97 10 3176 https://dh.scu.edu/exhibits/files/original/90/2937/U.S._IMMIGRATION_AND_REFUGEE_POLICY_1983_22Current_Status_of_U.S._Immigration_and_Refugee_Policy_22_and_22_Immigration_as_an_Intrusive_Global_Flow_A_New_Perspective_22.pdf 6accef3dec4276f9982b360b956a4e0d PDF Text Text Center for Migration Studies (NY) U.S. IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE POLICY, 1983: "Current Status of U.S. Immigration and Refugee Policy" and "'Immigration as an Intrusive Global Flow; A New Perspective" Source: Center for Migration Studies (NY) Contributed by: Kritz, Mary M. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/community.29222931 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Center for Migration Studies (NY) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Center for Migration Studies (NY) This content downloaded from 24.4.24.213 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:24:17 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �from: Charles B. Keely, "Current Status of U.S. Immigration and Refugee Policy," In Mary M. Kritz,editor, U.S. IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE POLICY, 1983 1 Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, pp, 339~359, Why Is Immigration Policy So Hnrd lo Change? The previous recitation of specific issues gives us lillle guidance about the shape of future immigration and refugee policy. The business ofa prophet is risky. In the case of immigration, the pace of change itself should raise questions-after all, official concern as evidenced in congressional hearings about illegal migration began more than ten years ago. Although trying to predict what is going lo happen is an interesting parlor game. it may be lcs.s valuable than trying to shed light on the pace of change in the recent past. That light might even illuminate the future a bit and tell us what to expect and why. The reason for slow change in this mailer is no different from any other issue involving various interest groups. Many groups and individuals have a tangible or symbolically important stake in the status quo; few groups have so direct an interest in change. Ethnic groups, refugee agencies, government bureaucracies with their designated areas. employers (from those wishing housemaids to multinationals trying to move key executives), religious groups, and unions all have a stake in a family reunion and refugee-oriented policy that is also relatively generous. One could add lawyers to the roster. with their stake in the li:'gislative complexity that provides their living. Surely the list of partisans could be expanded. On the opposite side, a list of interested parties is ·hard lo draw up. Supporters of employer sanctions and greater emphasis on labor impacts orten point to the impact of legal, and especially illegal, migration on women, the handicapped, blacks, Hispanics, and other disadvantaged minorities. Nevertheless, one docs not sec the National Organization for Women, the Urban League, or the NAACP in the forefront of support for the labor impact argument. Minority organizations are sophisticated political actors and need no spokespersons. Explanations to the effect that minority groups really support the labor-oriented approach but hesitate to upset delicate interminority coalitions (that is, black and Hispanic coalitions) not only ignore women and the handicapped, but also arc implicitly admitting immigration policy and the specific labor-oriented approach arc either not on or far down on the agendas of such organizations. If proposals for major shifts in policy (large reductions in the ceiling or a labor-oriented selection system) do not garner support of groups that arc directly affected, who does support them? 1l1e answer is groups that define themselves as public interest groups-guardians of society-such as conservationists, veterans organizations, and groups concerned with population growth, as well as some parts of organized labor, but notably not the unions . . . most directly affected by migration, especially illegal migration. Such groups are opposed not only by the directly affected groups but by guardians of society of a different type-civil rights and public law groups, for example. The result has be~n a familiar scenario, a strategic battle of the supporters of current pohcy holding off change to protect their advantages, vers~s groups staging a prolonged_seige to chip away al current policy and h.opmg to tak~ advantage of fortuitous openings, like those provided by a poor economy, a Mariel boatlift, and anti-immigrant feelings that accompany such episodes,.~·.· The status quo'supporters have the advantage due to their stake in the issue~ the ~assage of time, an?_lhe abs nce of the catastrophe to be expected 7 . from 1;11~as1?ns or floods of ab ens predicted by the opposition. In this regard, . the Civil Rights movement has declawed some of the rhetoric of an earlier time about the qliaHty and value of racial, ethnic, religious, and foreign-born groups. The supporters of a cutback in numbers, a more labor-oriented policy, and a heavier reliance on an enforcement approach have the advantage~ ~f_being on the.offensive beca~se of the state of the economy and the poss1b1lity o~ s~dden mfluxes (as the Cuban boatlift) to mobilize support. Of course, th~re IS also the effect of change due to elections-:-for example, Senator Simpson rather than Senator Kennedy as the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration. · . Th~ we~kness of the administrative and managerial system with respect to unnugrabon, the lack of cohesion on policy formulation on immigration in ) the Executive, and the proprietary sense of Congress over immigration means t~~re is no st~ong~nterfortheemergence ofimmigration policy. There is no v1s1~le'. credible, high stat~s agen~ responsible for monitoring immigration ~nd •.ts unpacts and ?ev 1opmgpohcy for government action. A proposal for an ~mm1gration ~o~nctl with preCJsely that charge was narrowly defeated in the :)elect Comm1ss1on and the concept has some strong congressional backing. ' While the Select Commission was a delaying tactic in the minds of some iNho created it, it has set in motion a process to introduce change. It is not at ~I clear_tl~at immi;r~tion_and refugee policy will be fundamentally changed. 1treamhnmg admm1strabve procedures and tinkering with preferences are ?robably in the.offing; These are not unimportant for they affect the lives of ieoplein this country and abroad. What is not so clearis whether fun dam en- ' al shifts in policy will take place in the near future. The issue is nothing less '-. . . . . . ..,,· . than the future of U.S. pluralism-not just the shape, the tint or the accent of U.S. society, but the values that define us. whatever our ancestry. as a 7 _ people. This content downloaded from 24.4.24.213 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:24:17 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �f~om: Kevin F. McCarthy and David F. Ronfeldt, ''Immigration as an Intrusive Global Flow; li New )?erspective," In Mary M. Kritz, editor, U,S, IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE )?OLICY 1. 1983, Lexington, MA: Lexington,Books, pp, 381~399, The cu,;ent Context of Turbulence U.S. immigration policy is characterized by the failure of current regulatory policies; an inability to develop a comprehensive alternative policy and a consequent reliance on crisis management: and moral ambivalence toward immigration and refugee issues. Th: fa~lurc_of c~rr~nt policies directly rcnects the incrcasingdirliculty of regulatmg 1mm1grat1on nows to the United States and is succinctly described by the statement made by an a!lorncy general, "We have lost control of our borders.·· This loss of control is evident in the nows of illegal migrants across U.S. bor?ers (m?st notably, but by no means exclusively, from Mexico). in the massive seahrt of Cubans from Mariel Bay. in the less dramatic but far more regular stream of Haitians to Florida, and in the admission of tens of thousands of Southeast Asian refugees above the established refugee q'uota. Each of these nows underscores the contradiction of a global superpower unable to exercise control over its own borders. However, this contradiction can be viewed as a natural by-product or a system or global ~o;vs that incrca~<:5 the interdependence among natii,ns and reduces the w11lmgncss and ability of a superpower to use its power to control the outcomes of the system. Indeed. the multiple objectives served by such globa) nows, and the spillover effects they generate, blur distinctions ?ctween foreign and domestic policy, and excite a broad range of domestic mt~rest groups. This mingling of objectives, issues and interests heightens policyma~:rs' awareness of the complexity and political ramifications of their dcc1s1ons. . . ~e U.S. treatment of Mexican immigration exemplifies the way in wl)l~h mterdependence among nations effectively limits any single nation"s ab1hty ~o control flows. Flows of migrants from Mexico have been arriving in the United States for a long time because they served the interests of both count~ies. They supplied the cheap labor necessary for economic develop• '."cnt m_ the Southwest, and they relieved the pressures of underemployment m Mexico_government efforts to stem this flow by closing the border have trad1t1onally responded to U.S. internal economic needs. However. the _Dnited St~tes is unlikely to consider closing the border now, as it did dun~g Opc~at1o_n W~tb~ck _in 1954, b~cause there is increasing recognition that '.llcgal 1mm1gratmn 1s simply one issue in the broader contcxl or U.S.Mexican relations and that reciprocal vulnerabilities are involved. U.S. desire to secure a stable supply of oil during a period of uncertain supplies. to insure a stable political environment in a neighbor nation, and to nurture industrial development in our border areas has made us increasingly scnsi- _u.s. . live to Mexico's economic need to export its surplus labor. Moreover. U.S. industrial and agricultural interests that rely on immigrant labor, together with a growing Mexican-American populatio? in the Un!ted ~ta_tcs, have expanded the number of domestic groups with a stake m this_ issue ~nd reduced the chances of developing a consensus on a comprehensive policy. The cases of Cuban and Southeast Asian refugees provide striking examples of how global nows may have unanticipated longer-term consequences and tend to create situations in which foreign policy decisions produce domestic ramifications. Both of these refugee flows originated as unanticipated results of foreign policy actions, and both created situations in which the United States was unwilling or unable to stop the flow once its domestic effect began to be felt. The reasons for the apparent inability to regulate these flows differ somewhat by case: inability to control the flow at its SOU{Ce (Cuban); concern for the effect of refugees on friendly first-asylum countries (Southeast Asian); sensibility to the reaction that stopping the flow would produce among previously settled refugees (Cuban); and humanitarian concerns (both groups). However, both cases demonstrate the far-reaching and often unintended spillover effects such flows can generate, as well as the multiplicity of policy objectives they affect. The global flow perspective also suggests why the formulation of a comprehensive immigration policy is so difficult and why officials often rely instead on crisis management. Because the call for a change in policy is typically motivated by the spillover effects of specific flows, there is a built-in time lag between the start of the flow and the call for policy. During this lag the spillover effects spread, the number of policy areas affected increases, and the number of concerned interests multiplies. As a result, the likelihood of reaching consensus on a comprehensive alternative declines. For example, policymakers would ·have faced fewer constraints in attempting to control the Mariel Bay flotilla had not that wave of Cuban refugees been preceded by several prior waves, that were by then firmly established in U.S. society,flt~, •· ·· ·· · • The·problems of time lag and policy constraints are rooted in the nature of global flows, but they are compounded by the moral ambivalence with which Americans view immigration issues. As citizens of a nation cognizant of immigrant roots and proud of its commitment to human rights, Americans are,reluctant to view immigrants and refugees as part of a flow, and'·. · ·prefer instead to consider them individuals with certain inalienable rights> This perspective collides with an equally widely held view that the United States simply cannot afford to absorb everyone who might want to come to this country, Thus, moral ambivalence is reflected in the contradictory belief in an inalienable right to emigrate without a corresponding right to imm!grate. . This content downloaded from 24.4.24.213 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:24:17 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �This ambivalence complicates the policy process in a number of ways. For example, it contributes to the policy time Jag by focusing public atten• tion on the humanitarian aspects of refugee and immigration flows while ignoring their potential long-term effects. Thus, attempts to halt boats full of Haitian immigrants were attacked for their cold legalities. Similarly, Americans are reluctant to acknowledge that establishing refugee camps and institutional procedures to facilitate the resettlement of Southeast Asian political refugees encourages others who are more aptly described as economic refugees to take advantage of these efforts. In addition, this ambivalence imposes direct constraints on policy options. For example, both the Carter and Reagan initiatives on illegal Mexican migrants contain an· ani~ ncstyproposal For essentially humanitarian reasons. However, provisions to limit the rights of those granted amnesty, and thus discourage potential future illegals, are soundly criticized. At times these constraints become even more direct as when Federal Judge James King ruled that the INS could not deport the Haitian plaintiffs because it had not proven that their human rights would not be harmed upon their return to Haiti. This content downloaded from 24.4.24.213 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:24:17 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource U.S. IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE POLICY, 1983: "Current Status of U.S. Immigration and Refugee Policy" and "'Immigration as an Intrusive Global Flow; A New Perspective" Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Kritz, Mary M. Subject The topic of the resource Immigration Law United States Description An account of the resource Both documents are excerpts from a larger work, Mary M. Kritz's U.S. IMMIGRATION AND REGUGEE POLICY, 1983. The first, "Current Status of U.S. Immigration and Refugee Policy" by Charles B. Keely, documents why immigration policy is so slow to change. The next, "Immigration as an Intrusive Global Flow; A New Perspective" by David F. Ronfeldt, describes U.S. immigration policy as a failure of current regulatory policies, an inability to develop a comphrehensive alternative policy and a consequent reliance of crisis management, as well as a moral ambivalence toward immigration and refugee issues. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Center for Migration Studies (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1983 Type The nature or genre of the resource Policy Documents Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 011-cms105-b1f4i6 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived 98th Congress - Refugee Assistance Extension Act of 1983 - Publications Language A language of the resource English Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Immigration and Mental Health: Mexican Americans in the United States Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Escobar, Javier, I Nervi, Constanza, Hoyos Gara, Michael, A Subject The topic of the resource Mexican Immigration Immigration Mental Health Description An account of the resource The Hispanic population in the United States continues to expand rapidly due primarily to a large flow of immigrants from Mexico. Historical observations of disadvantage in the immigrant population, when compared to the native population, had helped to shape prevailing theories on immigration and mental health. However, data emerging from new research on Mexican Americans have come to challenge the old idea that immigrants are necessarily disadvantaged. The goal of this article is to review these new studies critically, to draw conclusions concerning the relationship between immigration and psychopathology, and to offer potential explanations for the major findings. We review five recent large-scale studies that examined the prevalence of mental disorders among Mexican-born immigrants and U.S.-born Mexican Americans in the United States. Results of these studies are inconsistent with traditional tenets on the relationship among immigration, acculturation, and psychopathology. They show that Mexico-born immigrants, despite significant socioeconomic disadvantages, have better mental health profiles than do U.S.-born Mexican Americans. Possible explanations for the better mental health profile of Mexican immigrants include research artifacts such as selection bias, a protective effect of traditional family networks, and a lower set of expectations about what constitutes "success" in America. The elevated rates of psychopathology in U.S.-born Mexican Americans may be related to easier access to abused substances and an elevated frequency of substance abuse among the U.S.-born. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Harvard Review of Psychiatry Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008–8–28 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Research Article Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/hrp_8.2.64 Language A language of the resource English https://dh.scu.edu/exhibits/files/original/90/2939/Immigration_and_Naturalization_Service_v._Errico.pdf 65e2d78b5c6998fa8abc210148bb4121 PDF Text Text Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Errico Source: Center for Migration Studies (NY) Contributed by: United States Court of Appeals for Ninth Circuit Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/community.29562889 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Center for Migration Studies (NY) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Center for Migration Studies (NY) This content downloaded from 24.4.24.213 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:33:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �214 OCTOBER TERM, 19~6. I Opinion of the- Court'. . 385 U.S. 214 - IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION - -. SERVICE _v. ERRICO .. .CERTIO.RARL TO----T.HE UNITED STATES-COURT OF APPEALS' FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT. No. 54. _Arg~ed Oct-ob~r w; 1966 ...:.,.Decided December 12, 1966.* • &lction ·24f(f)" of the Immigration .and· Nationality Act, which ex.·- empts from deportation .an alien who obtained a -irisa and entry - ·to the United States by fraud and misrepresentation where the alien is the spouse, pa.rent or child of an .American citizen or of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence, and was uotherwise admissible at the time of entry," is construed, in the light of its humanitarian purpose of preventing the breaking up of families, to save from deportation such aliens \vbo misrepresented their status for the purpose of evading quota restrictions. Pp. 217-225. No. 54, 349 F. 2d 541, affirmed; No. 91, 350 F. 2d 279, reversed. Solicitor General Marshall argued the cause for petitioner in No. 54 and for respondent in No. 91. • With · him on the briefs were Assi.stant Attorney General Vinson, Louis F. Claiborne, L. Paul Winings and Charles Gordon. Frank I erulli argued the cause for respondent in No. 54. With him on the brief was Edu!'in J. Peterson. Julius C. Biervliet argued the cause for petitioner in No. 91. With him on the brief was Edward Q. Carr, Jr. MR. CHIEF JusTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court. We granted certiorari in these cases to resolve a conflict between the Second and Ninth Circuits on their interpretations of § 241 (f) the Immigration and j' 9pinion of the Court. Nationality Act.' The issue is identical in both case,; and, therefore, Iends itself to· a _single opinion .. - Section 24i ( f) reads as :follows: ·"The provisions of this section relating to the deportation of aliens within the United States on the ground that they were excludable at the time of _ . •. - ·entry as aliens who have sought to procure, or have •· ·. procured visas or other documentation, or entry into the United States by fraud or misrepresentation shall not apply to an alien othernise admissible at the time of entry who is the spouse, parent, or a child of a United States citizen or of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence." The issue is whether the statute saves from deportation an alien who misrepresents his status for the purpose of e:vading quota restrictions, if he has the necessary familial relationship to a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident. Respondent Errico in No. 54, a native of Italy, falsely represented to the immigration authorities that he was •a skilled mechanic with specialized experience in repairing foreign automobiles. On the hasis of that misrepresentation he was granted first preference quota status under the statutory preference scheme then in effect, and entered the United States in 1959 with his wife. A child was born to the couple in 1960 and acquired United States citizenship at birth. In 1963 deportation proc~edings were commenced against Errico on the ground that he was excludable at the time of entry as not "of the proper status under the quota specified in the illh'lligrant visa." ' ot ""'Together with No. 91, Scott, aka Plummer v. Immigration and Naturalization Ser-vice, on certiorari to -the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. This content downloaded from 24.4.24.213 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:33:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms '75 Stat. 655 (1961), 8 U. S. C. § 1251 (f). 2 Section 211 (a) (4) of the Immigration. and Nationality Act, 66 StaL 181 (1952), later amended, 79 Stat. 917 (1965), 8 U. S. C. § 1181 (a) (1964 ed., ·Supp. I). Aliens who we~e excludable at the time of entry under the law then existing are deportable under § 241 (a)(!), 66 Stat. 204 (1952), as amended, 8 U. S. C. § 1251 (a)(!). �IMMIGRATION SERVICE v. ERRICO. . OCTOBER TERM, 1966. 216 Opinion of_ the Court. - . . - ' 385 U.S. 217 Opinion of the Court. 214 - Throughout the. proceedings Errico insisted that he was . __ .· s:w~cffrom deportat1oii by § 241 (f). -• .The special inquiry . ···• _officer of the Immigrationc'and Naturalization Service · .• ruled that reliefunder.