Using INS border apprehension data to measure the flow of undocumented migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico frontier

"This article examines how data on INS [Immigration and Naturalization Service] border apprehensions are related to the flow of undocumented migrants crossing the southern U.S. border. Its centerpiece is a demographic model of the process of unauthorized migration across the Mexico-U.S. frontier. This model is both a conceptual framework that allows us to see theoretical linkages between apprehensions and illegal migrant flows, and a methodological device that yields estimates of the gross number of undocumented migrants. One implication of the model is that, for the first time, the relation between apprehensions and illegal flows can be examined empirically. We show that the ratio in each period between apprehensions and the undocumented flow is simply the odds of being located and arrested on any given attempt to enter the United States clandestinely."     

Agricultural development and emigration: rhetoric and reality

"The untested premise of trade liberalizing U.S. development programs such as the Caribbean Basin Initiative is that commodity trade can substitute for international labor migration. Analysis of U.S. tomato producing regions in Sinaloa, Mexico and Florida suggests that the effect of trade liberalization on international labor migration is uncertain." The emphasis is on how such development projects might affect the flow of illegal migrants to the United States.     

Reflections on immigration to Europe in light of U.S. immigration history

Trends in international migration in Europe and the United States are analyzed and compared, with a focus on concern about the presence of migrants in the receiving country. Consideration is given to the acculturation of migrants in the United States, including a historical outline of that process as it occurred during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Cultural pluralism and the newest wave of immigration are also described. Implications for European immigration are assessed.     

Collective versus mass behavior: a conceptual framework for temporary and permanent migration in Western Europe and the United States

"Present theories treat migration as one basic movement. [In the present paper,] conceptualization of economic migration as collective rather than mass behavior has been proposed to overcome present theoretical inadequacies and facilitate empirical analyses. Permanent migration has been correctly regarded as statistically aggregated, institutionalized behavior. Temporary international labor migration is, however, a different phenomenon--one that is more accurately portrayed as a collective product. It is the culmination of nontraditional interactions between three major groups: the migrants, their employers and host nation-states. The development of collective behavior, including a noninstitutionalized role of the state, may be illustrated by Western European guestworkers and United States illegal aliens. Advantages of the conceptualization include easier cross-cultural comparisons, guidelines for predictability and recognition of the dual role of the state as both major actor in the migration process and social control agent."     

The rural exodus in Mexico and Mexican migration to the United States

"During the 1950s, labor conditions in the United States attracted Mexican migrants, mostly from rural areas, in sharply fluctuating patterns of active recruitment, laissez-faire or repatriation. Because [the rural exodus and migration to the United States] have varied simultaneously and because they are interrelated, it has been assumed that the rural exodus in Mexico generally explains the flow of migrants across the border to the United States. This article argues that they must be analyzed instead as two distinct movements. Data presented show that most of the migrants created by the prevailing conditions in Mexican rural villages settle within Mexico and that only specific types of migrants are attracted over the border."     

Assessing the differences in distance of interstate migration, 1980

"This study examines distance of 1975-80 interstate migration [in the United States] and several explanations for the relations between distance and characteristic of migrants and locations.... Observations are individual records from the 1980 one-in-ten-thousand PUMS files. The sample is restricted to nonblack, noninstitutionalized head of households, age 25 to 64 in 1980.... We find outmigration is shaped by characteristics of individuals; however, distance of migration is shaped by characteristics at locations. Findings lend support to an interpretation of distance reflecting psychic costs and information and are consistent with a cost/benefit view of factors contributing to distance of migration."     

Determinants of Savings, Remittances, and Spending Patterns among U.S. Migrants in Four Mexican Communities

In this paper we attempt to overcome several weaknesses of earlier field studies of the effect of international migration on sending communities. In general, these studies fail to employ representative samples of migrants, specify theoretical models of decision-making, or control for a variety of individual and household characteristics likely to affect how migrants dispose of their earnings, including sample selectivity. Representative samples of Mexican migrants from four sending communities are used to estimate a theoretical model that controls for a variety of individual, family, and trip characteristics; other stages of the analysis also control for sample selectivity. The findings suggest that migrant decision-making is strongly and consistently determined by social capital and community membership, with other variables playing ancillary roles in different decision processes. The propensities to save, remit, and invest productively generally rose as ties to the United States increased, and were generally higher in communities with well-developed local economies.     

