Rethinking Border Enforcement, Permanent and Circular Migration

Border Enforcement and Return Migration by Documented and Undocumented Mexicans.

Using data from the Mexican Migration Project we compute probabilities of departure and return for first and later trips to the United States in both documented and undocumented status. We then estimate statistical models to analyze the determinants of departure and return according to legal status. Prior to 1986, Mexico-U.S. migration was characterized by great circularity, but since then circ...

Economic and Social Determinants of Mexican Circular and Permanent Migration

This study seeks to determine the factors that have impacted the duration of the Mexican temporary and permanent migrant trips to the United States. The explanatory variables consist of socioeconomic factors, human capital, migration experience, social capital and labor variables. The data collected between 1987 and 2007 showed that more than half of the Mexican migrants that enter the USA did ...

Why Border Enforcement Backfired.

In this article we undertake a systematic analysis of why border enforcement backfired as a strategy of immigration control in the United States. We argue theoretically that border enforcement emerged as a policy response to a moral panic about the perceived threat of Latino immigration to the United States propounded by self-interested bureaucrats, politicians, and pundits who sought to mobili...

The Effect of Illegal Immigration and Border Enforcement

U.S. Border Enforcement and Mexican Immigrant Location Choice.

We provide the first evidence on the causal effect of border enforcement on the full spatial distribution of Mexican immigrants to the United States. We address the endogeneity of border enforcement with an instrumental variables strategy based on administrative delays in budgetary allocations for border security. We find that 1,000 additional Border Patrol officers assigned to prevent unauthor...