§ 241 (f) was not availabl~ because . Errico had. not complied with quota requirements and, -. hence, was_ not. ':otherwise adm1ssible· at the time of -•·••entry.". Tlie Board of Irrimigr!l,tion Appeals affirmed the . deportatiorr order but the Court of Appeals for the Ninth · Circuit reversed, holding that. the construction of the · statute adopted by the Board would strip it of practically all mearring, since a material misrepresentation would presumably be given to conceal some factor that would bear on admissibility. 349 F. 2d 541. We granted certiorari. 383 U. S. 941. Petitioner Scott in No. 91, a native of Jamaica, contracted a marriage with a United States citizen by proxy solely for the purpose of obtaining nonquota status for entry into the country. She has never lived. with her husband and never intended to do so. After entering the United States in 1958, she gave birth to an illegitimate child, who became an American citizen at birth. When the fraud was discovered, deportation proceedings were begun, and a special inquiry officer of the Immigration ~ and Naturalization Service found her deportable on the ·· ground that she was not a non quota immigrant as specified in her visa.' The Board of Immigration Appeals affirmed, and the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the Board .. 350 F. 2d 279. The -court agreed with the Board of Immigration Appeals that a shani marriage contracted solely to circumvent the immigration laws would not confer nonquota status on an . alien as the spouse of an 1\illerican citizen. It also af. firmed the ruling that Mrs. Scott was not entitled to relief · . under § 241 ( f) because she was not otherwise admissible 'Section 211 (a) (3), 66 Stat. 181 (1952), later amended, 79 Stat. 917 (1965), 8 U.S. C. § 1181 (a) (196.J. ed., Supp. 1). at tke time.of entry, since her country's quota was over-• subscribed. - We granted.certiorari. .. 383 U.S. 941. At the outset it should be noted that even the Government agrees that § 241 (f) cannot be applied with strict literalness. Literally, § 241 (f) applies only when the alien is charged with entering in violation of § 212 (a)(19) of the statute, which excludes from entry "[a]ny alien who ... has procured a visa or other documentation ... by fraud, or by willfully misrepresenting a material fact."' Under this interpretation, an alien who entered by fraud could be deported for having entered with a defective visa or for other documentary irregularities even if he would have been admissible if he had not committed the fraud. The Government concedes that such an interpretation would be inconsistent with the manifest purpose of the section, and the administrative ·authorities have consistently held that § 241 (f) waives any deportation charge that results directly from the misrepresentation regardless of the section of the statute under which the charge was brought, provided that the alien was "otherwise admissible at the time of entry." ' The Government's argument in both cases is that to be otherwise admissible at the time of entry the alien must show that he would have been admitted even if he had not lied, and that the aliens in these cases would not have been admitted because of the quota restrictions. It is the argument of the aliens that our adoption of the government thesis would negate the intention of Congress to apply fair humanitarian standards in granting relief from the consequences of their fraud to aliens who are close relatives of United States citizens, and that the statute would have practically no effect if construed as the Government argues, since it 66 Stat. 183 (1952), as amended; 8 U. S. C. § 1182 (a) (19). 'See Matter of S-, 7 L & N. Dec. 715 (1958); Matter of Y-, 8 L & N. Dec. 143 (1959). 4 233-£53 0 - 67 - 21 This content downloaded from 24.4.24.213 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:33:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �218 OCTOBER TERM, 1966. Oplnion of the Court. JNHvllGRATIU~ ~Ei-tVICE v. ElU\.il:U. 385 U.S. requires a considerable stretch of the imagination to con. ceive of an alien making a material misrepresentation that did not conceaLsome factor that would make him inadmissible. The sharp divergence of opm10n among the circuit judges in these cases indicates that the meaning of the words "otherwise admissible" is not obvious. An inter.pretation -0f these words requires close attention to the · language of § 241 (f), to the language of its predecessor, § 7 of the 1957 Act,' and to the legislative history of these provisions. The legislative history begins with the enactment of the Displaced Persons_ Act of 1948, 62 Stat. 1009. This Act provided for the admission to the United States of thousands of war refugees, many from countries that had fallen behind the Iron Curtain. Some of these refugees misrepresented their nationality or homeland while in Europe to avoid being repatriated to a Communist country. In so doing, however, they fell afoul of § 10 of the Act, which provided that persons making wil1ful misrepresentations for the purpose of gaining admission "shall thereafter not be admissible into the United States." The plight of these refugees, who were excluded from the United States for misrepresentations that were generally felt to be justifiable, inspired recurring proposals for stat- • utory reform. When the Act was revised and codified in 1952, the House Committee recommended adding a provision to save such refugees from deportation when they had misrepresented their nationality or homeland only to avoid repatriation and persecution.' The Conference Committee deleted the provision, but announced its sympathy with the refugees in the following terms: "It is also the opipion of the conferees that the sections of the bill which provide for the exclusion 'Pub. L. 85-316, 71 Stat. 639 (1957). See H. R. Rep. No. 1365, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 128 (1952). 7 This content downloaded from 24.4.24.213 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:33:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 214 21'..,i Opinion of the Court. of aliens who obtained travel documents by fraud or by willfully misrepresenting a material fact, should n~t serve to exclude or to deport certain bona fide refugees who in fear of being forcibly repatriated to their former homelands misrepresented their place of birth when applying for a visa and such misrepresentation did not have as its basis the desire to ·• evade the quota provisions of the law or an investi. gation in the place of their ·former residence. · The conferees wish to emphasize that in applying fair humanitarian standards in the administrative adjudication of such cases, every effort is to be made to prevent the evasion of law by fraud and to protect the interest of the United States." H. R. Rep. No. 2096, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 128 ( 1952). The Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Attorney General did not construe the statute as the Conference Committee had recommended, believing that the explicit statutory language did not allow for an exemption for justifiable misrepresentations. Refugees who misrepresented their place of origin were always found to have concealed a material fact, since the misrepresentation hindered an investigation of their background.' The misrepresentation section was not the only provision of the 1952 legislation that was widely thought to be unnecessarily harsh and restrictive, and in 1957 Congress passed legislation alleviating in many respects the stricter provisions of the earlier legislation. The purpose of the 1957 Act is perfectly clear from its terms, as well as from the relevant House and Senate Com8 See Matter of B- and p_:., 2 I. & N. Dec. 638 (1947); H. R. Rep. No. 1199, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 10 (1957). �IMMIGRATION SERVICE v. ERRICO. OCTOBER TERM, 1966. 220 Opinion of the Court. 385 U.S. mittee Reports.' .The most important provisions of the act provide for _special nonquota status for the adopted children or illegitimate children of immigrant parents, and for orphans who have been or are to be adopted by United States citizens. Other important provisions allow the Attorney General to waive certain grounds for exclusion deportation, including ·afiliction with tubercuIos1s or conviction of a crime involving moral turpitude, on behalf of aliens who are near relatives of United States citizens or of aliens lawfully admitted for permanent residence. The intent of the Act is plainly to grant exceptions to the rigorous provisions of the 1952 Act for the purpose of keeping family units together. Congress felt that 1 in many circumstances, it was more important to unite famiJje§ and nreserxe family ties than it was to enfor~e strictly the anota limitations or even the many restrictive sections that are designed to keep or undesirable or harmful aliens Qllt gf the qguptry. 10 In this context it is not sur rising that Congress% also re e. to aliens facing exclusion or eporta 10n 9 "The legislative history of the lmmigration and Nationality Act clearly indicates that the Congress intended to provide for a liberal treatment of children and was concerned with the problem of keeping families of United States citizens and immigrants united." H. R. Rep. No. 1199, 85th Cong., !st Sess., p. 7 (1957). See also S. Rep. Ne. 1057, S5th Cong., 1st Sess. (1957). 10 It is in this context that the legislative history cited in the dissent should be understood. The remarks of Senator Eastland and Congressman Celler quoted in footnote 4 of the dissent in context do not refer to § 7 of the Act but to the provisions of the bill providing for the adoption of alien orphans. Furthermore, Senator Eastland and Congressman Celler did not mean that no exceptions to the quota requirements were intended to be created, because the basic purpose of the bill was to relax th~ quota system for adopted children and for certain other classes of ~liens deemed ··deserving of relief. They were reassuring their colleagues that no fundamental chancres 0 in the quota system were contemplated. __ This content downloaded from 24.4.24.213 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:33:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 221 Opinion of -the Court. 214 t10n. ec 10n - rovided that: . "The provisions of section 241 of the Immigration and Nationality Act relating to the deportation of aliens within the United States on the ground that they were excludable at the time of entry as '(1) aliens who have sought to procure, or.have pro. -cured visas or other' documentation, or entry into the United States by fraud or misrepresentation, · or (2) aliens who were not of the nationality specified in their visas, shall not apply to an alien otherwise admissible at the time of entry who (A) is the spouse, parent, or a child of a United States citizen or of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence; or (B) was admitted to the United States between December 22, 1945, and November 1, 1954, both dates inclusive, and misrepresented his nationality, place of birth, identity, or residence in applying for a visa: Provided, That such alien described in clause (B) shall establish to the satisfaction of the Attorney General that the misrepresentation was predicated upon the alien's fear of persecution because of race, religion, or political opinion if repatriated to his former home or residence, and was not committed for the purpose of evading the quota restrictions of the immigration laws or an investigation of the alien at the place of his former home, or residence, or elsewhere. After the effective date of this Act, any alien who is the spouse, parent, or child of a United States citizen or of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence and who is excludable because (1) he seeks, has sought to pro. cure, or has procured, a visa or other documentation, or entry into the United States, by fraud or misrepresentation, or (2) he admits the· commission of �222 IMMIGRATION SERVICE v. ERRICO. OCTOBER TERM, 1966. Opinion of the Court. 385 U.S. 214 223 Opinion of the Court. • , _perjury in connection therewith, shall hereafter be granted a visa and admitted to the United States for permanent residence, if otherwise admissible, if the Attorney General in his discretion has consented . to the alien's applying or reapplying for a visa and for admission to.the United States." · ·This section waived deportation under certain circum. stances for two classes of aliens who had entered by· fraud or misrepresentation. First, an alien who was "the spouse, parent, or a child of a United States citizen . . ." was saved from deportation for his fraud if he was "otherwise admissible at the time of entry." Second, an alien who entered during the postwar period and misrepresented his nationality, place of birth, iden. tity, or residence was saved from deportation if he was "otherwise admissible at the time of entry" and if he could "establish to the satisfaction of the Attorney General that the misrepresentation was predicated upon the alien's fear of persecution because of race, religion, or political opinion if repatriated to his former home or residence, and was not committed for the purpose of evading the quota restrictions of the immigration laws or an investigation of the alien at the place of his former home, or residence, or elsewhere." This language would be meaningless if an alien who comIUitted fraud for the. purpose of evadmg quota restnct10ns would be deportable as not "otherwise admissible at the time of entry." t.Congress must have felt that aliens who evaded quotri'.restrictions by fmnd woulrl be "otherwise admissibl~ at ·the time of entry) or _it would not have found 1t necessary to provide further that, in the case of an alien not possessing a close familial relationship to a United States citizen or lawful per- This content downloaded from 24.4.24.213 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:33:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms manent resident, the fraud inust not be for the purpose of evading quota restrictions. · This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that Congress further specified that the aliens who were not close relatives of United States citizens must establish that their fraud was not committed for the purpose of evading an investigation. Fraud for the purpose of evading an investigation, if forgiven by the statute, would clearly leave the alien "otherwise admissible" if there were no other disqualifying factor. Elementary principles of statutory construction lead to the conclusion that~- gress meant to enecif;v two speqifiq types of fraud that would leave gp @lien "otherwise admissible" bnt t.bat would nonetheless bar reJief to those aligp§ who could not G]aim close reJBtionsbin with a Jinited StateB citi;wn r or flljer JawfuJJy ndwiHcd £0- permanent resioenqe ~ The present § 241 (f) is essentially a re-enactment of § 7 of the 1957 Act. The legislative history leaves no doubt that no substantive change in the section was intended.u The provision dealing with aliens who had entered the United States between 1945 and 1954, and had misrepresented their nationality for fear of persecution or repatriation, was omitted because it had accomplished its purpose; the rest of the section was retained intact.'' It could hardly be argued that Congress intended to change the construction of the statute by this codification. , The intent of § 7 of the 1957-Act !'0t to require that aliens who are close relatives of United States citizens have complied with quota restrictions to escape deportation for their fraud is clear from its language, and there is nothing in the legislative history to suggest that Congress had in mind a contrary result. The only specific n H. R. Rep. No. 1086, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 37 (1961). See also 107 Cong. Rec. 19653-19654 (1961) (remarks of Senator Eastland). "H. R. Rep. No. 1086, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 37 (1961). �224 IMMIGRATION SERVICE v. ERRICO. OCTOBER TERM, 1966. Opinion of the Court. 385 U.S. reference to the part of § 7 that deals with close relatives of United States citizens residents is in the House Committee Report, and it says only that most of the persons eligible for relief wonld be "Mexican nationals, who, d~ring the time when --_bOrder-control operatiaDS- Si1ffered from regrettable. :-laxity;·were Sbl to ·eff(er the TTni+ed States estab...: · · lish a family in this country, and were subsequently found to r · · the United States illegally."· . R. Rep. No. 1199, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 11. Without doubt most of the aliens who had obtained entry into the United States by illegal means were Mexicans, because it has always been far easier to avoid border restrictions when entering from Mexico than when entering from countries that do not have a common land border with the United States. There is nothincr in the Committee Report to indicate that relief under the section was intended to be restricted to J\,fexicans, 110wever. Neither does it follow that, because Mexicans are not subject to quota restrictions, therefore nationals of countries that do have a quota must be within the quota to obtain relief. The construction o1 the statute that we adopt in these cases is further reinforced when the section is regarded in the context of the 1957 Act. The fundamental purpose of this legislation was to unite families. Refugees from Communist lands were also benefited, but the Act principally granted relief to persons who would be temporarily or permanently separated from their nearest relatives if the strict requirements of the Immigration and Nationality Act, including the national quotas, were not relaxed for them. It was '¾·holly consistent with this urpose for Congress to provide that immigrants who ained a mission by misrepresentaf ou no e because their countries' oversubscribed when the or 0 - 0 This content downloaded from 24.4.24.213 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:33:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 214 STEWART, 225 J., dissenting. effect of deportation .would be to se arate families compose m-par.t of American citizens or lawful permanen residents. · · .. Even if there were some doubt as to the correct construction of the statute, the doubt should be resolved in favor. of the alien. As this Court has held, even where a punitive section is being construed: . " .• · .. - . . ''We resolve doubts in favor of that constru~~ tion because deportation is a drastic measure and at times the equivalent of banishment or exile, DelgadiU.o v. Carmic/w,el, 332 U. S. 388. It is the forfeiture for misconduct of a residence in this ·country. Such a forfeiture is a penalty. To construe this statutory provision less generously to the alien might find support in logic. But since the . stakes are considerable for the individual, we will not assume that Congress meant to trench on his freedom beyond that which is required by the narrowest of several possible meanings of the words used." Fong Haw Tan v. Phelan, 333 U. S. 6, 10. See also Barber v. Gonzales, 347 U. S. 637, 642-643. The 1957 Act was not a punitive statute, and § 7 of that Act, now codified as § 241 (f), in particular was designed to accomplish a humanitarian result. We conclude that to give meaning to the statute in the light of its humanitarian purpose of preventing the breaking up of families composed in part at least of American citizens, the conflict between the circuits must be resolved in favor of the aliens, and that the Errico decision must be affirmed and the Scott decision reversed. It is so ordered. the with whom MR. JUSTICE and Ma. JusTICE WHITE join, dissenting. The ,facts in one of these cases (No. 91) vividly illustrate the effect of the Court's interpretation of § 241 (f) MR. HARLAN JusTICE STEWART, �226 OCTOBER TERM, 1966. STEWART, J., dissenting. l;\,1MIGRATION SERVICE v. ERR1CO. 385 li. s. of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The petitioner, a resident of Ja:rnaica, paid for a sham marriage with an American citizen. A ceremony was held, but the petitioner and her "husband" parted immediately and have not seen eac.c'i other since. However, the pretended marriage served its. purpose; the petitioner was admitted into this· country as a nonquota immigrant upon her false representation that she was the wife of a United States citizen. After this fraudulent entry she managed· to become the actual parent of a United States citizen by conceiving and bearing an illegitimate child here. The Court holds that this unsavory series of events gives the petitioner an unqualified right under § 241 (f) to remain in this country ahead of all the honest people waiting in Jamaica and elsewhere to gain lawful entry.' I can find no support in the statute for such an odd and inequitable result. Section 241 ( f) provides as follows: • "The provisions of this section relating to the deportation of aliens within the United States on the ground that they were excludable at the time of entry as aliens who have sought to procure, or have procured visas or other documentation, or entry into the United States by fraud or misrepresentation shall not apply to an alien otherwise admissible at the time of entry who is the spouse, parent, or a child of a United States citizen or of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence." It seems clear to me, for two separate and independently sufficient reasons, that this statute does not operate to bar the deportation of the aliens in the cases now \ 1 When "1irs. Scott" made her fr~udulent entry in 1958, Jamaica had an annual quota of 100-im.migrants and a waiting list of 21,759 hopeful applicants. The corresponding :figures for Italy in 1959, the year of 11r. Errico's entry, were 5,666 and 162,612. This content downloaded from 24.4.24.213 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:33:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 214 STEWART, J., dissenting. 227 .. before us. In the first place, § 241 (f) has applicat10n only to the deportation provisions which are based upon fraudulent entry, and the aliens in these two cases were not ordered to be deported under those provisions. Secondlv even if it were generally applicable, § 241 (f) does n;t' cover the aliens involved in these two cases, because neither of them was "otherwise admissible" at the time of entry. I. Section 241 (f) by its terms neutralizes only those "provisions ... relating to the deportation of aliens within the United States on the ground that they ... sought to procure ... entry into the United States by fraud or misrepresentation . . . . " Although the aliens in these two cases could have been deported under those "provisions," the deportation proceedings in both cases were in fact brought on grounds unrelated to their procurement of fraudulent visas. Both aliens were ordered to be deported, not because of their fraud, but because they were not properly within their countries' quotas. The plain terms of § 241 (f), therefore, do not even potentially apply to these aliens.' To hold that§ 241 (f) is relevant to these cases is tantamount to holding that 2 The Court states that the Government "concedes,, and that "administrative authorities have consistently held that § 241 (f) waives any deportation charge that results directly from the misrepresentation." Ante, at ·217. But this concessiol! and administrative practice fall far short of covering these cases. - For here the grounds for deportation did not "[result] directly from the misrepresentation." They antedated and were the reason for the misrepresentation. The (/administrative authorities11 cited by the Court turned upon this distinction. In Matter of Y-, 8 I. & N. Dec. 143 (1959), for example, the Board of Immigration Appeals broadener! § 241 (f) enough to cover fraud-related administrative procedural defects in the alien's ·entry. It is this construction of § 241 (!) which the Government concedes, not_ the Court's construction which broadens the statute to excuse all disqualifications for entry. �228 IMMIGRATION SERVICE v. ERRICO. OCTOBER TERM, 1966. 