Labor Market Effects of Immigration Policies Border Enforcement and Amnesty

We explore the effects of tighter border enforcement and an amnesty on the wages and unemployment rates of natives and immigrants. We extend the Mortensen-Pissarides labor market model to include individuals authorized to work and illegal workers in a framework that accounts for voluntary return migration. Furthermore, we study the effects of an amnesty when a proportion of illegal workers pays payroll taxes. Our results show that the effect of changes in border enforcement on the number of illegal workers in the United States is theoretically ambiguous. While tighter border enforcement deters illegal migration of prospective workers, it also changes the incentives of those already in the United States decreasing return migration. If tighter border enforcement increases the number of illegal workers in the economy, it will also increase the wages of natives as market tightness increases. Our findings show that the larger the proportion of illegal workers paying payroll taxes, the larger will be the decrease in wages, and the smaller the increase in unemployment generated by the decrease in the number of illegal workers in the economy that will follow an amnesty.     

Do undocumented migrants earn lower wages than legal immigrants? New evidence from Mexico

"This article examines the extent to which undocumented status lowers wage rates among immigrants to the United States from four Mexican communities. Regression equations were estimated to determine the effect of legal status on wages independent of other demographic, social and economic variables, and special efforts were made to control for possible sample selection biases. Findings suggest that the data are relatively free from selectivity problems that have characterized earlier studies, and that legal status had no direct effect on wage rates earned by male migrants from the four communities. Legal status also had little effect on the kind of job that migrants take in the United States, but it does play an important indirect role in determining the length of time that migrants stay in that country. By reducing the duration of stay, illegal status lowers the amount of employer-specific capital accruing to undocumented migrants, and thereby lowers wage rates relative to legal migrants." Data are for 1982-1983.     

Economic integration and labor flows: stage migration in farm labor markets in Mexico and the United States

"This article examines the probable effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on migration from Mexico to the United States, disputing the view that expansion of jobs in Mexico could rapidly reduce undocumented migration. To the extent that NAFTA causes Mexican export agriculture to expand, migration to the United States will increase rather than decrease in the short run. Data collected in both California and the Mexican State of Baja California show that indigenous migrants from southern Mexico typically first undertake internal migration, which lowers the costs and risks of U.S. migration. Two features of employment in export agriculture were found to be specially significant in lowering the costs of U.S. migration: first, working in export agriculture exposes migrants to more diverse social networks and information about U.S. migration; second, agro-export employment in northern Mexico provides stable employment, albeit low-wage employment, for some members of the family close to the border (especially women and children) while allowing other members of the family to assume the risks of U.S. migration."     

An Empirical Examination of Characteristics of Mexican Migrants to Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Areas of the United States*

Abstract This research examines differences between those Mexican migrants choosing metropolitan destinations and those choosing destinations outside metropolitan areas of the United States. Using general estimating equations, the study presents data indicating that since the 1960s migrants choosing rural destinations are less fluent in English, slightly older, much less educated, far more likely to be unskilled, more likely to be married, and more likely to be undocumented. The picture is more complex when consideration is restricted to those migrants arriving in rural areas since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement. These migrants are far more likely to be single, have more education but have less English fluency, have less work experience, and have less family experience with migration to the United States. They are more likely to come from small towns and rural areas of Mexico.     

