U.S. Immigration Policy: What Can We Learn?

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U.S. Immigration Policy: What Can We Learn From Mexican Migration?

By Sandra Orozco-Aleman

Immigration has played an essential role in American political, economic, social and cultural history. It can foster economic growth, promote innovation and increase human capital. Shortages in the labor market can be addressed by attracting foreign workers. In 2017, 17.1 percent of the U.S. workforce were immigrants. 1 Within the broad category of immigrants, some hold appropriate, current, authorization to live and work in the United States, and some do not. Immigration policy debate actively scrutinizes both authorized and unauthorized immigration.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Over the 1996–2017 period, the total labor force increased by about 26 million and half (about 13 million) of the increase was among the foreign born.

One meaningful way to contribute to the policy debate and shed some light on the potential effect of immigration policies is by engaging in rigorous research. How would changes in immigration policies impact the number of documented and undocumented immigrants in the U.S. labor market? How would changes in immigration policies affect the U.S. economy and the average American family?

One focus area of current immigration policy is the reduction of unauthorized immigration. Estimatesindicate that more than 11 million undocumented immigrants are living in the United States. Unauthorized immigration can occur in two ways: Either a person enters the country without appropriate documentation, or he or she loses appropriate documented status while in the country. Improving border security directly through the increased use of fencing, border patrol and other measures is one tactic for stemming unauthorized immigration. Other strategies include targeting labor demand by imposing sanctions on employers of undocumented workers and labor supply by imposing penalties on undocumented workers themselves.

While immigration policy is typically considered a national issue, some states have enacted legislation that impacts the regulation of federal laws. For example, in April 2010, Arizona passed Senate Bill 1070, arguably the most restrictive and controversial immigration bill ever passed by a state. The law, which was scheduled to take effect on July 29, 2010, targeted labor supply by making it a crime instead of a civil offense to apply for or hold a job in Arizona without legal authorization. It required police officers to verify the immigration status of anyone they believed to be in the country illegally and allowed them to stop and arrest anyone they had reason to believe

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lacked authorized immigration documentation. The law also allowed police to arrest an individual they believed to have committed a crime, even for offenses that would normally have resulted only in a ticket, causing him or her to be deported. In short, the law substantially increased the expected costs of being an unauthorized immigrant in Arizona.

Source: Hoekstra, Mark, and Sandra Orozco-Aleman. 2017. “Illegal Immigration, State Law, and Deterrence.” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 9(2): 228-252.

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On July 28, one day before the bill was scheduled to go into effect, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction blocking much of the law, pending the outcome of a legal challenge by the federal government. Two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down several components of the law. As a result, the primary way in which one can evaluate the law’s impact is to study the announcement effect from April through July. A key question is whether a state law such as SB 1070 can deter undocumented workers from entering the United States.

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In the paper “Illegal Immigration, State Law and Deterrence” 2 , which I co-authored with Dr. Mark Hoekstra, we address this question. We examined whether Arizona SB 1070 deterred entry into Arizona from Mexico using survey responses of

undocumented workers passing through Mexican border towns on their way to the United States. Results indicated the bill’s passage reduced the flow of undocumented immigrants into Arizona by 30 to 70 percent, suggesting that undocumented workers from Mexico are responsive to changes in state immigration policy.

Our results indicate that the decision to immigrate without authorization is sensitive to expected benefits and costs, even to the point that a law that has only been announced, but not enacted, impacts the immigration and locational decisions of new immigrants from Mexico. This large response suggests that laws such as Arizona SB 1070 will continue to have appeal among states attempting to reduce the inflow of unauthorized immigrants.

The Arizona law is an example of a policy that stemmed the flow of unauthorized immigration by reducing the appeal of relocating to Arizona, inducing a pull factor – pulling individuals to remain in Mexico. There are also push factors for migration including economic conditions and personal safety. One example of a push factor in Mexico is the increase in drug-related violence over the last decade that has triggered the migration of individuals and families from the most violent regions of Mexico in search for safety.

In 2006, the Mexican government launched an aggressive military campaign against drug trafficking organizations that sparked competition, fragmentation and alliances among criminal organizations. The move led to instability and a staggering amount of violence, prompting the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Mexicans. 3 The movement was not only internal; it forced individuals to search for safety beyond Mexico’s borders. In the paper entitled “Drug Violence and Migration Flows: Lessons from the Mexican Drug War” 4 , which I co-authored with MSU colleague Dr. Heriberto Gonzalez-Lozano, we examine the effect of this increase in violence on the inflows of immigrants from Mexico into the United States.

Violence imposes a social and economic burden on individuals and businesses, affecting individuals’ incentives to migrate. On the other hand, violence can also affect migration decisions

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through changes in migration costs. We considered two different types of violence: local violence where prospective migrants live, and transit violence on the routes taken to the U.S.-Mexico border. Moreover, we used electoral cycles to predict violence because drug violence has been broadly associated with municipal elections; drug cartels have attempted to influence elections to make sure the person elected does not interfere

Source: INEGI

with their criminal activities. Our findings show that local violence increased migration, but violence along the passage to the United States deterred individuals from migrating. Overall, data analysis showed that between 2007 and 2012, on net, violence positively affected migration flows. Violence was responsible for a 1.53 percent increase in the migration rate between Mexico and the United States.

Violence pushes immigrants to leave their homes, while restrictive U.S. policy, even at the state level, pulls in the opposite direction – pulls them to stay where they are. Laws and regulations in both Mexico and the United States affect immigration flows including the characteristics and skills of immigrants. This in turn impacts the economic growth, innovation and human capital in the United States.

While there is a large body of literature on immigration policies and their effects, there is still much research to do. Understanding the determinants of authorized and unauthorized immigration creates the opportunity to affect immigration policy reform.

1

Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Foreign-born workers: Labor Force Characteristics -2017.” May, 2018. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/forbrn_05172018.pdf

2

Hoekstra, Mark, and Sandra Orozco-Aleman. 2017. “Illegal Immigration, State Law, and Deterrence.” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 9(2): 228-252. https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/pol.20150100

3

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (2015). “The Human Rights Situation in Mexico.” http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/reports/pdfs/mexico2016-en.pdf

4

Orozco-Aleman, Sandra and Heriberto Gonzalez-Lozano. 2018. “Drug Violence and Migration Flows: Lessons from the Mexican Drug War.” Journal of Human Resources, 53(3): 717-749. http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/53/3/717

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Sandra Orozco-Aleman

Dr. Sandra Orozco-Aleman is an Associate Professor of Economics in the College of Business. She received her PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in 2011. She worked for six years as an economist and financial researcher for the Mexican Central Bank. Orozco-Aleman’s research focuses on the labor market impact of immigration, unauthorized immigration and U.S. immigration policy. She has published articles in leading academic journals such as the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy and the Journal of Human Resources. Her work has been presented at major academic conferences including those of the American Economic Association and the Society of Labor Economists. She teaches graduate courses on labor economics and special topics in econometrics, as well as undergraduate courses on intermediate microeconomics and labor economics.