385 U.S. itis applicable to bar deportation based on any ground at all so long as the alien lied about that ground aUhe time of his unlawful entry.' I think nothing could befurther from the statutory language or the congressional purpose, II. · Eut evenif § 241 ( f) were gene~ally applicable, these aliens could not claim its benefits because they·were not within their respective national immigration quotas andtherefore were not "otherwise admissible" at the time they entered the United States. That is the clear import of the statutory qualification, if its words are to be taken at their face value. That, too, has been the uniform and consistent administrative construction of the statute. See Matter of D'O-, 8 I. & N. Dec. 215 (1958); Matter of Slade, IO I. & N. Dec. 128 (1962). To except quota requirements of admissibility from the statutory qualification of "otherwise admissible" would undercut the elaborate quota system »'hich was for years at the heart of the immigration laws. Yet the legislative history of the predecessor of § 241 (f), § 7 of the 1957 Act, makes clear that the limited relief given by the statute was t_o have no effect at all on the quota system.' 3 Thus, a Communist who had lied to the immigration authorities about his party membership at the time of entry could invoke § 241 (f) and reIDJ1in in this country, while one who had told the truth, but was admitted by virtue of an administrative error, .could be deported. See §212 (a)(28), Immigration and Nationality Act. 4 Senator Eastland, Chairman of the Committee which sponsored the 1957 amendments to the Immigration Act, stated, .-ithe bill does not modify the national origins quota provisions." 103 Coner Rec 15487 (Aug. 21, 1957). See also\ 103 Cong. Rec. 16300 (A~~- 28. 1957) (remarks of Congressman \Celler), "[The bill] makes n; changes-no changes whatsoever, in the controversial issue of the national origins quota system." Pub. L. 89-236, 79 Stat. 911 1 made substantial changes .. in the quota system. But that statute, passed in 1965, hardly indicates a This content downloaded from 24.4.24.213 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:33:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 214 STEWART, 229 J., dissenting. Moreover, the consistent use of the same qualifying phrase; "otherwise admissible" in other sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act makes clear that, as a term of art, it includes quota adnli.ssibility. The term typically follows a definition of grounds for admissibility or for exceptions to deportation, to insure that all the other relevant requirements of the Act are imposed upon the alien.' · · Thus the plain meaning of the "otherwise admissible" qualification, as well as legislative policy and legislative history, all indicate that the term serves the same basic function in § 241 ( f) as in other sections of the Act. Fraud is removed as a ground for deportation of those with the requisite family ties, and "otherwise admissible" insures the integrity of the remainder of the statutory scheme.' congressional intent in 1957 or in 1961 (when the present statute was revised) to abandon quota requirements. See, e.g., §§ 211 (a) and (b); The War Brides Act, 59 Stat. 659. 'Under § 7 of the 1957 Act certain aliens had to establish both that they were "otherwise admissible" and that they had not lied to 5 evade quota restrictions. The Court reasons from this that quota restrictions are not embodied in the "othernise admissible" qualification. But this reasoning is inconsistent with the Court's conclusion concerning the general applicability of § 241 (f), discussed in Part I of this dissent. Section 7 of the earlier Act provided as follows: "The provisions of section 241 of the Immigration and Nationality Act relating to the deportation of aliens within the United States on the ground that they were excludable at the time of entry as (1) aliens who have sought to procure, or have procured visas or other documentation, or entry into the United States by fraud or misrepresentation, or (2) aliens who were not of the nationality specified in their visas, shall not apply to an a.lien otherwise 2.dmis- sible at the time of entry who . . . ." (Emphasis supplied.) If the present meaning ·of "otherwise admissible" is to be determined by the 1957 Act, so then must other parts of the statute be similarly determined. Section 241 (f) begins with words almost identical �230 . ,OCTOBER TERM, 1966. STEWART, FORTSON v. MORRIS. 385 U.S. J., dissenting. , The Court justifies its disregard of the plain meaning and consistent administrative construction of § 241 (f) by resort to the spirit of humanitarianism which is said to have moved Congress to enact the statute. No doubt Congress in 1957 was concerned with giving relief to some aliens who had entered this country by illegal means and _established families here.· But the people who were to benefit from this genuine human concern were those from countries like Mexico, which had no quota restric- · tions, and those who had misrepresented their national origins in order to avoid repatriation to Iron Curtain countries. There is nothing to indicate that Congress enacted this legislation to allow wholesale evasion of the Immigration and Nationality Act or as a general reward for fraud. I respectfully dissent. ♦ 231 Syllabus. • FORTSON, _SECRETARY OF STATE OF GEORGIA v, MORRIS ET AL. APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA. No. -SOO. Argued Decemher 5, 1966.-Decided December 12,-1966. Georgia's Co~stitution sine~ 1824 has provided that a majority bf - the state legislature shall select the Governor irom the two candidates with the highest number of votes in a general election whe!e no gubernatorial candidate received a majority vote, a situation which arose in the November 8, 1966, general election. On equal protection grounds a three-judge District Court invalidated the provision. Held: Georgia1s provision for selecting a Governor is not invalid under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 233-236. . (a) A State can permit its legislative body to elect its Governor, there being no federal constitutional provision prescribing the method a State must use to select its Governor. Gray v. Sanders, 372 U. S. 368, distinguished. Pp. 233-234. (b) The Georgia Legislature is not disqualified for malapportionment to elect a Governor, since under Toombs v. Fortson, 384 U. S. 210, this Court held that it could function until May 1, 1968. P. 235. (c) The obligation under an oath ta.ken by Democratic members of the legislature to support party candidates ended -with the last general election, which is over. Pp. 235-236. 262 F. Supp. 93, reversed. to those quoted above. But the second ground of applicability-to '~aliens who were not of the nationality specified in their visas"-is omitted. Thus, lies about nationality were not forgiven by the first part of the 1957 Act and are not, by the Court's reasoning, excused by§ 241 (f), the successor statute. And since there is nothing to distinguish lies about natiori4lity that avoid quota restrictions from other lies with the same effect, the reasoning that leads to the Court's conclusion that the aliens were "otherwise admissible" leads also to the conclusion that § 241 (f) is not applicable at all in these cases. This content downloaded from 24.4.24.213 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 00:33:25 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Harold N. Hill, Jr., Assistant Attorney General of Georgia, argued the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs were Arthur K. Bolton, Attorney General, G. Ernest Tidwell, Executive Assistant Attorney General, Coy R. Johnson, Assistant Attorney General, and Gerald H. Cohen and Alexander Cocalis, Deputy Assistant Attorneys General. Charles Morgan, Jr., argued the cause for appellees Morris et al. With him on the briefs were Morris Brown � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Errico Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States Court of Appeals for Ninth Circuit Subject The topic of the resource Errico, Giuseppe Deportations Fraud Description An account of the resource Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals to review a decision made regarding a conflict between the Second and Ninth Circuits on their interpretations of section 241 (f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Center for Migration Studies (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1966 Type The nature or genre of the resource Legal Document Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 054-cms105-b2f3i1 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived 89th, 92nd, 93rd Congress -- Fraud and Misrepresentation - Immigration and Nationality Act Section 241 (f) Language A language of the resource English Relation A related resource Arthur P. (“Skip”) Endres Papers https://dh.scu.edu/exhibits/files/original/90/2940/nihms592095.pdf 1c74a7def3715d9e1bda927540fa511a PDF Text Text NIH Public Access Author Manuscript Demography. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 August 01. NIH-PA Author Manuscript Published in final edited form as: Demography. 2014 August ; 51(4): 1159–1173. doi:10.1007/s13524-014-0304-y. The Consequences of Migration to the United States for Shortterm Changes in the Health of Mexican Immigrants Noreen Goldman, Office of Population Research, Princeton University, Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA Anne R. Pebley, California Center for Population Research, University of California Los Angeles, CA. 90095, USA Mathew J. Creighton, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Departament de Ciències Polítiques i Socials, Barcelona, Spain Graciela M. Teruel, Universidad Iberoamericana, AC and CAMBS, México D.F., México NIH-PA Author Manuscript Luis N. Rubalcava, and Centro de Análisis y Medición del Bienestar Social, AC and CIDE, México D.F., México Chang Chung Office of Population Research, Princeton University, Wallace Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA Noreen Goldman: ngoldman@princeton.edu Abstract NIH-PA Author Manuscript Although many studies have attempted to examine the consequences of Mexico-U.S. migration for Mexican immigrants’ health, few have had adequate data to generate the appropriate comparisons. In this article, we use data from two waves of the Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS) to compare the health of current migrants from Mexico with those of earlier migrants and nonmigrants. Because the longitudinal data permit us to examine short-term changes in health status subsequent to the baseline survey for current migrants and for Mexican residents, as well as to control for the potential health selectivity of migrants, the results provide a clearer picture of the consequences of immigration for Mexican migrant health than have previous studies. Our findings demonstrate that current migrants are more likely to experience recent changes in health status— both improvements and declines—than either earlier migrants or nonmigrants. The net effect, however, is a decline in health for current migrants: compared with never migrants, the health of current migrants is much more likely to have declined in the year or two since migration and not significantly more likely to have improved. Thus, it appears that the migration process itself and/or the experiences of the immediate post-migration period detrimentally affect Mexican immigrants’ health. Keywords Immigrant; Health status; Self-rated health; Selection; Mexico �Goldman et al. Page 2 Introduction NIH-PA Author Manuscript Large-scale Mexican-U.S. migration has changed social, economic, and cultural life on both sides of the border. Migration to the United States can offer increased earnings and savings accumulation (Gathmann 2008). However, it can also be a difficult experience for migrants because of the risks and costs of border crossing; poorly paying, irregular, and hazardous jobs; crowded housing; lengthy family separation; discrimination; and a politically hostile climate (Hovey 2000; Massey and Sanchez 2010; Ullmann et al. 2011). NIH-PA Author Manuscript What are the consequences of the immigrant experience for immigrants’ health? The literature suggests that Mexican immigrants are positively selected for good health and healthy behaviors (the “healthy migrant effect”) but that living in the United States may lead to deterioration in both health and healthy behaviors of migrants (Ceballos and Palloni 2010; Kaestner et al. 2009; Oza-Frank et al. 2011; Riosmena and Dennis 2012). However, the evidence for both parts of this scenario is often contradictory and limited by available data. A study based on Mexican longitudinal data found only weak evidence of positive health selection for migrants (Rubalcava et al. 2008). However, studies using binational crosssectional data to compare Mexican immigrants in the United States with Mexican residents have argued more strongly in support of positive health selection (Barquera et al. 2008; Crimmins et al. 2005). Research on the effects of life in the United States on immigrant health is also problematic. Studies comparing immigrant duration cohorts cross-sectionally in the United States have generally suggested that immigrant health and health behaviors deteriorate with longer durations of residence (Abraído-Lanza et al. 2005; Lara et al. 2005). In contrast, some studies indicate that health trajectories are not monotonically related to time spent in the United States (Jasso et al. 2004; Teitler et al. 2012). NIH-PA Author Manuscript Many of the limitations characterizing previous research on immigrant health result from reliance on cross-sectional data. These studies did not have adequate information on premigration health, making it impossible to determine when health deterioration began. In addition, cross-sectional comparisons involve cohorts of immigrants with different characteristics that arrived in different time periods with distinct political and economic climates; comparisons are further biased by selective attrition of return migrants, who, on average, are less healthy than the stayers (i.e., the “salmon bias”; Riosmena et al. 2013). Moreover, cross-sectional studies cannot assess whether the observed health trajectories of immigrants differ from those of nonmigrants. Alternative strategies that compare U.S. emigrants who have returned to Mexico with those who remained in their home communities are also problematic because of potential health-selective return migration. In this article, we use data from the two waves of the Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS) to explicitly examine short-term changes in health status for current migrants in the United States compared with return migrants and never migrants. Because the richness of data in the MxFLS permits extensive controls for the potential health selectivity of migrants, this article provides a significantly clearer picture of the consequences of immigration for Mexican migrant health than previous studies. Demography. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 August 01. �Goldman et al. Page 3 Background NIH-PA Author Manuscript The literature suggests several reasons why immigrant health may deteriorate in the United States. The first is inadequate access to health care, particularly for undocumented migrants (Nandi et al. 2008; Prentice et al. 2005; Vargas Bustamante et al. 2012). Having health insurance is a key predictor of access to health care, particularly for immigrants (Siddiqi et al. 2009). A second explanation is the detrimental effects of acculturation on health behaviors (i.e., poor diet, a sedentary lifestyle, and substance abuse) through exposure to U.S. society. In recent years, the acculturation literature has been strongly criticized (Carter-Pokras et al. 2008; Creighton et al. 2012; Hunt et al. 2004; Viruell-Fuentes 2007; Zambrana and CarterPokras 2010) for failing to take socioeconomic status seriously and for its limited theoretical grounding in the immigrant integration literature. A more nuanced interpretation of the acculturation hypothesis, drawn from the literature on segmented assimilation, suggests that Mexican immigrants may adopt the less healthy behaviors of lower-income Americans because many involuntarily join this social class upon entering the United States (AbraídoLanza et al. 2006). NIH-PA Author Manuscript Other hypotheses focus on social inequality as causes of declines in migrant health (ViruellFuentes et al. 2012). For example, the acculturative stress hypothesis suggests that because U.S. society views Mexican-origin immigrants as low status, immigrants face discrimination and chronic stress (Finch and Vega 2003). In addition, Mexican immigrants may live and work under unhealthy conditions that expose them to infectious disease, environmental toxins, injury, and other health risks (Acevedo-Garcia 2001; Kandel and Donato 2009; Orrenius and Zavodny 2009). NIH-PA Author Manuscript A related stressor is the increasingly hostile political climate for recent immigrants in the United States, including stronger border enforcement, restriction of access to welfare and Medicaid, and state anti-immigrant efforts (Cornelius 2001; Massey and Sanchez 2010). Discrimination, family cultural conflict and lengthy separation, a hostile political climate, loss of social support, and, after the 2008 economic crisis, fewer jobs are all likely to be stressful experiences, especially for undocumented immigrants, and are likely to have a more immediate impact on immigrants’ mental and physical health than poor access to health care or acculturation mechanisms. Despite these findings, it is possible that emigration to the United States improves Mexican migrants’ health. Residence in the United States has a consistently positive effect on the wealth of middle-aged and older Mexican return migrants (Wong et al. 2007), and income and wealth are strongly associated with better health (Marmot and Bell 2012). Mexican migrants, particularly documented ones, may also experience better working and housing conditions than they would have in Mexico. Previous studies have found that health care use and self-perceptions of health may improve with duration in the United States (Hummer et al. 2004; Lara et al. 2005) and that some health outcomes are better for immigrants who have resided in the United States for several years (Riosmena et al. 2013; Teitler et al. 2012). Demography. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 August 01. �Goldman et al. Page 4 NIH-PA Author Manuscript In this article, we examine whether the health of Mexican immigrants deteriorates or improves after migration to the United States. We explicitly compare changes in health status of recent immigrants with those of previous immigrants and with individuals who remained in Mexico. Because these three groups are likely to differ in initial health status (e.g., because of the healthy migrant effect and salmon bias), a critical part of this analysis is the introduction of extensive controls for baseline health status. Data NIH-PA Author Manuscript The Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS) has several advantages for this analysis: it interviews respondents at closely spaced waves that permit assessment of short-term changes in health for migrants to the United States and individuals who remain in or return to Mexico; it collects objective and subjective health assessments that provide controls for potential health selectivity of migrants; and it obtains detailed migration histories that allow us to distinguish among recent, earlier, and never migrants. The baseline survey in 2002 (MxFLS-1) interviewed all adult members residing in more than 8,440 households in 147 localities of Mexico (Rubalcava and Teruel 2006). Respondents in the baseline survey were reinterviewed in 2005–2006 (MxFLS-2) and 2009–2012 (MxFLS-3). MxFLS followed individuals who left their household of origin, irrespective of destination, including movers to the United States: of those sampled in MxFLS-1, more than 90% were located and interviewed again in MxFLS-2 (Rubalcava et al. 2008). This analysis is based on MxFLS-1 and MxFLS-2; MxFLS-3 is not yet available. The sample includes respondents who are 20 years and older at baseline. Of the 19,132 ageappropriate respondents, one could not be matched to a municipality and was excluded. An additional 4,874 respondents did not report one or both of the health outcomes at follow-up. After exclusion of these respondents, the analytic sample comprises 14,257 adults. In exploratory analyses, we estimated a logistic model of the probability that a respondent was missing either of the two health outcomes. The results indicate that individuals with no previous migration history, those with more education, men, and individuals in their 20s were more likely to be missing outcomes than others. However, with these variables in the model, there were no significant differences by self-reported health status at baseline. NIH-PA Author Manuscript Variables Outcome Variables: Self-reported Health and Change in Health Despite the frequent use of self-reports of overall health to compare the well-being of various immigrant and native-born groups (e.g., Finch and Vega 2003), comparisons may be biased by differences in choice of reference group, degree of acculturation, and language of interview (Bzostek et al. 2007). Because this analysis examines changes in reported health for a given individual, such biases are likely to be substantially reduced. We consider two outcomes—self-rated health (SRH) and perceived change in health—each with five possible responses: “much better,” “better,” “the same,” “worse,” and “much worse.” The SRH question in MxFLS-2 for both Mexican residents and immigrants in the United States, is as follows: Demography. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 August 01. �Goldman et al. Page 5 If you compare yourself with people of the same age and sex, would you say that your health is (…)? NIH-PA Author Manuscript With controls for SRH at baseline, an analysis of SRH at follow-up implicitly examines change in the respondent’s health between interviews. The second outcome is a direct assessment of change, based on different questions for respondents in the United States and in Mexico. Respondents in Mexico were asked: Comparing your health to a year ago, would you say your health now is (…)? Respondents interviewed in the United States were instead asked: Comparing your health to just before you came to the United States, would you say your health now is (…)? Calculations indicate that the average time since migration to the United States for current migrants is 1.6 years—only slightly longer than the explicit period of 1 year used in the Mexico interviews. NIH-PA Author Manuscript Because few respondents reported the extreme categories of “much better” or “much worse,” the five response categories were collapsed into three: “much better” and “better” were combined into a single category, as were “much worse” and “worse;” “same” health is the reference category. Migrant Status We categorize respondents as “current,” “return,” and “never” migrants. Current migrants migrated after the baseline survey and were interviewed in the United States in MxFLS-2. Return migrants were interviewed in Mexico at Wave 2 but had previous migration experience to the United States; they include long-term and temporary migrants as well as those who migrated to the United States between survey waves but returned to Mexico before the second interview. Never migrants reported no international migration experience by Wave 2. Control Variables NIH-PA Author Manuscript To account for potential differences in the health status of migrants, return migrants, and nonmigrants at baseline that are not captured by SRH, we include four health variables in addition to SRH, all measured at Wave 1. Obesity, anemia, and hypertension are derived from assessments conducted in the home by a trained health worker. Obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) ≥30 based on height and weight measurements (WHO 2000). Individuals are classified as anemic for the following hemoglobin (Hb) levels: Hb<130 g/L for males or Hb<120 g/L for females (WHO 2000). Individuals with elevated systolic (mmHg≥140) and/or diastolic (mmHg≥90) blood pressure are considered hypertensive (WHO 2000). The final health measure reflects whether the respondent had been hospitalized in the past year. Two measures of socioeconomic status provide additional controls for potential selectivity of migrants: (1) years of schooling, and (2) log per capita household expenditure. The latter Demography. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 August 01. �Goldman et al. Page 6 NIH-PA Author Manuscript measure has been used to assess household economic well-being in a broad range of contexts, including Mexico (Contreras 2003; Rubalcava et al. 2009; Xu et al. 2009). All models also control for sex and age (linear and quadratic terms). Municipal Controls Because the literature suggests that migration decisions depend on place of origin (Rubalcava et al. 2008) and migration flows at the municipality level are likely to be related to unobserved characteristics (e.g., human capital) of residents, we include three variables at the municipality level. A municipality was coded as rural if there were fewer than 2,500 residents (INEGI 2003). We also include two measures based on the 2000 Mexican Census: (1) a marginalization index derived from a factor analysis of municipal-level measures of education, housing, income, and schooling (Luis-Ávila et al. 2001); and (2) a measure of migration intensity based on the number of return migrants, current migrants, and amount of remittances received by households (Tuirán et al. 2002). Both measures are categorized as “low,” “medium,” and “high.” Methods NIH-PA Author Manuscript As described earlier, we classify both health outcome variables (self-rated health at Wave 2 relative to someone of the same age and sex and perceived health change over the year prior to Wave 2) as better, same, or worse health. For each of the two health outcomes, we fit multinomial regression models, with “same” health as the reference category, to estimate relative risk ratios (RRRs) for worse relative to same health and RRRs for better relative to same health. We estimate a set of three models that sequentially includes (1) migrant status, baseline SRH, age and sex; (2) objective health measures; (3) socioeconomic status and municipal-level characteristics. The estimate of primary interest pertains to current migrants: that is, is health at follow-up or perceived change in health of current migrants better, worse, or the same as that of never or return migrants? NIH-PA Author Manuscript We use multiple imputation to estimate a response for explanatory variables with missing values (see Table 1 for the frequency of missing data). We create five imputed data sets. The imputation models include all covariates with complete information as well as a variable denoting household size (to improve overall model fit). The estimated RRRs in the results section are derived from average values of the coefficients across the five imputed data sets. The sample is clustered at two levels: 14,257 adults are drawn from 7,200 households and 136 municipalities. To account for the dependence of observations, we use robust standard errors clustered at the household level to calculate variances under multiple imputation. The estimates are computed in Stata 12 using the mlogit command (StataCorp 2011). Results Descriptive statistics are presented in Table 1. At each wave, about 60 % of respondents evaluate their overall health the same as someone of the same age and sex, and only about 8 % rate their health as worse. Almost twice as many respondents note an improvement as Demography. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 August 01. �Goldman et al. Page 7 compared with a deterioration in health over the period. About 5 % of the respondents are current or return migrants. NIH-PA Author Manuscript The relative risk ratios (RRRs, or exponentiated coefficients) in Table 2 pertain to self-rated health at follow-up. Based on Model 3, the estimated RRR for current migrants is 1.7 (p < . 05) for worse compared with the same health and 1.3 (p < .05) for better compared with the same health (relative to a never migrant). In other words, current migrants in the United States are less likely than never migrants to rate themselves as having the same health status as someone of their age and sex: they are more apt to rate their health both worse and better —but especially worse than their peers—at the second interview. The estimates for return migrants are not significantly different from those for never migrants. Estimates for the control variables generally conform to expectation. NIH-PA Author Manuscript Because RRRs are difficult to interpret, in upcoming Table 4, we present predicted probabilities of worse, same, or better health at follow-up by migrant status. Each estimate was determined by setting all explanatory variables except migrant status at their observed values for each individual, setting migrant status to the same value for all individuals (never, return, or current migrant) and calculating the mean prediction from the model. The first panel, which shows predictions based on Model 3 in Table 2, underscores the results noted earlier: at follow-up, current migrants are considerably more likely (by nearly 50 %) than never migrants to rate their health as worse than someone of the same age and sex and only slightly more likely (by about 13 %) to rate their health as better. The RRRs in Table 3 are based on respondents’ assessments of the change in their health status. Consistent with the previous estimates, the RRRs for deteriorating health are large and significant for current migrants (1.9 in Model 3). In contrast, the RRRs for improving health are not significantly different from one for current migrants. As with SRH, the RRRs for return migrants are not significantly different from one for either deteriorating or improving health. The predicted probabilities in the second panel of Table 4 indicate that the health of current migrants is about 60 % more likely than that of never migrants to have worsened in the recent past and only very slightly (and insignificantly) more likely to have improved. NIH-PA Author Manuscript Discussion The central question of this analysis has been whether migrants from Mexico to the United States experience changes in their health after they move. This simple question has not been adequately answered by prior research because of the dearth of appropriate data. However, through data collection efforts in Mexico and the United States at the second wave, and extensive baseline information on variables potentially related to the health selectivity of migrants, the MxFLS permits us to address this issue in a methodologically appropriate way. Two outcome variables—SRH at the second wave and self-assessment of recent change in health status—provide insights into the changing health status of current migrants relative to others. Both measures indicate that current migrants are more likely to have experienced recent changes in health status—both improvements and declines—than either earlier Demography. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 August 01. �Goldman et al. Page 8 NIH-PA Author Manuscript migrants or nonmigrants. This is perhaps not surprising because migration to the United States is associated with changes in many of the determinants of health status, including access to health care, exposure to stressful experiences and health risks, and lifestyle. Moreover, the fact that some migrants report better health while others report worse health is consistent with the notion of multiple acculturative processes that ultimately lead to distinct mental and physical health outcomes (Castro 2013). An important question concerns the net change in health status: compared with residents in Mexico, was improvement in health as prevalent as deterioration in health among current migrants? Because migrants may use a different reference group to evaluate their health status in the United States than they used three years earlier in Mexico (Bzostek et al. 2007), respondents’ direct assessments of changes in their recent health status may be more informative. Our results demonstrate that the net change across the sample of current migrants is a decline in their overall health relative to the other groups. NIH-PA Author Manuscript Although this finding is consistent with the large literature on deteriorating migrant health with length of residence in the United States, our study is the first (to our knowledge) to demonstrate that declines in self-assessed health appear quickly after migrants’ arrival in the United States. Most previous studies suggest that recent Mexican immigrants in the United States are in better health compared with longer-term migrants and the U.S.-born population. However, comparisons based only on U.S. residents miss an important part of the picture: they ignore changes in individual immigrant health in the year or so after migration (compared with migrants’ own health before migration and that of nonmigrants). Our results suggest that the migration process itself and/or the experiences of the immediate postmigration period detrimentally affect Mexican immigrants’ health. NIH-PA Author Manuscript The speed with which declines occur suggests that the process of acculturation, which tends to unfold over numerous years (Antecol and Bedard 2006; Creighton et al. 2012), is unlikely to account for most of the decline in migrant health status. Instead, we speculate that the process of border crossing for undocumented immigrants—now more costly and dangerous than in the past (Gathmann 2008; US GAO 2006) —combined with the physical and psychological costs of finding work and lodging in the United States, lack of health care, and the stress of undocumented status can cause rapid deterioration in immigrants’ physical and mental well-being and hence perceptions of their own health. Regardless of documentation status, many immigrants face extreme poverty, isolation from families, and harsh work conditions after arrival that may affect their health assessment. Unfortunately, given the limited set of health questions asked of migrants at the second wave, we cannot provide a more nuanced analysis of how physical and mental well-being change. Moreover, the sample size of individuals who migrated between MxFLS-1 and MxFLS-2 is not sufficiently large to consider how working and housing conditions, diet, social interactions, lack of access to health care, financial stress, and other factors moderate the relationship between migration and health. With the availability of the third wave of MxFLS, collected in 2009–2012, many such questions can be addressed in the future. Objective markers of health status collected in the Demography. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 August 01. �Goldman et al. Page 9 NIH-PA Author Manuscript third wave for migrants and nonmigrants alike will yield a more precise description of the ways in which health status has evolved. In addition, the inclusion of migrants between the second and third waves will not only yield a larger sample of migrants but will also permit an analysis of whether migrants who came to the United States during the past few years—a period with an especially hostile political climate and an economic recession—experienced even worse health outcomes than the migrants analyzed in this study. Acknowledgments The authors gratefully acknowledge support for this project from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD051764, R24HD047879, R03HD040906, and R01HD047522) and from CONACYT-SEDESOL (2004-01). We would like to thank Germán Rodríguez for statistical advice and Erika Arenas for assistance in data collection and preparation of the data set for this analysis. References NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript Abraído-Lanza AF, Armbrister AN, Flórez KR, Aguirre AN. 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Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 August 01. �NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript 3,137 391 306 Return Current Demography. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 August 01. –– –– –– –– –– Obese Anemic Hypertensive Hospitalized in previous year 9,520 2,729 2,008 Low Medium High Marginalization Index –– 4,298 Better Age (years) 7,461 Same Male 1,008 Worse Self-rated health status relative to same age and sex (MxFLS-1) 13,560 Never Migrant status (MxFLS-2) Explanatory 14.1 19.1 66.8 –– –– –– –– –– –– 33.7 58.4 7.9 2.2 2.7 95.1 22.0 9,385 Better 65.8 1,735 Same 12.2 30.9 60.9 8.3 % Worse Perceived change in health status (MxFLS-2) 4,398 8,676 Better 1,183 Same Count Worse Self-rated health status relative to same age and sex (MxFLS-2) Outcome Variable –– –– –– 0.06 0.34 0.06 0.33 42.22 0.43 –– –– –– –– –– –– –– –– –– –– –– –– Mean –– –– –– 0.23 0.47 0.24 0.47 15.74 0.49 –– –– –– –– –– –– –– –– –– –– –– –– SD Description of the outcome and explanatory variables in the analytic sample 0.0 10.5 8.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 10.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 % Missing NIH-PA Author Manuscript Table 1 Goldman et al. Page 12 �N –– –– Rural Years of education Log per capita expenditure 14,257 –– –– High –– –– 9.7 13.1 1,376 1,860 Medium 77.3 11,021 Low Migration intensity index 6.88 6.31 0.44 –– –– –– Mean 1.08 4.40 0.50 –– –– –– SD 3.5 1.2 0.0 0.0 % Missing NIH-PA Author Manuscript % NIH-PA Author Manuscript Count NIH-PA Author Manuscript Variable Goldman et al. Page 13 Demography. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 August 01. �NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript −5.76 −1.81 13.06 0.688 *** 1.604 *** 0.954 3.377 *** 0.944 Male Age (years)a Age Squared SRH at MxFLS-1 (ref. = same) Worse Better 1.658 *** Hospitalized in previous year Demography. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 August 01. 0.937 1.129 Return Current Migrant status (ref. = never) 0.93 1.122 0.88 1.060 Log per capita expenditure −0.53 1.99 0.940 1.303 * 1.86 −5.71 0.939 *** Years of education Contrast: Better (vs. same) –1.31 −0.02 0.903 0.998 High 1.72 0.06 2.30 4.08 −1.70 0.87 3.42 −0.17 11.96 −0.87 6.70 −4.08 2.49 −0.73 t Rural 1.216 Medium Migration intensity index (ref. = low) 1.006 High 1.668 *** 0.887 1.111 1.264 ** 0.984 3.122 *** 0.977 1.402 *** 0.760 *** 1.707 * 0.858 RRR 1.240 * −0.60 4.05 −1.64 1.10 3.22 −0.62 12.72 −1.71 10.79 −4.70 2.70 −0.78 t Model 3 Medium 0.934 0.890 Hypertensive −0.57 1.140 Anemic Marginalization index (ref. = low) 1.245 ** 0.944 3.311 *** 0.956 1.621 *** 0.732 *** 1.789 ** 0.851 RRR Model 2 Obese −0.62 11.00 2.56 −0.72 1.731 * 0.861 t Current Return Migrant status (ref. = never) Contrast: Worse (vs. same) RRR Model 1 Relative risk ratios (RRRs) and t statistics from multinomial logistic model of self-rated health status (SRH) relative to same age and sex at MxFLS-2 NIH-PA Author Manuscript Table 2 Goldman et al. Page 14 �14,257 0.08 5.97 4.44 1.034 *** 1.093 *** Years of education Log per capita expenditure −4.26 1.004 0.722 *** High Rural 1.012 Medium 0.15 −5.32 0.666 *** Migration intensity index (ref. = low) −1.23 0.925 High 0.58 −1.33 −0.98 −1.36 10.21 −0.36 −1.31 Medium 1.053 0.943 0.920 0.944 1.541 *** 0.970 0.977 0.03 3.32 1.091 ** t 1.001 RRR Demography. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 August 01. p < .001 *** p < .01; ** p < .05; Age is standardized by centering on the mean of 42.2 years in standard deviation (15.7 years) unit. * a Notes: Based on five multiple imputations of missing values. Standard errors are adjusted for clustering at the household level. N 1.46 1.137 Marginalization index (ref. = low) Hospitalized in previous year −0.95 0.960 −1.52 0.880 Hypertensive −0.85 12.07 −0.78 Anemic 1.653 *** 0.937 −1.33 0.17 0.88 t 0.965 12.05 1.652 *** 0.977 1.004 1.033 RRR Obese −0.76 0.938 Better −1.21 Worse 0.979 Age squared SRH at MxFLS-1 (ref. = same) –0.26 0.91 1.033 0.994 Male NIH-PA Author Manuscript Age (years) t RRR Model 3 NIH-PA Author Manuscript Model 2 NIH-PA Author Manuscript Model 1 Goldman et al. Page 15 �NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript -8.59 15.89 -3.43 0.631 *** 1.774 *** 0.927 ** Male Age (Years)1 Age Squared 2.22 1.293 * Hospitalized in Previous Year Demography. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 August 01. 2.09 1.130 * 1.055 0.975 1.296 * 0.937 -5.14 0.958 *** 1.034 Years of Education Log Per Capita Expenditure 1.25 -1.65 0.895 5.10 1.535 *** High Rural 3.63 1.402 *** Medium -0.27 0.69 2.22 -1.04 0.52 2.72 1.188 ** 1.060 9.22 -2.92 11.73 -7.16 3.46 -0.85 t 2.241 *** 0.937 ** 1.609 *** 0.673 *** High Migration Intensity Index (ref=Low) (3) 1.909 ** 0.870 RRR Medium Marginalization Index (ref=Low) -1.18 0.929 Hypertensive 0.44 1.60 1.90 1.049 1.127 Anemic 1.89 10.15 -3.38 15.54 -7.93 4.33 -0.29 t 1.098 1.126 Better 2.393 *** 0.928 ** 1.787 *** 0.649 *** 2.227 *** 0.955 RRR (2) Models Obese 2.416 *** Worse 10.34 4.28 2.202 *** Current SRH at MxFLS-1 (ref=Same) -0.25 0.961 t Return Migrant Status (ref=Never) Contrast: Worse (vs. Same) RRR (1) Relative Risk Ratios (RRRs) and t-statistics from Multinomial Model of Perceived Change in Health Status Relative to Previous Year or Prior to Migration NIH-PA Author Manuscript Table 3 Goldman et al. Page 16 �Demography. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 August 01. 0.834 *** 1.038 Age (Years) Age Squared -3.27 0.776 ** High -0.60 2.43 0.996 1.056 * Years of Education Log Per Capita Expenditure N 0.77 1.043 -3.78 0.734 *** High Rural -2.20 0.832 * Medium Migration Intensity Index (ref=Low) -2.62 2.97 0.81 0.17 0.02 4.73 0.836 ** 1.309 ** 1.041 1.016 1.001 1.243 *** 1.48 2.06 1.042 * 1.144 -6.59 -3.63 1.16 0.15 t 0.830 *** 0.856 *** 1.192 1.020 RRR Medium 14257 3.44 1.362 ** Hospitalized in Previous Year Marginalization Index (ref=Low) 1.12 1.057 0.00 1.000 Hypertensive 0.35 5.51 1.41 Anemic 1.286 *** 1.136 1.86 -7.52 -3.49 0.36 -0.24 t 1.016 5.49 1.285 *** Better 1.038 0.830 *** 0.862 *** 1.055 0.970 RRR Obese 1.58 1.153 Worse p<0.01; ** p<0.05; * -7.56 0.855 *** Male SRH at MxFLS-1 (ref=Same) -3.85 1.048 1.90 0.31 0.972 Current -0.22 t Return Migrant Status (ref=Never) Contrast: Better (vs. Same) NIH-PA Author Manuscript RRR (2) (3) NIH-PA Author Manuscript (1) NIH-PA Author Manuscript Models Goldman et al. Page 17 �NIH-PA Author Manuscript Age is standardized by centering around the mean of 42.2 years in standard deviation (15.7 years) unit. 1 Note: Based on five multiple imputations of missing values. Standard errors are adjusted for clustering at the household level. p<0.001 NIH-PA Author Manuscript *** Goldman et al. Page 18 NIH-PA Author Manuscript Demography. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 August 01. �Goldman et al. Page 19 Table 4 NIH-PA Author Manuscript Average predicted probabilities of self-rated health status at Wave 2a and perceived change in health statusb by migrant status Migrant Status Outcome Never Return Current Worse .0826 .0735 .1199 Same .6096 .6281 .5316 Self-rated Health Status (MxFLS-2) Better .3078 .2983 .3485 Totalc 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 Worse .1208 .1072 .1939 Same .6596 .6668 .5764 Perceived Change in Health Status Better .2195 .2259 .2297 Totalc 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 NIH-PA Author Manuscript Notes: Predicted probabilities were determined by setting all explanatory variables except migrant status at their observed values for each individual, setting migrant status to the same value for all individuals (never, return, current migrants), and calculating the mean prediction from the model. a Based on Model 3 in Table 2. b Based on Model 3 in Table 3. c Some columns may not sum exactly to 1.0000 because of rounding. NIH-PA Author Manuscript Demography. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 August 01. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Consequences of Migration to the United States for Short-term Changes in the Health of Mexican Immigrants Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Goldman, Noreen Pebley, Anne, R Creighton, Matthew, J Teruel, Graciela M., 1968- Rubalcava, Luis, N Chang, Chan Subject The topic of the resource Mexican Immigration Healthcare Description An account of the resource Although many studies have attempted to examine the consequences of Mexico-U.S. migration for Mexican immigrants’ health, few have had adequate data to generate the appropriate comparisons. In this article, we use data from two waves of the Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS) to compare the health of current migrants from Mexico with those of earlier migrants and nonmigrants. Because the longitudinal data permit us to examine short-term changes in health status subsequent to the baseline survey for current migrants and for Mexican residents, as well as to control for the potential health selectivity of migrants, the results provide a clearer picture of the consequences of immigration for Mexican migrant health than have previous studies. Our findings demonstrate that current migrants are more likely to experience recent changes in health status—both improvements and declines—than either earlier migrants or nonmigrants. The net effect, however, is a decline in health for current migrants: compared with never migrants, the health of current migrants is much more likely to have declined in the year or two since migration and not significantly more likely to have improved. Thus, it appears that the migration process itself and/or the experiences of the immediate post-migration period detrimentally affect Mexican immigrants’ health. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Author Manuscript Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014—8 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Research Article Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4165490/. Language A language of the resource English https://dh.scu.edu/exhibits/files/original/90/2941/30032389.pdf 8f58cbe5cb77750a0b261b2358124e31 PDF Text Text Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States Author(s): Gordon H. Hanson Source: Journal of Economic Literature , Dec., 2006, Vol. 44, No. 4 (Dec., 2006), pp. 869924 Published by: American Economic Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30032389 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Economic Literature This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Journal of Economic Literature Vol. XLIV (December 2006), pp. 869-924 Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States GORDON H. HANSON* In this paper, I selectively review recent literature on illegal migration from Mexico to the United States. I begin by discussing methods for estimating stocks and flows of illegal migrants. While there is uncertainty about the size of the unauthorized population, new data sources make it possible to examine the composition of legal and illegal populations and the time-series covariates of illegal labor flows. I then consider the supply of and demand for illegal migrants. Wage differentials between the United States and Mexico are hardly a new phenomenon, yet illegal migration from Mexico did not reach high levels until recently. An increase in the relative size of Mexico's working-age population, greater volatility in U.S.-Mexico relative wages, and changes in U.S. immigration policies are all candidate explanations for increasing labor flows from Mexico. Finally, I consider policies that regulate the cross-border flow of illegal migrants. While U.S. laws mandate that authorities prevent illegal entry and punish firms that hire unauthorized immigrants, these laws are imperfectly enforced. Lax enforcement may reflect political pressure by employers and other interests that favor open borders. 1. Introduction percent of the U.S. foreign-born population There is increasing interest by academ- ics and policymakers in Mexican and equivalent to 10 percent of the total population of Mexico (see figure 1).1 The United States has not experienced a concen- migration to the United States. Mexico is trated immigration wave of this magnitude the most important source country for since the influxes from Germany and Ireland U.S. immigration, accounting for 34 perin the mid-nineteenth century.2 For Mexcent of total immigrant arrivals since 1990. In 2004, the 10.5 million Mexican immi- ico, the continuing population outflow is grants living in the United States were 31 * University of California, San Diego, and National Bureau of Economic Research. I thank Roger Gordon and seminar participants at the 2006 AEA meetings, Boston University, MIT, Syracuse University, and Tufts University for helpful comments and Jeff Lin and Maribel Pichardo for excellent research assistance. 1 Figure 1 reports the total number of Mexican immigrants in the United States (legal and illegal) as a share of Mexico's population, the total U.S. population, and the foreign-born U.S. population. 2 Over the period 1841 to 1860, Ireland accounted for 39 percent of U.S. immigration and over the period 1841 to 1890, Germany accounted for 30 percent of U.S. immigration (U.S. Department of Homeland Security 2004). 869 This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �870 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) Figure 1. Mexican Immigrants in the U.S. unprecedented.3 In both countries, the cross-border flow of labor appears to have affected the structure of wages, the intrana- tional distribution of population, and the pattern of industrial specialization. Beyond its scale, the distinguishing feature of Mexican immigration is that most new arrivals enter the United States illegally. In 2004, there were an estimated 5.9 mil- lion unauthorized Mexican immigrants in the United States, among a total unauthorized population of 10.3 million (Jeffrey S. immigration in the United States is a rela- tively new phenomenon. It has provoked political debate about whether to provide public services to illegal immigrants, grant them status as legal residents, or militarize U.S. borders to prevent further illegal inflows. In Mexico, migration abroad has helped ease the country's adjustment to rapid growth in its working-age population and to macroeconomic shocks, though not without disrupting the families and communities whose members have moved to the Passel 2005). Thus, 56 percent of Mexican United States. immigrants appear to lack permission to be in the country, compared to 17 percent of There is an emerging body of economic research on illegal migration from Mexico to the United States. This literature has been all other immigrants. Large-scale illegal 3 The one episode that approaches the current outflow is the Mexican Revolution (1911-20). Between 1911 and 1925, 680,000 legal immigrants from Mexico (or 5 percent of Mexico's 1910 population) entered the United States (and were joined by a large number of illegal immigrants). By the late 1920s, many of these individuals had returned to Mexico. See Lawrence Cardoso (1980) and Fernando Alanis Enciso (1999). made possible by the recent availability of data sources on the cross-border move- ments of legal and illegal Mexican migrants. Also prompting attention is the realization that, with unauthorized entrants accounting for over half of Mexican immigrants and over three tenths of all U.S. immigrants, any This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 871 discussion of international migration in the United States or Mexico ends up confronting the issue of illegality either explicitly or implicitly. Much of the initial research on unautho- how prospective migrants respond to these policies. There is a large literature on U.S. immigration, which tends to focus on the labormarket consequences of immigrant inflows rized labor flows was done by nonecono- and the economic performance of immi- mists.4 The principal themes of this body of work resemble those in the economics liter- grants.6 This body of work examines, among ature on internal migration in developing other questions, whether immigration reduces wages for U.S. native workers; Hillel Rapoport and Fr6d6ric Docquier whether immigrants make relatively greater use of means-tested entitlement programs; countries (see Robert E. B. Lucas 1997; forthcoming). Early waves of illegal migration from Mexico appear to have originated in rural areas of the country (Wayne A. Cornelius 1992; Jorge Durand, Massey, and and whether earnings, education, fertility, or other outcomes for immigrants converge to native levels over time. Largely taken for granted in the U.S. liter- Rene Zenteno 2001), involved households financing the migration of one or more ature is why foreign residents migrate to the United States. One obvious reason is that members in return for remittances from the U.S. real wages far exceed those in many migrants (Durand, Emilio A. Parrado, and other countries. Large wage differentials, coupled with binding and slowly changing depended on family and community networks that helped migrants enter and find employment in the United States (Massey et quotas on U.S. legal immigration, create queues to enter the United States. Given extended delays in clearing such queues, al. 1994; Massey and Kristin E. Espinosa 1997). gration appears to be more or less insensitive Massey 1996; Durand et al. 1996), and Yet, internal migration and illegal interna- annual variation in the level of legal immi- to contemporaneous annual fluctuations in tional migration differ in important respects. U.S. or foreign econ-omies. Perhaps as a While policy barriers that restrict withincountry regional labor flows are rare, countries actively regulate the inflow of labor result, the quantity of literature on the con- from abroad. The United States determines sequences of U.S. legal immigration vastly exceeds that on its causes.7 With illegal immigration, the determi- the level of legal immigration through quo- nants of migrant flows and the hightas on entry visas, which change infrequent- frequency variation of these flows have ly over time.5 The country implicitly sets the level of illegal immigration through selecting the intensity with which it enforces bor- 6 For surveys of this literature, see James P. Smith and Barry Edmonston (1998) and George J. Borjas (1999a, ders against illegal entry. Key issues for the 1999b) and for recent work in the area see Borjas (2003) and David Card (2005). For analysis of these issues in the study of illegal migration are how countries context of Mexican immigration, see Smith (2003), choose their border regulation policies and Stephen J. Trejo (2003), Francise D. Blau and Lawrence M. Kahn (forthcoming), Borjas and Lawrence F. Katz (forthcoming), Card and Ethan Lewis (forthcoming), and 4 For reviews of this literature, see Douglas S. Massey Brian Duncan and Trejo (forthcoming). There is a smaller et al. (1994) and Thomas J. Espenshade (1995). literature on the consequences of emigration for Mexico. 5 The current U.S. immigration quota system was See Prachi Mishra (forthcoming) and Gordon H. Hanson established by the Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 and amended (forthcoming). by the Immigration Act of 1990. The 1990 law set a flexi7 Exceptions include Timothy J. Hatton and Jeffrey G. ble cap for U.S. legal admissions at 675,000 individuals of Williamson (2004) and Anna Maria Mayda (2005), who which 480,000 are to be family-based, 140,000 are to be examine the correlates of international migration flows. In employment-based, and 55,000 are to be "diversity immi- research on internal migration, there is considerable work grants." Immediate relatives of U.S. citizens are not subject on the incentive to migrate. See Michael J. Greenwood (1997) and Lucas (1997) for reviews of the literature. to immigration quotas. This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �872 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) attracted more attention. Geographic proximity allows unauthorized migrants from Mexico to move to the United States than tourism or foreign direct investment (Inter-American Development Bank 2004). In this paper, I selectively review recent relatively quickly. The existence ofliterature well- on illegal migration from Mexico to the United States. In section 2, I discuss established migration networks enables U.S. employers to communicate changes in methods their for estimating stocks and flows of demand for labor to prospective migrants illegalinmigrants. While there is uncertainty Mexico. Migrants use these same networks about the size of the unauthorized populato find jobs and housing in the United tion, new data sources make it possible to States. Shocks to either the Mexican or U.S. examine the composition of legal and illegal economies may be transmitted into changes populations and the time-series covariates of in cross-border labor flows with relatively illegal labor flows. In section 3, I consider the short time lags, making illegal migration supply of and demand for illegal migrants. potentially quite responsive to changes in Wage differentials between the United States and Mexico are hardly a new phenomenon, yet illegal migration from Mexico did not binational business-cycle conditions. Another feature that distinguishes legal and illegal migrant flows is their composition. While legal migrants face entry costs reach high levels until recently. An increase in the relative size of Mexico's working-age associated with queues in obtaining visas, population, greater volatility in U.S.-Mexico relative wages, and changes in U.S. immigraillegal migrants face costs associated with evading immigration authorities. Once in the tion policies are all candidate explanations for receiving country, the risk of detection may increasing labor flows from Mexico. In secmake some employers unwilling to hire ille- tion 4, I consider policies that regulate the gal migrants, limiting their occupational cross-border flow of illegal migrants. While prospects and reducing the returns to skill U.S. laws mandate that authorities prevent they perceive. Variation in migration costs illegal entry and punish firms that hire unauand in receiving-country wage profiles thorized immigrants, these laws are imperbetween legal and illegal migration suggest fectly enforced. Lax enforcement may reflect the characteristics of illegal migrants may political pressure by employers and other differ from those of legal migrants. interests that favor open borders. In section Observed changes in the composition of 5, I discuss directions for further research. U.S. immigrants, which has received much My goal in this paper is not to conduct an attention in research on consequences of exhaustive survey of work on illegal migraU.S. immigration, could be partly a by- tion but rather to highlight major findings in product of the rising share of unauthorized the literature, assess the state of important entrants in immigrant inflows. For Mexico, debates, and identify unresolved issues, with an eye toward advancing questions to help the composition of migrant outflows matters not just for the labor-market effects of emi- guide future work. As much of the literature gration but also for the ties that migrants retain with the country. Illegal migrants appear to be more likely than legal migrants to send remittances to family members in is empirical, I will focus on this strand of research, with occasional forays into theory. One topic I will not discuss at much length is the economic consequences of illegal migra- Mexico. Rising illegal migration from tion, in part because literature on the conse- Mexico may be partly responsible for the recent surge in remittances in the country, which rose from 0.1 percent of GDP in 1990 to 2.2 percent of GDP in 2004 and now generate more foreign exchange in the country quences of immigration has been subject to several recent surveys (see note 6) and in part because there is little research on the specific aspects of these consequences that are attributable to illegal immigration. This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 873 Though my focus is on the United States and Mexico, insights from the literature are relevant for other regions, as well. Unauthorized migration has become a glob- Knowing the overall share of immigrants who are unauthorized is not the same as knowing which specific immigrants in a given data source are unauthorized. al phenomenon. In the last two decades, there have been sizable flows of illegal migrants from North Africa and Eastern Fortunately, there are now several microlevel surveys that provide information on Europe to Western Europe, from Indonesia design or default, migrants from Mexico to elsewhere in Southeast Asia, and from neighboring countries to South Africa. The U.S.-Mexico experience may be instructive for these and other cases regarding how to measure unauthorized migration, estimate the causes and consequences of migration flows, and gauge the potential impacts of policy interventions. individual migration status. Either by account for a large fraction of those represented in these data sources. While each survey has limitations, their use in conjunc- tion with large public data sets from Mexico and the United States provides considerable detail on the population of legal and illegal migrants from Mexico who are living or have lived in the United States. 2. Stocks and Flows of Illegal Migrants Illegal immigrants account for a large and growing fraction of the U.S. foreign-born population.8 One may imagine that, as part of the underground economy, unauthorized migrants are not easily subject to measurement. However, there is now abundant evidence that illegal immigrants are represented in official household surveys, including the U.S. Census of Population and Housing and the U.S. Current Population Survey. Given known levels of U.S. legal immigration, the number of foreign-born individuals enumerated in these sources is far too large for them all to be legal. The most common method to estimate A third data source on unauthorized migration is a by-product of U.S. immigration policy. To prevent illegal immigration, the U.S. Border Patrol polices U.S. borders and ports of entry, attempting to apprehend those seeking to enter the country illegally. The Border Patrol compiles high-frequency data on apprehensions and enforcement, the vast majority of which occur along the U.S.-Mexico border. Data on border apprehensions and enforcement allow one to examine how attempts at illegal entry vary with economic conditions in the United States and Mexico and to see which factors are associated with the intensity of U.S. enforcement activities. the number of illegal immigrants is to take 2.1 The Residual Foreign-Born Population the difference between the measured immi- grant population and the sum of past legal immigrant inflows. Estimates using this residual approach suggest that stocks of illegal immigrants have risen sharply over time. However, there is considerable variability in In the United States, there are two classes of legal immigrants who appear in official data sources (i.e., are surveyed by the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), or other official entities). the estimates, associated with differing One is permanent legal immigrants, who assumptions about the magnitude of errors in enumerating legal and illegal immigrants in official data sources. 8 This also appears to be the case in Western Europe (Tito Boeri, Barry McCormick, and Hanson 2002). have the right to reside in the country indef- initely. Another is temporary legal immigrants, who have the right to reside in the country for a defined time period, as specified by an entry visa (such as those for stu- dents, specific skill classes of workers, diplomats, and family members of temporary This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �874 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) legal immigrants).9 Since government surveys do not screen individuals based on their immigration status, illegal immigrants also appear in official data, to the extent they make themselves available to be surveyed. The standard method to estimate the num- ber of illegal immigrants is to assume it is equal to the residualforeign-born population, which is given by (1) Ut,= mortality and emigration rates to each entry cohort and determine the fraction of tempo- rary immigrants admitted in previous years that are still in the country. In practice, most discrepancies evident in table 1 appear unrelated to differences in these assumptions. Of greater importance are assumptions about measurement error in F,. To simplify matters, I reexpress equation (1) in contemporaneous values as Ft = Lt + Ut, where Lt is the total legal foreign-born pop- ulation in year t. The U.S. Census Bureau (and other entities that conduct household where Ut is the unauthorized foreign-born population in year t, Ft is the total foreignsurveys) tends to undercount the total population (with undercount rates for low-income permanent legal immigrants that entered in year s < t, m, is the mortality rate between born population in year t, Ls is the number of year s and year t for legal immigrants enter- ing in year s, es is the emigration rate between year s and year t for legal immigrants entering in year s, and T, is temporary legal immigrants present in year t. Table 1 reports estimates of the unauthorized foreign-born population by the U.S. Bureau of the Census (Joe Costanzo et al. 2001), Bean et al. (2001a, 2001b), Passel (2005), and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) (2001).10 In the most recent projection, Passel (2005) esti- mates that between 2002 and 2004 the ille- gal immigrant population rose from 9.3 to 10.3 million, for an average annual net inflow of 500,000 migrants, with 57 percent of these individuals coming from Mexico. This compares to an average annual net illegal inflow during the 1990-2000 period of households, which would include many Mexican immigrants, believed to be relatively high), in which case the measured foreign- born population, F,, is less than the actual foreign-born population, Ft. The total legal- immigrant population, Lt, in contrast, appears to be measured with greater accura- cy, since immigration authorities have records on how many entry visas they award. Suppose the legal-immigrant population that is enumerated in the census is, (2) Lt where A, is the fr that go uncounted immigrant census (3) is, popul U, where p, is the 581,000 migrants (with 58 percent of net immigrants that new immigrants coming from Mexico), are mean zero iid based on U.S. Census Bureau estimates observed individ (Costanzo et al. 2001), and 350,000 migrants terms of their Census Bureau estimates that it under(with 79 percent coming from Mexico), based on INS (2001) estimates. counts the Hispanic population by 5 perObviously, there are a host of assumptions cent, Bean et al. (2001b) put the undercount involved in estimating (1). One must assign rate for legal Mexican immigrants at 2 percent to 4 percent. Similarly, while the U.S. 9 The Census Bureau does not survey individuals on Census Bureau estimates that it under- tourist or business visas or other short-term visitors. counts 10 See Bean et al. (1998) for a survey of the literature on estimating illegal immigrant populations. the illegal immigrant population by 15 percent, the INS assumes an undercount This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 875 TABLE 1 ESTIMATES OF THE U.S. ILLEGAL-IMMIGRANT POPULATION, 1990-2004 Total Population of Illegal Immigrants in the United States (millions) Costanzo et al. (2003) Bean et al. (2001a, 2001b) INS Undercount Rate Undercount Rate Passel Year (2001) 10% 15% 20% 15% Median 25% (2005) 1990 3.500 1991 3.766 4.025 4.430 -- -- -- 4.707 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 1992 4,204 1993 4.492 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 1994 4.750 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 1995 5.146 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 1996 5.581 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 1997 5.862 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 1998 6.098 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 1999 6.488 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 2000 7.000 2001 -- 2002 -- -- 2003 2004 8.705 -- -- 10.242 -- -- -- - -- -- 5.918 -- -- -- 10.882 7.751 -- -- -- --- -- 1996 2.040 -- 2000 2001 -- -- 4.808 -- 2002 2003 2004 -- --- -- 1.008 --- -- -- 1.524 3.872 --- -- -- 3.462 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 9.300 -- -- 10.300 Illegal -- -- -- 2.543 3.706 -- -- -- -- 4.510 -- -- -- 5.765 --- -- -- -- Immig -- -- -- -- -- -- of -- -- 9.864 -- -- Population 1990 -- -- 5.300 -- -- 5.900 Notes: Costanzo et al. (2003) rep