Migration,development and remittances in rural Mexico

The argument is that remittances to Mexico from migrants in the US contribute to household prosperity and lessen the balance of payments problem. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the incentives and constraints to development and individual economic well-being in rural Mexico. Examination is made of the financial amount of remittances, the use of remittances, the impact on development of remittances, models of migration, and migration historically. The viewpoint is that migration satisfies labor needs in developed countries to the detriment of underdeveloped countries. $2 billion a year are sent by illegal migrants from the US to Mexico. This sum is 4 times the net earning of Mexico's tourist trade. 21.1% of the Mexican population depend in part on money sent from the US. 79% of illegal migrants remitted money to relatives in Jalisco state. 70% of migrant families receive $170/month. In Guadalupe, 73% of families depended on migrant income. In Villa Guerrero, 50% of households depended on migrant income. Migrant income supported 1 out of 5 households in Mexico. Money is usually spent of household subsistence items. Sometimes money is also spent on community religious festivals, marriage ceremonies, and education of children or improved living conditions. Examples are given of money being used for investment in land and livestock. Migration affects community solidarity, and comparative ethic, and the influence on others to migrate. Employment opportunities are not expanded and cottage and community industries are threatened. Land purchases did not result in land improvements. Migration models are deficient. There is a macro/micro dichotomy. The push-and-pull system is not controllable by individual migrants. The migration remittance model is a product of unequal development and a mechanism feeding migration. Mexican migration has occurred since the 1880's; seasonal migration was encouraged. There was coercion to return to Mexico after the economic recession of World War I; the door was firmly closely during the Great Depression of 1929-35. The 1980 estimates of illegal Mexican migrants totaled 2-9 million, which is the largest flow in the world. US industrial presence and Mexican development have reinforced migration flows. Regional and international capitalist requirements govern migration.     

Death at the border

"Debates about United States border control policies have generally ignored the human costs of undocumented migration. We focus attention on these costs by estimating the number, causes and location of migrant deaths at the southwest border of the United States between 1993 and 1997.... Deaths from hyperthermia, hypothermia and dehydration increased sharply from 1993 to 1997 as intensified border enforcement redirected undocumented migration flows from urban crossing points to more remote crossing areas where the migrants are exposed to a greater risk of death."     

Local Economic Opportunity and the Competing Risks of Internal and U.S. Migration in Zacatecas,Mexico1

This article uses a competing risks model to examine the effects of origin economic conditions on the probability of temporary U.S. and internal labor migration in the Mexican state of Zacatecas. We measure origin economic conditions with municipal‐level indices of employment and small‐scale investment opportunities that we constructed from population and economic census data. The results of our analysis demonstrate the important influence of local employment and investment opportunities on migration outcomes. Controlling for the prior municipal rate of U.S. return migration and other factors, positive opportunities for small‐scale investment are associated with a higher risk of temporary migration to the United States. This result is consistent with investment oriented migration predicted by the new economics of labor migration theory. We also find comparable social network effects for both internal and U.S. migration. Having social ties to active migrants of one type (U.S. or internal), encourages migration of the same type and discourages migration of the other type.     

Rational Migration Policy Should Tolerate Non-zero Illegal Migration Flows: Lessons from Modelling the Market for Illegal Migration

The debate on the immigration policies in OECD countries has turned its attention towards illegal migrants. Given that migration flows are determined by immigration laws, the probability of potential detection, penalties for unauthorized migrants and their employers, and income differences between sending and receiving countries, this paper presents a new approach to the problem of illegal migration, grounded on the economic theory of illegal behaviour. The framework considers the interaction of potential migrants, citizens, employers, and the government. After introducing the supply function of illegal migration and its determinants, the trade-off between social costs and benefits of preventing and combating illegal migration is demonstrated. This trade-off results in an optimal level of migration larger than zero. A complete "market model" of illegal migration is offered by presentation of a demand curve of illegal migration, based on the tolerance of the society towards clandestine foreigners. Equilibrium forces predict a non-zero level of illegal migration. The rule of law of our legal systems, according to which any illegal activity has to be reduced to zero, bears the danger of producing inefficient disequilibria. A reasonable policy of wanted and unwanted migration should address the question of how to allocate scarce resources. Ignoring social optima and equilibrium forces means to abandon public resources that could be used for other public assignments, such as schooling or foreign aid, for instance, i.e., measures that could strike the problem of illegal migration at its root.     

