In addition to controlling for country-specific fixed effects, we provide evidence on a causal effect using an instrumental variable approach, which exploits spatial and time variation in migrant populations’ exposure to state-level immigration policies in the United States.

As is common in academic parlance, their meaning is a bit ambiguous. However, it appears that they are lambasting America for returning violent criminals back to their country of origin.

Fortunately, they also have a more general population article which clarifies the ambiguity. From Exporting Murder: US Deportations and the Spread of Violence by Christian Ambrosius and David Leblang.

Many of those fleeing extreme violence in their homelands seek asylum in Mexico and the United States. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the number of refugees and asylum seekers from Northern Triangle countries has increased ten-fold since 2011. Notably, recent research by Michael Clemens of the Center for Global Development finds that the massive inflow of unaccompanied minors across the southern border of the U.S. since the summer of 2014 has been due, in large measure, to violence in their communities of origin.

Within a public discourse that often portrays refugees as a threat rather than victims who deserve help and compassion, one part of this story has largely been ignored: U.S. border control policy—notably the deportation of criminal offenders back to their countries of origin—has played a critical role in the spread of violence in Latin America.

Although immigration rhetoric and policies have become increasingly hostile under the Trump presidency, it is fair to say that use of deportation is nothing new.

One pillar of immigration policy since the mid-1990s has been a tough stance on immigrants who have committed criminal offenses while in the U.S. Between 1996 and 2015, the U.S. deported 5.4 million individuals back to their homelands. Forty percent of these—2.2 million – had committed a felony while in the U.S. By deporting convicted felons, the U.S. returns home persons likely to have developed connections with transnational organized crime upon incarceration in the U.S., and who are likely to have refined their set of criminal skills.

Violent countries export violent people to the US. When they are returned for having committed violent crimes in the US, Ambrosius and Leblang then deem it to be America exporting violence. This seems an obstinately bull-headed perspective.

It is as if the Mariel Boat Lift never happened.