undercount rates for illegal imm undercount rate for illegal imm mates are based on undercount r grants or (b) 25 percent for ille estimates are based on undercou legal immigrants (2 percent for for all legal immigrants (4 perc 2001b) are for the full set of rep of 10 percent, and Bean representativ (see Bean et al. 1998). The U.S. Census undercount rates of 15 p cent. It is primarily the Bureau justifies its undercount assumptions assumptions based that account on results from its own postenumeraestimates in tion table 1. surveys, from which standard errors for fo Assumptions under populationabout estimates are derived (Costanzo based on comparisons et al. 2001). The INS (2001) justifies a 10 of population with the percent undercount rate based popul on a case postenumeration surveys study of Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles cific localities. requi County. Bean This et al. (2001a, 2001b) justify that underenumeration their range of undercount rates based on in This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �876 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) results in Bean and Jennifer Van Hook (1998). Given observed values of F, and L, and percent Mexico. to gauge of th Missing how th assumed values for k, or ,t, which I indicate tions by a tilde, the estimated value of the illegal- time. The poste conducted by o immigrant population in year t can be about Bureau approximated as or BL undercount (4) 1-ftI u small number of communities around the as time of the main survey. Since samples for If true undercount rates fall over time and postenumeration surveys differ across survey we fail to account for this, estimatesperiods, of the there is little basis for making timeillegal-migration population will be series biased comparisons in undercount rates. Until public surveys ask about individupwards (U, > U).11 Consider values large-scale for F, and L, in 1996 and 2001 in Bean al. ualet migration status directly, estimating the (2001a, 2001b). If we change the assumption size of the illegal-immigrant population will remain a speculative enterprise. for the 1996-2001 period from a constant illegal undercount rate of 25 percent (which 2.2 Churning in Legal and Illegal is at the upper end of the Bean et al. rates) Immigrant Populations to a reduction in the illegal undercount rate of the stock of illegal immifrom 25 percent to 15 percent (to the Estimates lower end of the Bean et al. rates),12 the estimated grants give little indication of how long unauthorized migrants are likely to remain annual illegal net inflow from Mexico would without fall by 112,000 migrants (from 432,000 to a legal resident visa. Each year, appears to be a large flow of individu320,000), which is 30 percent of the there average from the pool of illegal migrants to the annual estimated illegal inflow over thealsperiod. Since different authors tend to use difpool of permanent legal immigrants. Many ferent postenumeration surveys as the basis immigrants who obtain visas for legal permanent residence (green cards) are at the time for selecting undercount rates, there is little consensus in the literature about what has they obtain their visas residing in the United happened to the undercount of illegal immi- States illegally. Figure 2 shows the number grants over time, other than it exhibiting a of Mexican immigrants awarded legal permanent residence and the fraction of these downward trend. In table 1, the span of estimates for the individuals who are adjusting status. Over illegal-immigrant population in the United the period 1992-2002, status adjusters States is wide. Between 1990 and 2004, the accounted for 56 percent of new legal permanent immigrants from Mexico. Some of estimated average annual net inflow of unauthose adjusting their visa status are tempothorized immigrants ranges from 350,000 to 580,000 individuals, with 55 percent to 80 rary legal immigrants who have succeeded in obtaining permanent entry visas. However, 11 Ignoring interactions in undercount rates, for Mexican immigrants, the majority of those adjusting status to permanent legal residence appear to have been living in the U,-t When the assumed undercount rate United States as illegalwill immigrantsbe (U.S. n is low, this expression upward bias in Department the of estimated Homeland Security 2004). nu grants). This effect will be exagg Further evidence of churning in the pop- undercount 12 In legal this rate for legal ulation of legal exercise, I migrants immigran and illegal immigrants is assume the isavailable held constant at 2 in the New Immigrant Survey This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 877 Figure 2. U.S. Legal Immigration from Mexico (NIS), which in its pilot form includes a ran- of Mexican immigrants who obtained dom sample of 1,134 immigrants who U.S. green cards qualified under family- received U.S. legal permanent resident visas in 1996 (Guillermina Jasso, Massey, Mark R. Rosenzweig, and Smith 2000). Based on the reunification provisions of U.S. immigration law. Since 1965, the United States has granted unrestricted legal entry to the immediate relatives of U.S. citizens and restricted legal entry, subject to annual immigration quotas, NIS data, Massey and Nolan J. Malone (2002) find that 54 percent of Mexican nationals who obtained a green card in 1996 reported having entered the United States illegally at an earlier date in time, either by crossing the U.S. border (41 percent) or overstaying a temporary entry visa (13 percent). Overall, 21 percent of U.S. green-card recipients in 1996 reported having crossed the U.S. border illegally and 11 percent reported having overstayed a temporary to more distant relatives of U.S. citizens and relatives of U.S. permanent legal residents. Most applicants take several years or more to clear the queue for a green card.13 While the United States periodically attempts to limit the granting of green cards to those applicants who either have valid temporary 13 Though immediate relatives of U.S. citizens are not entry visa. Transitions from illegal to legal residence status indicate that many individuals queuing for U.S. green cards choose to do so as illegal immigrants, rather than waiting out the process as residents of their home coun- tries. Between 1992 and 2004, 90 percent subject to immigration quotas, to obtain a green card they still must screened by immigration authorities, a process that can take as long as two years. The screening process is more protracted for individuals who meet the qualifications for a green card but whose preference category is subject to immigration quotas (e.g., more distant relatives of U.S. citizens and relatives of U.S. legal residents) and can take five years or more (David A. Martin 2005). This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �878 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) entry visas or are residing abroad, the sheer volume of applications has made this provision difficult to enforce (Jessica Vaughan 2003). Consequently, the U.S. government routinely grants green cards to individuals who currently are residing in the country illegally. Massey and Malone (2002) report that prior illegality is more common among those who receive green cards under family- some unauthorized migrants (Hanson 2005). The prospect of a future amnesty is another factor that helps diminish distinctions between legal and illegal migrants. 2.3 Composition of the Legal and Illegal Immigrant Populations A longstanding conception of Mexico-toU.S. migration is that it is driven by the based immigration provisions than under needs and rhythms of agriculture. employment-based immigration provisions. The latter category requires sponsorship by a U.S. employer and applies mostly to highly skilled individuals. Churning in the illegal immigrant population suggests some unauthorized migrants According to this view, most migrants from Mexico are from the countryside, come to the United States to work as farm laborers may view their visa status as mutable. In rural in origin, relatively uneducated, and residing in the United States on an itinerant making the decision to migrate to the United States, individuals in Mexico who have rela- tives that are U.S. legal residents may internalize the prospect of obtaining a U.S. green card in the future. They may consider being an illegal immigrant as simply an intermediate step in becoming a legal permanent resident. The possibility of transitioning from illegal to legal status may blur differences in during peak agricultural months, and return to their families in Mexico for the winter off- season. Migrants would tend to be male, basis. While there is little doubt that at one time this view of Mexican migration was accurate, the Mexican immigrant population in the United States has since become more heterogeneous and more permanent. Large-scale emigration from Mexico began in the early twentieth century. Railroad construction in the late 1800s the expectations and behavior of legal and linked interior Mexico to the U.S. border, illegal migrants. giving U.S. employers improved access to Mexican labor (Cardoso 1980). In the early A second means by which prospective migrants might expect to obtain a U.S. green card is through a future amnesty for illegal aliens. In 1986, the U.S. Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) awarded permanent legal residence visas to illegal immigrants who could demonstrate either (1) continuous U.S. residence since 1982 or (2) sixty days of employment in U.S. agriculture since 1985. Over the next eight years, 1.6 million illegal immigrants received green cards under the first provision and 1.1 million illegal agricul- tural workers received green cards under the second provision, with Mexican nationals accounting for 2 million of the 2.7 million IRCA legalizations (U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service 2001). While there is political opposition in the United States to another amnesty, there have been numerous recent legislative proposals to legalize at least 1900s, Texas farmers began to recruit laborers in Mexico. They followed the main rail line into the country, which ran southwest through agricultural states in Mexico's central and western regions. Early migrants from Mexico came primarily from nine Mexican states in this area (Durand, Massey, and Zenteno 2001).14 Migration expanded further in the 1940s, after the U.S. Congress enacted the Bracero Program (1942-64), which allowed U.S. employers to bring in workers from Mexico (and the Caribbean) to fulfill short-term labor contracts (of less than 14 These nine states are Aguascalientes, Colima, Durango, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacin, Nayarit, San Luis Potosi, and Zacatecas. During the period 1944 to 1964, this group of states accounted for 55 percent of migration from Mexico to the United States (Durand, Massey, and Zenteno 2001). This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 879 a year in length). At the end of their contracts, workers were required to return to their home countries. The vast majority of Perhaps as a result of migration networks, current generations of Mexican immigrants in the United States tend to live near indi- braceros worked on U.S. farms (Kitty viduals from their home regions in Mexico. Calavita 1992). At its peak, from 1954 to For instance, Kaivan Munshi (2003) finds 1960, 300,000 to 450,000 migrant workers from Mexico entered the United States that immigrants from the state of Jalisco are much more likely to live in Los Angeles or annually. The end of the Bracero ProgramSan Diego than immigrants from the state marked the beginning of large-scale illegalof Guanajuato, who prefer Chicago or Dallas. Migrants reinforce networks by creimmigration from Mexico.15 ating home-town associations that help After working in the United States, many members of their communities in Mexico braceros returned to Mexico where they assisted later generations in migratingmake the transition to living north of the abroad. They helped establish informal net-border. Of 218 home-town associations works through which earlier migrants helpformed by Mexican immigrants enumerated new migrants enter the United States, findin a 2002 survey of such organizations in housing in U.S. cities, and obtain jobs withsouthern California, 87 percent were associU.S. employers. Networks are often embed-ated with one of the nine west-central states ded in relationships involving family, kin, or that dominated migration to the United community of birth, which gives them States a under the Bracero Program (Gustavo Cano 2004). regional component. Partly as a result, there is strong historical persistence in migration While migration networks are a consistent rates to the United States across Mexican feature of cross-border labor flows, the com- regions. Figure 3 plots emigration rates in position of these flows is not. Since the 1960s, the 1950s against those in the 1990s acrossMexico has urbanized, become a more eduMexico's thirty-two states. Data for the cated nation, and incorporated women into 1950s are from Woodruff and Zenteno the labor force in greater numbers. Cornelius (2001), who calculate the fraction of each (1992) and Cornelius and Enrico A. Marcelli Mexican state's population that migrated(2001) to suggest these changes have shifted the the United States between 1955 and 1959 composition of Mexican migrants in the under the U.S. Bracero Program. Data for United States from sojourners, who follow the 1990s, taken from the 2000 Mexico the harvest season through the rural United States and then return to Mexico at the end Census of Population and Housing, report the fraction of households in a state having aof the year, to settlers, who have a permanent member migrate to the United States presence in U.S. communities. Resisting this between 1995 and 2000. The correlation notion, Durand, Massey, and Zenteno (2001) between state migration rates in the suggest instead that migration to the United 1995-2000 and the 1955-59 periods is 0.73. States remains dominated by men from traFigure 4 shows that most high-migration ditionally agricultural states in Western states are located in central Mexico, which is Mexico. While migrants have become better neither close to the United States nor homeeducated and more urban, they retain strong to Mexico's poorest households. States on ties to Mexico, returning often and tending to the U.S.-Mexico border tend to have low avoid permanent U.S. settlement. emigration rates, as do states in low-income Until recently, it would have been difficult southern Mexico. to muster much more than case-study evidence to evaluate these claims. There are 15 On illegal immigration and guest-worker programs, see Gil S. Epstein, Arye L. Hillman, and Avi Weiss (1999). now several data sources on migrants from Mexico that give details on an individual's This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �880 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) Figure 3. Migration Rates to the U.S. by Mexican States, 1950s and 1990s Figure 4. Migration Rates to the U.S. by Mexican State and Distance to the U.S. This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 881 TABLE 2 MIGRANT AND NONMIGRANT MEXICAN NATIONALS, MALES Mexico Migration Project, 1989-1991 In Mexico at Time of Survey 1990 1990 Currently In U.S. at U.S. Mexico All on Last Time of 1989 Census Census Respondents Migration Survey LPS Percent Male 56.2 48.0 48.7 64.7 55.9 57.2 Age 18 to 27 38.5 37.6 34.1 38.4 43.5 33.0 28 to 37 31.9 25.8 29.7 35.7 35.7 42.5 38 to 47 17.1 17.4 19.0 18.1 11.7 16.5 48 to 57 8.2 11.7 10.7 6.7 5.9 5.8 58 Males Years to 67 Aged of 4.4 18 None 7.5 to 6.4 47 9.6 9.2 5.2 1.1 3.8 3.2 2.3 2.1 4.0 Schooling 1 to 4 10.3 17.3 23.4 24.3 15.3 19.7 5 9 to to 12 8 28.0 11 to 17.2 15 30.1 32.5 24.7 31.7 41.4 18.5 11.1 34.3 19.4 12.9 9.3 39.1 23.8 18.4 19.1 18.3 16 plus 3.2 7.7 7.5 1.8 5.6 0.5 Live in Urban Area 91.9 74.8 80.6 74.5 89.2 -In Labor Force 91.0 85.2 95.8 98.6 94.1 95.2 Work in Agriculture 15.5 23.9 28.9 31.2 9.1 11.9 Has Migrated to U.S. -- -- 50.3 100.0 100.0 -Migrate U.S. Last Year -- -- 2.5 0.1 0.1 -Years in 0 U.S. to 6 11 to to 5 28.8 10 20 -- 23.4 35.7 65.6 45.2 36.9 -- 14.8 17.3 -- 15.2 28.2 13.9 20.2 36.3 19.4 6.7 20 plus 12.2 -- 4.5 9.3 6.6 59.9 Sample size, 18-67 96,487 196,729 5,370 722 375 1,670 Sample size, 18-47 83,703 158,917 4,448 666 341 1,535 Migration Project (MMP).17 The MMP is a migration status.16 Perhaps the best known and most utilized source is the Mexican household survey conducted in winter months (when seasonal migrants tend to to Mexico) in 1982 and over the 16A similar source is the National Surveyreturn of Demographic Dynamics (ENADID), conducted by the period 1987 to 1997 in several dozen rural government of Mexico in 1992 and 1997. The ENADID communities in western Mexico, chosen for asks households in Mexico whether any of its members have ever worked in or looked for work in the United States (and the year in which this occurred). In the 1997 ENADID, 9 percent of individuals report having been to the United States and 21 percent of households report having a member in the United States, up from 8 percent and 17 percent in 1992. As with the MMP, the ENADID having high rates of migration to the United States (Massey et al. 1994; Durand et al. 1996). In each community and in each year, the MMP surveyed a random sample of only includes households with at least one member remaining in Mexico. See Durand, Massey, and Zenteno 17 Recent papers using the MMP include Massey and (2001) and David McKenzie and Rapoport (2004) for work Espinosa (1997), Belinda I. Reyes (1997), Munshi (2003), using the ENADID and Cornelius and Marcelli (2001) Christina Gathmann (2004), Pia M. Orrenius and and Durand, Massey, and Zenteno (2001) for discussions of other surveys. Madeline Zavodny (2005), and McKenzie and Rapoport (2004). This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �882 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) several hundred households, collecting infor- mation on past migration behavior of each household member.18 An advantage of the MMP is that it allows one to construct retro- spective migration histories on a reasonably large sample of individuals.19 Among male household heads, 23 percent report having migrated to the United States within three years of being surveyed (during the period all respondents; (b) those who report residing in the United States but who are present in Mexico at the time of the MMP survey (seasonal migrants); and (c) those in the United States at the time of the MMP sur- vey (permanent migrants), whose responses are provided by other members of their household in Mexico. 1984 to 1996). Of those reporting hav- While Mexican immigrants in the United States (census immigrants) and MMP per- ing migrated over the period 1970 to 1990, 89 manent migrants have relatively similar percent state that on their first trip to the United States they entered without documents (McKenzie and Rapoport 2004). The MMP is subject to several potential problems associated with how migrants and communities are selected into the sample. Since communities included in the MMP characteristics, they differ considerably from MMP seasonal migrants. Males account for 65 percent of MMP seasonal migrants, but only 56 percent of census immigrants and MMP permanent immigrants. And, while age profiles are similar among the three groups, educational attainment is not. Males are chosen on the basis of being rural and with nine or more years of schooling account having residents with high migration for 52 percent of census immigrants and 48 propensities, they are unlikely to be reprepercent of MMP permanent migrants, but sentative of Mexico as a whole (McKenzie only 31 percent of MMP seasonal migrants. and Rapoport 2004). Within communities,Employment patterns also differ across the households surveyed are those with at groups. Among males, 16 percent of census immigrants and 9 percent of MMP permaleast one member remaining in Mexico, thus excluding households that have migrated to nent migrants work in agriculture, compared the United States in their entirety. And, to 31 percent of MMP seasonal migrants. within households, the migrants surveyed Seasonal migrants also appear to be less estab- directly are those who have returned to lished in the United States. For males, 55 perMexico, for at least part of the year. There cent of MMP seasonal migrants have spent more than five years in the United States, compared to 71 percent of census immigrants residing in the United States. One way to evaluate the issue of sampleand 63 percent of MMP permanent migrants. selection in the MMP is to compare individFor each of these comparisons, results are are no direct observations on individuals similar for females. uals in the survey with individuals in Mexico's Census of Population and Housing and with Over time, Mexican immigrants have Mexican immigrants in the U.S. Census ofshifted out of agriculture as a main industry Population and Housing. Tables 2 and 3 proof U.S. employment. Using data from the U.S. census, Card and Lewis (forthcoming) vide summary statistics for working-age adults in the 1990 U.S. and Mexico censuses show that between 1990 and 2000, among and in the 1989, 1990, and 1991 MMP sur-recent Mexican immigrants (0-5 years in the United States), the share working in agriculveys. I consider three MMP subsamples: (a) ture fell from 23 percent to 15 percent for men and from 13 percent to 7 percent for 18 Different households are surveyed in different years, such that the MMP is a repeated cross-sections of women. Among men, construction accounthouseholds and not a true panel. ed for the largest growth in employment 19 On measurement error in retrospective data, see shares, Megan Beckett et al. (2001) and Smith and Duncan Thomas (2003). while among women retail trade showed the largest increase. This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 883 TABLE 3 MIGRANT AND NONMIGRANT MEXICAN NATIONALS, FEMALES Mexico Migration Project, 1989-1991 In Mexico at Time of Survey 1990 U.S. Census 1990 Mexico Census Respondents 43.8 52.0 51.3 35.3 44.1 42.8 Percent Female Age 18 to 27 All Currently In U.S. at Migration Survey on Last Time of 1989 LPS 33.0 38.0 35.0 35.5 43.2 31.9 28 to 37 31.4 26.1 29.3 37.1 33.5 42.0 38 to 47 18.9 17.0 18.6 21.3 16.6 16.8 48 to 57 10.4 11.5 10.7 5.6 4.4 6.6 58 to 67 6.3 7.6 6.5 0.5 2.4 2.7 Years of None 8.5 12.7 6.6 3.0 5.1 4.6 Schooling 1 to 4 9.8 18.8 25.9 18.7 13.8 18.7 Females Aged 18 to 47 5 to 8 28.3 31.4 35.4 56.2 35.5 43.0 9 to 11 16.2 24.8 16.8 12.4 23.8 18.4 12 to 15 34.0 8.0 11.9 7.6 28.3 15.9 3.3 4.4 3.5 2.2 2.2 0.6 92.7 75.8 80.6 70.8 88.8 56.7 26.6 28.8 35.7 47.5 61.3 7.9 2.3 2.4 2.2 6.6 4.1 2.6 3.3 1.7 1.6 2.1 16 plus Live in Urban Area In Labor Force Work in Agriculture Children Ever Born Own Children in HH Has Migrated to US Migrated U.S. Last Year Years in U.S. 0 to 5 _-_ -__ --_ 1.8 1.0 2.2 18.6 100.0 100.0 0.8 0.0 0.0 26.2 58.1 44.3 41.5 10.7 6 to 10 20.9 17.5 17.6 16.5 11.1 11 to 20 37.3 18.7 28.9 29.2 4.7 20 plus 15.6 5.7 9.2 12.7 73.5 Sample size, 18-67 Sample size, 18-47 76,518 212,912 5,658 63,278 172,458 4,688 394 296 1,248 370 276 1,132 Note: Table 2 gives summary statistics