Puerto Rican migration and occupational selectivity, 1982-1988

"This study examines whether or not the likelihood of Puerto Rican workers choosing to migrate to the United States depends on their occupations or skills. The study determined that the occupational composition among those migrating from the island to the United States generally corresponds to the occupational distribution in Puerto Rico. The exception is that, after controlling for labor market conditions in Puerto Rico and in the United States and for other characteristics of the migrants, farm workers, laborers, and craft and kindred workers are overrepresented in the flow of migrants. The two most important factors contributing to the occupational distribution of migrants are whether or not they already have job offers in the United States and whether they are currently employed in Puerto Rico."     

Temporary and illegal labour migration: the Israeli experience

In recent years, Israel has become a major recipient of documented and undocumented temporary labour migrants from many countries outside the Middle East region. The purposes of this article are to describe Israel's experience of temporary labour migration and its concomitant, illegal labour migration; and also to explore what her policies on temporary labour migration indicate about the nature of the policy-making process in this policy domain in Israel.
To these ends the article traces the evolution of temporary labour migration – legal and illegal – and recent policy initiatives of the Israeli government. It then considers some of the major conceptions of the policy-making process found in public policy literature. The article concludes by pointing to the uniqueness of Israel's experience of temporary labour migration and to the fact that her policies have been overwhelmingly reactive – inadequately considered, ill-conceived, ambivalent in relation to their ultimate purpose and, in the course of implementation, vulnerable to "privatization" (being taken over by vested interest groups).
Analysis of the most recent policy initiatives designed to reduce the number of legal labour migrants and address the problem of illegal labour migrants, reflect a policy-making process that is not followed by commensurate action.     

Temporal and spatial patterns of geographically indirect immigration to the United States

"This article examines the little-studied phenomenon of indirect geographic migration to the United States, or the movement of persons whose country of last permanent residence differed from their country of birth. Over 8 million records of legal immigrants to the United States were studied for the period 1972-1987. Geographically indirect migration is shown to be important, amounting to as many as 86,136 persons during a single year. Primarily because of the dislocations of Southeast Asian refugees from their homelands and their subsequent admittance to the United States, indirect immigration increased during the 1980s. Moreover, again somewhat due to refugees, the patterns of geographically indirect movement changed during recent years. Political conditions in countries of birth appear to be important in explaining these patterns, as well as the age and skills of the indirect migrants themselves."     

The interrupted chain: traditional receiver countries,migration regimes,and the East European Jewish diaspora, 1918–39

This article focuses primarily on countries that had been, prior to 1914, among the most favored destinations for East European Jewish migrants: chiefly the United States, Canada, Palestine, Brazil and Argentina. In the inter-war years, these ceased to be the only ports of final entry for Jewish migrants. However, despite restrictive migration regimes and unfavorable economic conditions, traditional receiver countries continued to absorb the largest share of such migrants (the U. S. and Palestine, between them, accounting for over 800,000). Jewish migration to countries other than the United States peaked around 1933; was just about equal to the U. S.-bound migrant stream by 1938; and fell off in 1939–1940. The Jewish case raises several theoretical and methodological issues, including the definition of migrant motivation as well as the framing of immigration policy as products of mixed factors – both political and economic.     

DEPRESSED WAGES ALONG THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

Portions of the United States near the Mexican border are experiencing massive inflows of both legal and illegal migrants of Mexican origin. The resultant concentration of low skill labor in these areas of the southwestern states supposedly has led to an excess supply of labor and subsequent depressed labor market conditions, particularly for blue collar workers and Mexican-American nationals. This paper analyzes the degree to which the labor market in this area is depressed. The results presented here tend to verify hypotheses suggested by several other authors but indicate that the magnitude of the problem as reflected by low wages along the border is much less severe than generally believed. The importance of this study is that it measures a phenomenon that heretofore has been accepted with very little empirical verification.