US Border Enforcement and the Net Flow of Mexican Illegal Migration

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit company supported by Deutsche Post World Net. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its research networks, research support, and visitors and doctoral programs. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. Terms of use: Documents in U.S. Border Enforcement and the Net Flow of Mexican Illegal Migration Manuela Angelucci D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. This paper investigates the effect of U.S. border enforcement on the net flow of Mexican undocumented migration. It shows how this effect is theoretically ambiguous, given that increases in border controls deter prospective migrants from crossing the border illegally, but lengthen the duration of current illegal migrations. It then estimates the impact of enforcement on 1972-1993 migration net flows by merging aggregate enforcement data with micro data on potential and current illegal Mexican migrants. The econometric model accounts for the endogeneity of border controls using the Drug Enforcement Administration budget as an instrumental variable. Both the inflow and outflow of illegal Mexican migration are highly sensitive to changes in border enforcement. The estimates of the enforcement overall effect on illegal migration's net flow range across different specifications, from a decline -about 35% of the size of the effect on the inflow -to an increase. Thus, they suggest that border enforcement may not be an effective means to reduce the level of the illegal alien population in the United States. JEL Classification:F22, J61, K42, O15

U.S. Border Enforcement and Mexican Immigrant Location Choice

“…The influence of border enforcement on aggregate migration flows is the subject of considerable previous research (see among others Kossoudji 1992, Hanson and Spilimbergo 1999, Cornelius 2001, Reyes, Johnson and Van Swearingen 2002, Orrenius 2004, Gathmann 2008, Angelucci 2012. Border enforcement increases alter migrant crossing locations (Cornelius 2001, Massey et al 2002, Sorensen and Carrion-Flores 2007 and increase migration costs (Orrenius 2004, Roberts, Hanson, Cornwell andBorger 2010).…”

“…We present a migration choice model that formalizes this argument and connects it to our empirical analysis in the following section. We also acknowledge that border enforcement could have important effects on the composition of immigrants who choose to reside in the U.S., in addition to their spatial distribution (Orrenius and Zavodny 2005, Ibarrraran and Lubotsky 2007, Angelucci 2012, Lozano and Lopez 2013. We leave the question of the spatial dimension of selection in response to border enforcement to future work, however.…”

Recovering the counterfactual wage distribution with selective return migration

“…Moreover, inflows and outflows are also typically influenced by migration policies, such as enforcement by border patrols (Thom, 2010;Angelucci, 2012). 1 This paper thus highlights the consequences for the U.S.…”

Enforcement and illegal migration

“…Among studies that measure the direct relationship between border enforcement and illegal immigration, one set of estimates suggests that a 10% increase in border patrol linewatch hours reduces illegal inflows by 4-8% and that this effect has increased over Millions Pia Orrenius | Enforcement and illegal migration time [9]. Another study finds that a 0.5 million increase in linewatch hours-the average increase between 1990 and 2003-reduced intentions to re-migrate among a sample of male return migrants by roughly 14% [10].…”

“…In the US, border enforcement as measured by border patrol linewatch hours has a significant negative effect on migrant outflows to Mexico, as well as inflows, which implies that tougher enforcement increases the duration of stay by deterring return migration. That encourages more permanent settlement among unauthorized immigrants from Mexico [9].…”