on working-age adult residents of Mexico (1990 Mexico Census of Population and States (1990 U.S. Census of Population and Housing); respond Survey (all respondents, those residing in United States but in in United States at the time of the survey whose responses illegal immigrants from Mexico in the United States who qu Reform and Control Act (1989 Legalized Persons Survey). Th than 2,500 inhabitants. Other surveys of illegal immigrants from legal granted permanent Mexico also suggest their characteristics arethe a United States under more similar to permanent migrants (whether of IRCA (eligibility for wh in the U.S. census or the than seasonof MMP) U.S. residence from 19 al migrants. The Legalized Persons Survey LPS consisted of an initial s (LPS) covered illegal immigrants who werein 199 a follow-up survey This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �884 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) qualifying for legalization.20 Among working-age adults in the LPS, shown in tables 2 and 3, 57 percent of Mexican immigrants are appears unrepresentative of Mexican immigrants in the United States. When examining results using the MMP, one should be mind- ful that they may apply only to seasonal migrants who return to Mexico with high ture. frequency and not to the general population of Mexican migrants. In sum, data sources that include illegal male, 37 percent had nine or more years of schooling, and 12 percent worked in agricul- immigrants are almost by definition subject to 2.4 Attempted Illegal Immigration sample-selection problems. Official sources, such as the population census, are likely to The majority of unauthorized immigrants undersample illegal immigrants, given theirfrom Mexico enter the United States by tendency to undercount low-income house-crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.21 holds. Surveys that specifically target illegalThe U.S. government devotes vast resources immigrants, such as the MMP or the LPS, to policing U.S. borders, airports, and ports of explicitly select respondents on the basis ofentry. Between 1980 and 2004, real expendiobserved characteristics (e.g., residence in a ture on border enforcement increased by high-migration community, eligibility for an over six times and in 2005 will equal $2.2 bilamnesty). Yet, despite conflicting selectionlion (Hanson 2005). U.S. border-enforcement criteria, available data sources paint a con- activities provide a glimpse into the highsistent picture of Mexican immigrants in the frequency properties of illegal immigration. United States, suggesting they include aThe first line of defense against unauthorized high proportion of women, are overwhelm-entry is the U.S. Border Patrol. Border Patrol ingly employed outside agriculture, haveofficers on "linewatch" duty patrol the bor- high education levels (relative to nonmi-der, maintain electronic surveillance of major grants in Mexico), and have established acrossing points along the border, and staff long-term U.S. presence. traffic checkpoints along major highways this conclusion is the MMP sample of sea- Border Patrol officer hours devoted to One data source that is inconsistent with near the border. Figure 5 shows annual sonal migrants-individuals who reside in linewatch duty from 1964 to 2003. Officer the United States but return to Mexico in the winter months. Since MMP seasonal hours increased dramatically in the 1990s, rising from 2.5 million in 1994 to 9.8 million in 2001. This increase was due primarily to migrants are selected on the basis of having stepped up enforcement efforts at urban returned to Mexico, it is hardly surprising crossing points in California and Texas. that they fit the profile of itinerant migrant Concurrent with increased enforcement, laborers. Relative to other samples of legal apprehensions of those attempting illegal and illegal immigrants, MMP seasonal entry have increased, rising from 280,000 a migrants are disproportionately male, unedyear ucated, and agricultural. While much of the during the 1970s to 930,000 a year durliterature based on the MMP uses the inforing the 1990s. Individuals apprehended by mation on seasonal migrants to exam- Border Patrol officers on linewatch duty are ine Mexico-to-U.S. migration, this sample typically captured while trying to enter the United States or just after entering the country. Linewatch apprehensions are thus 20 The initial survey was of 6,193 respondents, of whom 5,691 had received amnesty by 1992 (with most of the rest awaiting decision). Of those granted amnesty, 82 percent were located for the follow-up interview. The LPS sample immigrants but more common among those from other Agricultural Worker provision of IRCA. countries, is to enter the United States on a temporary visa and then remain in the country after it expires. excluded those granted amnesty under the Special 21 A second strategy, less common among Mexican This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 885 Figure 5. Linewatch Apprehensions and Enforcement by the U.S. Border Patrol correlated with the contemporaneous level To gauge how apprehensions might be of attempted illegal immigration.22 However, related to illegal immigration, consider the apprehensions are likely to be a poor indica- level of apprehensions as a function of the average probability of apprehension tor of the actual level of illegal inflows (Espenshade 1995). Within a single month, one individual may be apprehended multiple times. Those apprehended who agree to be deported voluntarily are not processed by the U.S. justice system. For Mexican nationals, voluntary deportation often involves little more than a bus ride across the border, leav- ing them in position to attempt illegal entry again in the near future.23,24 22 Individuals apprehended in the U.S. interior, in contrast, could have crossed the border at a much earlier date, making interior apprehensions less strongly correlated with current attempts at illegal entry. 23 Between 1990 and 2003, 95 percent of those the Border Patrol apprehended agreed to depart voluntarily. 24 A further issue is that the majority of those attempt- ing illegal entry do not appear to be apprehended on any given attempt. Using MMP data, Massey and Audrey Singer (1995) find that for trips to the United States in the 1970s and 1980s the average probability of apprehension was 35 percent. and the number of attempts at illegal entry. Extending Wilfred J. Ethier's (1986) model, let (5) s where At is the number th o P(Ht, Mt) is th vidual is appr to cross the probability with is which a a and the numb enforcement sion probabili H,. For a give total attempts ability any sin (since This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms enforc �886 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) United States. In late 2001, the U.S. Border more thinly across those attempting entry), making P(.) decreasing in M,. 25 Patrol increased its vigilance at border cross- Suppose P(H,,M,) = cHa' M-t,, where c, a, and a2 are positive constants, in which case log apprehensions can be expressed as migrants from crossing as frequently as they had in the past.27 (6) InA, = ao + alnH, + 1 - a2)ln4M Hanson and Antonio Spilimbergo (1999) use monthly data over the period 1968-96 to esti- mate equation (6), modeling attempted illegal entry as a reduced-form function of real wages in Mexico, real wages in the United States, other indicators of economic conditions in the two countries, a time trend, and monthly dummy variables.26 With an estimate of a,, we can solve for a function that is an affine transformation of InMt, given by ings, which may have dissuaded some The trend in figure 6 is roughly consistent with table 1 and results from previous estimates of the U.S. unauthorized population. Illegal immigration appears to have risen steadily after the end of the Bracero Program in 1965 and has been relatively stable at high levels for the past two decades.28 I will return to data on border apprehensions and enforcement when evaluating fac- tors that affect the level of illegal immigration and the political economy of U.S. policy on illegal immigration. (7) a0 + (1 - a2)lnM, = InA, - allnH, 2.5 Summary The expression on the right of (7) will posi- Currently, no data source gives precise estimates of the size of the U.S. illegal- tively covary with InMt as long as a2 < 1. Approximated attempts at illegal entry in (7) do not give an estimate of the level of illegal immigration. However, they may indicate the variation across time and the magnitude of log changes in attempted illegal entry. Figure 6 shows estimates of (7), based on instrumental-variables estimates of equation (6) (see note 26). Approximated attempts at illegal entry rise from the 1960s to the mid1980s, are stable from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, and then decline somewhat in 2000 and 2001. Part of the 2001 decline may reflect a change in border-crossing activity after the events of September 11th in the 25 For earlier work using apprehensions data, see Bean et al. (1990) and Borjas, Richard B. Freeman, and Kevin Lang (1991). 26 To deal with the possible correlation between enforcement and unobserved shocks to apprehensions, Hanson and Spilimbergo (1999) instrument for enforce- ment using U.S. government spending on national defense and indicators for whether there is an upcoming U.S. presidential, congressional, or border-state gubernatorial election. Border enforcement tends to follow a polit- ical cycle, dropping during election years (Hanson, Raymond Robertson, and Spilimbergo 2002). The reported coefficient estimate for a, is the long-run elasticity of apprehensions with respect to enforcement. immigrant population over medium or long time spans. Government data-gathering agencies have been wary of asking questions about an individual's immigration status, perhaps out of fear of dissuading illegal migrants from participating in surveys. The result is gaps in our knowledge about unauthorized migrants, which the literature has been able to partially fill in through other data sources. The perspective that emerges from the data that are available is that Mexico-to-U.S. illegal migration increased in the 1970s and 1980s and averaged around 200,000 to 300,000 net unauthorized entries per year in the 1990s and early 2000s. The population of illegal immigrants from Mexico in the 27 See Mary Jordan, "Mexicans Caught at Border in Falling Numbers," Washington Post, May 24, 2002. 28 One limitation of this exercise is that I assume border-crossing technology and border-apprehensions technology have been stable over time. There is anecdotal evidence that both may have changed considerably, especially since September, 2001. However, Hanson and Spilimnbergo (1999) find no evidence of a structural break in the apprehensions function for the 1968 to 1996 period. This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 887 Figure 6. Estimated Attempts at Illegal Entry along the U.S.-Mexico Border United States includes a substantial fraction of women, is predominantly employed in nonagricultural jobs, and has schooling levels that are comparable to or higher than nonmigrating individuals in Mexico. Though many migrants maintain ties with family members in their origin communities, a majority appear to have settled in the United States on a medium or long-term basis. 3. The Supply of and Demand for Mexican Immigrants of future earnings, discount rates, and perceived cost of migrating. The cost of unau- thorized migration includes transport to the border, the physical risks and monetary charges incurred in crossing the border illegally, the psychic penalty from leaving one's friends and family behind, and the time and monetary expense of settling in another country. To uncover sources of variation in the demand for and the supply of illegal migrants, recent work estimates the sensitivity of migrant outflows from Mexico to variation in U.S. and Mexican wages, border-crossing costs, and access to Beginning with Larry A. Sjaastad (1962), economists have viewed migration as an investment decision. An individual migrates if the expected discounted difference in the migration networks. Also beginning with Sjaastad, economists tend to model the migration decision as irreversible (Greenwood 1997; Lucas 1997). stream of income between the new and old In many contexts, this assumption may be location exceeds moving costs. The incentive reasonable. U.S. legal immigrants, if they to migrate will vary across individuals wish to keep their green cards valid, must according to differences in their expectations make the United States their permanent This content downloaded from ff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff on Thu, 01 Jan 1976 12:34:56 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �888 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) residence.29 Those migrating to the United States legally would thus tend to be individuals expecting to stay in the country for an extended period of time. In the context of illegal migration from Mexico, individuals may operate on shorter time horizons. The substantial round-trip migration documented by the MMP indicates that for at least some Mexican nationals the cost of moving First, consider the components of illegal migration costs. Of these, transport costs to the border are likely to be small and psychic costs difficult to evaluate. Border-crossing costs and settlement costs are in principle measurable, though it is only the former that has been subject to much in the way of formal research. To avoid capture by the U.S. Border Patrol, migrants often pur- back and forth across the border is suffi- chase the services of a smuggler, known as a coyote.30 Coyotes offer a range of services, ciently low to warrant making the trip annufrom simply guiding migrants across the ally. Of interest to both Mexico and the United border to more complete packages that States is not just the volume of migrant flows include transport to an interior U.S. city, but their composition. Widening differences in earnings between immigrants and natives Phoenix.31 The MMP is one of the few data in the United States is cited as evidence that sources that asks migrants from Mexico recent U.S. immigrants are negatively select- about their border-crossing behavior. Using ed in terms of skill (Borjas 1999a). Following this line of thought, one might expect negative selection to be especially strong among illegal immigrants. Recent work examines migrant selection by comparing the charac- teristics of Mexican immigrants in the United States with those of nonmigrating individuals in Mexico. 3.1 The Incentive to Migrate from Mexico to the United States A long line of research applies the general framework in Sjaastad (1962) to examine the sensitivity of migration flows to the observed costs and benefits of migrating. For prospec- tive illegal migrants in Mexico, the costs include the four components identified above and the benefits include gains in real income associated with moving from low- wage Mexico to the high-wage United States. such as Houston, Los Angeles, or MMP data, Orrenius (2001) documents that, during the period 1978 to 1996, 69 percent of migrants reported hiring a coyote, as shown in figure 7.32 During this peri- od, the average price paid for coyote services varied between $385 and $715 ( in 2000 dollars). Since 2001, when the Border Patrol became more vigilant in monitoring U.S. border crossing points, coyote prices have risen. Based on a 2005 survey of return migrants in rural areas of two Mexican 30 Coyotes also help migrants navigate unfamiliar terrain. Recent changes in U.S. enforcement strategy have made it more difficult to cross the border in urban areas, encouraging migrants to enter the United States through the mountainous desert regions of Arizona and Eastern California, where temperature extremes expose migrants to physical risks. Annual deaths of border crossers have increased from an average of 100 during the mid 1990s to 410 during the period 2000-2004 (Cornelius 2005). With net annual illegal immigration from Mexico since 2000 at approximately 300,000 individuals (see table 1), there appear to be around 1.4 deaths per 1,000 successful net unauthorized migrants. 31 For the more expensive complete package of smuggling services, the coyote typically receives a portion of the fee up front and the remaining portion once the migrant is 29 A green-card holder may lose U.S. permanent resident status by taking permanent residence abroad, remaining abroad without obtaining a reentry visa, or by filing a foreign tax return as a nonimmigrant. Once a legal immigrant becomes U.S. citizens, he or she is free to enter and leave the country at will. safely delivered to friends or family members in the United States. See Charlie LeDuff, "The Crossing: A Special Report; A Perilous 4,000 Mile Passage to Work," New York Times, May 29, 2001, p. 1. 32 To reduce recall bias, I only show data for years within four of years of an MMP survey. This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 889 Figure 7. Use of Smugglers by Migrants in the Mexican Migration Project states (that are also in the MMP), Cornelius (2005) finds that between the 1996-98 and 2002-04 periods average coyote prices rose by 37 percent from $1180 to $1680.33 One might be concerned that coyote prices based on MMP data are biased downwards. As mentioned in the last section, the hiring a smuggler in 2004 report using friends or family to find a coyote. Results using the MMP itself are consistent with concerns about bias in observed coyote prices. Gathmann (2004) finds that migrants with family members in the United States are less likely to use coyote services and, MMP surveys households in communities among migrants who do hire a smuggler, with high rates of migration to the United those with family members abroad pay lower prices. Yet, even if one accepts the high coy- States. Individuals in these communities ote prices quoted in the press,34 bordermay have relatively good access to migration networks, making them less dependent on crossing costs since 2001 appear to be no coyote services or better able to negotiate more than $2,000, which is 35 percent of lower prices from smugglers. Cornelius Mexico's 2003 per capita GDP. (2005) reports that 65 percent of migrants 34 Recent articles in the popular press give a price range for coyote services of $1,500-$2,000 ("Man Accused 33 The increase in prices is based on respondents recolof Smuggling Immigrants," The Oregonian, September 17, lections in 2005 of prices they paid in previous years and 2005, p. B2; "US Immigration," The Economist, May 19, thus may be subject to recall bias. In 2005, 90 percent2005; of "Between Here and There," The Economist, July 5, respondents in Cornelius's data (all of whom are from 2001; the "Illegal Immigration; Border Agents Understand a states of Jalisco or Zacatecas) report using a coyote on their Complex Issue," The San Diego Union-Tribune, May 26, previous trip to the United States. 2005, p. B12). This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �890 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) Next, consider the benefits to migration. To calculate the gross return to migration, one would need to account for the expected in the migration incentive. Yet, since their specification is a reduced form, the coeffi- cient estimates do not allow one to recover length of stay in the United States, the expect- the elasticity of migration with respect to ed path of future earnings, and the discount rate applied to these earnings. In the absence of data on these components, much of the research on the decision to migrate takes a reduced-form approach to modeling how the returns to migration affect behavior.35 Using retrospective data from the MMP, Orrenius and Zavodny (2005) estimate the hazard that young males migrate to the United States as a function of individual and household characteristics and economic conditions in the two wage differentials between the United States and Mexico. Further, since the MMP is restricted to communities with historically high propensities to migrate to the United States, the results may not be informative about how prospective migrants in other regions of Mexico respond to changes in binational economic conditions. To examine how the gross level of attempted illegal migration responds to changes in U.S.-Mexican wages, Hanson countries.36 In the MMP, most migrants and Spilimbergo (1999) estimate an appre- appear to be entering the United States illegally. The migration hazard is nonmonotonic in schooling, increasing at low and medium hensions function, similar to that in equation (6). Using monthly data, they regress appre- hensions at the U.S.-Mexico border on schooling levels (primary and secondary lagged apprehensions, current and lagged school) and decreasing at higher schooling linewatch enforcement hours, the real peso levels (preparatory school and beyond).37 The wage for production workers in Mexican hazard is decreasing in per capita GDP in industry, real peso and real dollar U.S. wages (measured as the weighted average of wages Mexico and increasing in U.S. average wages. These results suggest that migrants tend to be drawn from the middle of the schooling dis- tribution and that migration is more likely during periods when U.S. income is expanding relative to income in Mexico. The migra- tion hazard is also higher for individuals whose fathers have migrated or whose siblings have migrated. This result could indicate the presence of family migration networks, or in U.S. industries that employ recent Mexican immigrants in large numbers), and other controls. They instrument for enforcement using U.S. government spending on national defense and indicators for whether there is an upcoming U.S. presidential, congressional, or border-state gubernatorial election (see note 26). Figure 8 shows a partial regression plot of log apprehensions on log Mexican real it could indicate the presence of unobserved household characteristics (e.g., unmeasured average hourly earnings, based on Hanson and Spilimbergo's estimates. Border appre- wealth) that influence migration behavior. hensions appear to be very responsive to changes in Mexican wages. A 10 percent By treating migration as a function of age, education, and other individual characteris- decline in Mexican real wages is associated tics, Orrenius and Zavodny pick up variation across individuals in the incentive to with a 6-8 percent percent increase in border apprehensions. Moreover, this effect is almost fully realized within three months following a migrate. By also including macroeconomic wage change, suggesting that shocks to the conditions, they pick up time-series variation Mexican economy are rapidly transmitted to changes in attempted illegal migration. 35 In earlier work, J. Edward Taylor (1987) examines migration behavior in a single rural community in Mexico.Over the past three decades, Mexico has 36 See also Oded Stark and Taylor (1989, 1991) and experienced wide variation in real income, as Massey and Espinosa (1997). periodic devaluations of the peso have lead 37 McKenzie and Rapoport (2004), who also use MMP data, obtain similar results. to bursts of inflation, which have caused This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 891 Figure 8. Border Apprehensions and Average Wages in Mexico Figure 9. Border Apprehensions and U.S.-Mexico Relative Per Capita Income This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �892 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) incomes to fall sharply. Figure 9, which plots relative per capita GDP in the United States how long a migrant from Mexico would have to work in the United States in order to and Mexico, gives evidence of this volatility. recoup border-crossing costs, as approximat- During three separate episodes in the last ed by the price of coyote services. I focus on males, since, as tables 2 and 3 show, there are declined by five log points or more (relative large differences in labor-force participation rates between women in Mexico and thirty years, Mexico's per capita GDP to the United States) within the space of three years. Each of these episodes was followed by an increase in border apprehensions. Much of the research on interregional migration in the United States and other countries finds that it is labor earnings in the receiving region, and not the sending Mexican immigrant women in the United States, which complicates comparing female wage outcomes across national borders. By limiting the analysis to current wage differ- ences and a single component of migration costs, this exercise falls well short of a com- region, that appear to drive migration flows plete cost-benefit accounting of the migra- appear to be the case in Mexico, where tion decision. Still, given large back and forth flows of labor across the U.S.-Mexico bor- (Greenwood 1997). However, this does not income volatility appears to be a strong push der, the current U.S.-Mexico wage differen- factor for illegal migration. tial is likely to be the relevant gross return to While apprehensions are the only avail- migration for at least some prospective able high-frequency measure of gross migrants. have important limitations. Since individual Table 4 reports average hourly earnings by age and schooling categories for males in attempts at illegal migration, these data migrants may be apprehended multiple times in a given time period, the number of apprehensions may far exceed the gross number of migrants (Espenshade 1995). Controlling for border enforcement addresses this problem, but only if one has valid instruments for enforcement (since enforcement is likely to be endogenous to shocks to attempted illegal migration) and if the impact of enforcement on apprehen- sions (controlling for the incentive to migrate) is stable over time (see notes 26 and 28). 3.2 U.S.-Mexico Wage Differences Mexico (based on the 2000 Mexico Census of Population and Housing) and for immigrant males from Mexico in the United States (based on the 2000 U.S. Census of Population and Housing).38 To increase the share of illegal immigrants among Mexican immigrant men, I limit the sample to very recent immigrants (individuals residing in the United States for 0-3 years). To adjust for cost of living differences between the countries, I scale up Mexican hourly wages to achieve purchasing power parity with the United States, using the 2000 PPP adjustment factor for Mexico in the Penn World Tables.39 The reduced-form results of Orrenius and Zavodny (2005) and Hanson and tude of the returns themselves. As a crude 38 For Mexico, average hourly wages are calculated as monthly labor income/(4.5 x hours worked last week); for the United States, average hourly wages are calculated as annual labor income/(weeks worked last year x usual hours worked per week). For Mexico, I need to assume individuals work all weeks of a month, which could bias wage estimates downwards. To avoid measurement error associated approximation of the short-run gross return to migration, I examine differences in hourly wages for men in Mexico and Mexican immigrant men in the United States in 2000. I ask with implausibly low wage values or with top coding of earnings, I drop the largest and smallest 0.5 percent of wage values. 39 In 2000, Mexico's PPP-adjusted price level was 61 percent of the U.S. price level. Spilimbergo (1999) suggest that illegal migration flows are highly responsive to changes in the return to migration. However, these results give no indication of the magni- This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 893 TABLE 4 AVERAGE HOURLY WAGES FOR MEXICAN MALES, 2000 Years of Schooling Completed Age 4 5 to 8 9 to 11 12 13 to 15 16+ Mexican 18 to 22 7.83 7.60 7.45 8.07 8.76 8.44 Immigrants 23 to 27 8.44 8.19 8.21 9.06 9.53 13.02 in U.S. 28 to 32 8.27 8.56 8.70 9.66 9.56 15.69 33 to 37 9.46 9.25 9.34 10.07 11.36 16.84 38 to 42 9.19 9.39 9.33 11.01 12.11 16.26 43 to 47 9.75 8.90 9.35 10.68 12.80 15.88 48 to 52 9.57 9.37 9.42 9.31 11.65 17.78 Residents 18 to 22 1.36 1.56 1.76 2.06 2.61 3.91 of Mexico 23 to 27 1.43 1.80 2.10 2.79 3.77 5.20 28 to 32 1.56 1.93 2.42 3.22 4.80 33 to 37 1.65 2.08 2.56 3.45 5.25 6.63 7.07 38 to 42 1.64 2.14 2.88 3.74 5.62 7.42 43 to 47 1.69 2.30 3.00 4.40 5.86 8.05 48 to 52 1.66 2.30 3.15 4.21 6.11 8.71 Note: Table shows average hourly wages in 2000 or male residents of Mexico who report workin 0.5 percent of wage values are excluded). Data f microsample of the XIII Censo General de Pobla percent U.S. PUMS in 2000. Mexican immigrants States for three years or less. See the text on the Not surprisingly,high-migration wages are substanti states Mexico as a whole. higher among Mexican immigrants in United States than In among table 5, resident the log b Mexico. For 23-27 ence year-old males, the declines with sc adjusted hourly wage differential varies f with empirical resea $7.01 for those with 0-4 yearsreturns of schoolin estimated to Mexico. In the $5.76 for those with 13-15 years of 1990s schoo to $7.82 for those with 16 or year more of y an additional of schooling. Given that migration pro with an increase in w ties vary widely across regions grant men of ofMexico 2.5 t might think that the average hourly wag 1996; Trejo 1997; Jef 2002).may In the i the country as a whole not1990s be the and vant alternative wage for mostyear prosp an additional of migrants. Table 5 reports wage differe with an increase in w between the United States and high-m 9.7 log points (Dan tion states in Mexico, defined to be st Returns to experie with above-average 2000.40 emigration rat 41wage On the returns to ed U.S.-Mexico differentials Michael Ian Cragg and Mar Airola and Chinhui Juhn (2 40 These states are Aguascalientes, Colima, Dur schooling are correlated, es Guanajuato, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Mich may be biased. Also, self-se Morelos, Nayarit, Oaxaca, San Luis Potosi, Zac into migration may and introdu This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �894 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) TABLE 5 LOG U.S.-MEXICO HOURLY WAGE DIFFERENTIAL, MALES IN 2000 Years of Schooling Completed Age 4 5 to 8 9 to 11 12 13 to 15 16+ Log of U.S.-Mexico Wage Differential, All Males in 18 to 22 1.263 1.098 0.985 0.895 0.750 0.361 (0.022) (0.013) (0.015) (0.018) (0.042) (0.099) 23 to 27 1.281 1.043 0.904 0.746 0.507 0.387 (0.024) (0.015) (0.018) (0.018) (0.038) (0.048) 28 to 32 1.225 1.036 0.821 0.652 0.306 0.357 (0.029) (0.018) (0.024) (0.023) (0.047) (0.052) 33 to 37 1.258 1.025 0.823 0.613 0.339 0.294 (0.034) (0.023) (0.034) (0.031) (0.057) (0.059) 38 to 42 1.287 1.019 0.775 0.575 0.288 0.216 (0.035) (0.029) (0.045) (0.043) (0.068) (0.075) 43 to 47 1.265 0.905 0.708 0.498 0.275 0.118 (0.040) (0.037) (0.063) (0.063) (0.103) (0.116) 48 to 52 1.264 0.987 0.715 0.418 0.164 0.122 (0.050) (0.046) (0.096) (0.076) (0.122) (0.142) Log of U.S.-Mexico Wage Differential, Males in High-Migration States 18 to 22 1.188 1.061 0.989 0.912 0.676 0.381 (0.026) (0.016) (0.017) (0.025) (0.052) (0.128) 23 to 27 1.211 1.013 0.895 0.722 0.481 0.425 (0.027) (0.017) (0.019) (0.024) (0.050) (0.052) 28 to 32 1.144 1.011 0.824 0.657 0.361 0.415 (0.031) (0.020) (0.025) (0.028) (0.057) (0.053) 33 to 37 1.151 0.988 0.821 0.652 0.317 0.411 (0.035) (0.025) (0.034) (0.034) (0.061) (0.060) 38 to 42 1.206 0.966 0.792 0.601 0.185 0.291 (0.036) (0.030) (0.044) (0.046) (0.070) (0.073) 43 to 47 1.194 0.867 0.671 0.528 0.237 0.181 (0.041) (0.037) (0.061) (0.067) (0.101) (0.112) 48 to 52 1.193 0.961 0.727 0.292 0.284 0.227 (0.049) (0.045) (0.092) (0.080) (0.125) (0.137) Notes: Table shows the log difference in average hourly wages (and standard err Mexican immigrant males and male residents of Mexico. The top half of the tab includes all regions of Mexico; the bottom half includes only high-migration sta table 4 and the text for details. higher for Mexican residents than for Mexican immigrants. Higher returns to education in Mexico are consistent with the In 2000, a 23-27 year-old recent Mexican migrant with 5 to 8 years of schooling (the category just below the national mean level of country having a low relative supply ofschooling for Mexico) would recoup borderskilled labor compared to the United States. crossing costs of $2,000 in 313 hours, or 7.8 Higher average wages in the United States weeks based on a forty-hour work week. The (within schooling groups) are consistent with speed with which migrants would seem to the country having a higher relative level ofrecover border-crossing costs suggests that TFP and higher relative supplies of physical other costs to migration (including psychic costs and financing costs associated with capital. This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 895 credit constraints) are large. In a simple stat- ic model, the equilibrium wage differential between two countries is fixed by migration costs. To reconcile persistent U.S.-Mexico wage differences with small border-crossing costs, there would need to be positive unobserved migration costs (otherwise migration flows would be larger) and heterogeneity across individuals in these costs (otherwise migration flows would be lumpier, with either everyone or no one in a skill group willing to migrate). There are reasons to be skeptical about how well the observed U.S.-Mexico wage differ- What is surprising, perhaps, is that the estimated wage premium for legalization is so small. One might expect that being confined to the underground economy would substantially limit workers' employment prospects. Once legalized, they would enjoy strong wage growth. By this reasoning, a 6log-point gain over three years is unimpressive. One possibility is that the three years covered by the LPS is not long enough for individuals to realize the wage benefits associated with gaining legal status. Legalization may open up new opportunities to move between occupations or between regions, ential captures the incentive to migrate. This differential reflects the binational difference which migrants need more time to exploit. in returns to both observed and unobserved Cobb-Clark's estimate is biased downwards. characteristics. If migrants are positively selected in terms of unobserved skill, observed wage differences will tend to overstate true wage differences. In the next section, we address the issue of which types of individuals in Mexico select into migration. Another issue is that, since average wages for Mexican immigrants in the United States are a composite of wages for legal and illegal immigrants, they may overstate wages an illegal immigrant would expect to earn. Sherrie A. Kossoudji and Deborah A. CobbClark (2002) use the LPS to compare wages for illegal immigrants before and after they obtained green cards under the amnesty pro- vision of the 1986 IRCA. Between 1989 and Another possibility is that Kossoudji and Their control group includes legal and illegal immigrants from Latin America, as well as second and later generation Latin American immigrants. Suppose illegal immigrants are more negatively selected in terms of unobserved skill than legal immigrants (where overall legal immigrants may be positively or negatively selected in terms of skill). In an economy where the return to skill is rising (as in the United States during the 1990s), stronger negative selection of illegal immigrants in terms of unobserved skill would tend to make their unobserved wage growth relatively small and lead one to underestimate the wage premium due to legalization. The differential in U.S. and Mexican 1992, average hourly earnings for newly legalized immigrant men (64 percent of wages in table 5 may also miss important whom were Mexican nationals) rose by 6 log points relative to earnings for Latino men in the NLSY, controlling for observable characteristics. Also, prior to legalization, illegal- incentive to migrate. For instance, average wages for Mexican immigrants in the United States may hide heterogeneity in expecta- immigrant men had relatively slow wage growth. Not surprisingly, illegal status is asso- ciated with lower wages and less opportunity for occupational advancement (Kossoudji and Cobb-Clark 1996, 2000).42 sources of variation across individuals in the tions about U.S. wages among prospective migrants. Individuals with previous U.S. labor-market experience or who speak English well might have relatively strong wage expectations due to the ease with illegal immigrants. For other work on the wage consequences which they expect to find a U.S. job or the high productivity they anticipate having on the job. Though not specific to Mexico, Hoyt Bleakley and Aimee Chin (2004) find that, of IRCA, see Cynthia Bansak and Steven Raphael (2001). for immigrants from non-English-speaking 42 Francisco L. Rivera-Batiz (1999), who also uses the LPS, estimates larger wage differences between legal and This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �896 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) countries that arrived in the United States as wage differentials are large today and have children, wages are higher for those with stronger English-language skills.43 Another source of heterogeneity in wage expectations among prospective migrants is variation in access to migration networks. Individuals with friends or family that have migrated abroad may have better information about how to find a job in the United States. Munshi (2003), using data from the MMP, finds that Mexican migrants in the been large for over a century (Durand, Massey, and Zenteno 2001). The emerging United States are more likely to be employed and more likely to be employed in a (higher-paying) nonagricultural job the larger is the U.S. population of residents from their origin community in Mexico.44 He instruments for the time-varying size of the U.S. population from a migrant's origin community in Mexico using lagged rainfall in the migrant's origin community (which literature on migration networks suggests that networks arise in response to hidden migration costs associated with finding employment and getting settled abroad. William J. Carrington, Enrica Detragiache, and Tara Vishwanath (1996) develop a model of regional labor movements in which migration networks lead migrant flows to be sluggish initially, when the migrant population is small, and then to accelerate over time, as migration costs endogenously fall in response to past migration. Imperfect credit markets, which we discuss in the next sec- tion, are another explanation for sluggish migration. 3.3 The Selection of Migrants from Mexico presumably affects the marginal productivity In an important body of work, Borjas of labor in Mexican agriculture and so the (1987, 1991) argues that who migrates to the United States from a particular country will depend on that country's wage distribution. In a country with high returns to skill and incentive to migrate abroad). His results suggest that having a larger network improves a migrant's ability to assimilate economically in the United States. Migration high wage dispersion, as in Mexico, there networks appear to be organized around will be negative selection of migrants. Those families. Among nonagricultural (agricultur- al) workers, 78 percent (74 percent) with the greatest incentive to migrate to the United States will be individuals with below- received assistance in finding a U.S. job and, among this group, 47 percent (43 percent) received help from a relative and 47 percent (43 percent) received help from a friend or paisano (someone from their home region in average skill levels in their home countries. In support of this idea, Borjas (1987, 1995) finds that as sources for U.S. immigration have shifted from Europe to Latin America and Asia, the economic performance of new Mexico). The small remaining fraction of immigrants has deteriorated. Relative to ear- those receiving assistance relied on an wage expectations among migrants, the volume of Mexico-to-U.S. migration is smaller lier cohorts, recent immigrants earn lower wages compared to natives at time of arrival and take longer for their earnings to converge to native levels. These findings counter an earlier belief that immigrants tend to than one might expect. U.S.-Mexico real have high potential for earnings growth employer, labor contractor, or other source. Even accounting for heterogeneity in (Barry R. Chiswick 1978). 43 Bleakley and Chin (2004) instrument for English-language ability using immigrant age at arrival, exploiting the fact that younger children appear to learn new languages more easily than older children. 44 For other work on migration networks in Mexico, see Paul Winters, Alain de Janvry, and Elisabeth Sadoulet (2001). A simple test of the negative selection hypothesis is to compare the observable skills of migrants from Mexico with individ- uals in Mexico who choose not to migrate abroad. While selection on observables does not necessarily reflect selection on This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 897 TABLE 6 EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT FOR THE MEXICO BORN POPULATION, 2000 21-65 Year Olds 28-37 Year Olds Residents Mex. Imm. Residents Mex. Immigrants in U.S. of Mexico in U.S. of Mexico 0-3 Yrs 4+ Yrs Males 0 0.069 0.127 0.036 0.076 0.078 1-4 0.166 0.080 0.103 0.045 0.043 5-8 0.270 0.307 0.263 0.303 0.275 Highest 9 0.189 0.087 0.246 0.114 0.116 Grade of 0-9 0.694 0.601 0.648 0.538 0.512 Schooling (%) 10-11 0.045 0.055 0.059 0.064 0.067 12 0.101 0.212 0.129 0.260 0.278 13-15 0.047 0.083 0.044 0.075 0.098 10-15 0.193 0.350 0.232 0.399 0.443 16+ 0.113 0.050 0.121 0.062 0.046 N 215,804 80,453 68,206 9,358 15,839 Females 0 0.092 0.133 0.047 0.070 0.078 1-4 0.179 0.087 0.116 0.041 0.043 5-8 0.280 0.315 0.278 0.269 0.294 Highest 9 0.174 0.085 0.219 0.112 0.125 Grade of 0-9 0.725 0.620 0.660 0.492 0.540 Schooling (%) 10-11 0.040 0.049 0.054 0.056 0.062 12 0.112 0.204 0.145 0.276 0.253 13-15 0.042 0.079 0.039 0.083 0.090 10-15 0.194 0.332 0.238 0.415 0.405 16+ 0.080 0.048 0.103 0.093 0.055 N 235,086 72,967 75,625 6,575 16,173 Notes: The sample is individuals 21-65 or 28-37 years old excluding group quarters; in Mexico, excluding those not b Residents of Mexico in 2000 are a 10 percent random sam microsample of the XIII Censo General de Poblacion y Viv grants are from the 2000 5 percent U.S. PUMS and are re years or older at time of entry into the country who have States for 0-3 years or 4 or more years. Schooling variabl individuals whose high grade completed is that indicated. unobservables, one might expect individuUnited States). Section 2 suggests a relaals' observable and unobservable skills torecent be immitively high fraction of very positively correlated. Table 6 likely shows educagrants are to be illegal immigrants. To tional attainment for Mexican immigrants control for age, I limit the sample to 28-37 in the United States and for residents of year olds, which in tables 2 and 3 is the age Mexico in 2000, based on census data from cohort with the highest likelihood of migrat- the two countries. To help isolate the popu- ing abroad. For comparison, the table also lation of illegal immigrants, the table shows describes educational outcomes for the full results separately for very recent immi- sample of working-age residents of Mexico grants (0-3 years in the United States) and and immigrants from Mexico in the United for longer-term immigrants (4+ years in the States. This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �898 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) countries in which there appears to be an It is well known that Mexican immigrants in the United States are much less educated inverted U-shaped relationship between rural household income and the likelihood that a than U.S. natives (Borjas and Katz forthcoming). However, Mexican immigrants, whether household finances urban migration for one or recent or longer term, compare favorably more of its members (Lucas 1997). when we examine residents of Mexico. In Chiquiar and Hanson (2005) develop a more formal approach to evaluate the selec2000, 65 percent of male residents of Mexico had nine or fewer years of schooling, com-tion of Mexican immigrants in terms of pared to 54 percent of recent immigrants andobservables. Let the observed density of wages for individuals working in Mexico be 51 percent of longer-term immigrants. Beyond nine years of education, Mexican immigrants outperform Mexican residents in (8) g(wli= MX)= JfMX(wIx)h(xi i= MX)dx, every category except college graduates. and the observed density of wages for Relative to male residents of Mexico, recent Mexicans working in the United States be Mexican immigrant men are more likely to have ten-fifteen years of education (40 per- (9) g(wli = US) =ffus(wIx)h(x|i = US)dx, cent versus 23 percent) and less likely to have sixteen plus years of education (5 percent where fi(wIx) is the density of wages w in country i, conditional on a set of observed versus 12 percent). A similar pattern holds for men in 1990 and for women in either characteristics x, and h(xli) is the density of year. It appears that, in Mexico, individuals observed characteristics in i. Consider the with moderate to high education levels havedensity of wages that would prevail for the highest likelihood of migrating abroad, Mexican immigrants in the United States if which is inconsistent with negative selectionthey were paid according to the price of skills in Mexico: of migrants in terms of observable skills. Other data on Mexican migration are also inconsistent with negative selection. Using his- (10) gM(w) = JfMX(wIx)h(xli = US)dx. torical data from U.S. and Mexico population John DiNardo, Nicole M. Fortin, and Thomas censuses, Zadia M. Feliciano (2001) finds that Lemieux (1996) show that, under the assumpaverage schooling of Mexican immigrants has tion that the distribution of unobservables been higher than for residents of Mexico since (conditional on the distribution of observat least 1940. Based on MMP data, in which ables) is the same in the two countries, a counthe vast majority of individuals who migrate to terfactual density as in (10) can be written as the United States do so illegally (at least on their first attempt), Orrenius and Zavodny (11) (2005) estimate that the probability a young ggs(w)= f OfMx(wlx)h(xli =MX)dx, adult male migrates to the United Stateswhere increases as schooling rises from low levels to (12) levels around the national mean (eight years) and then declines as schooling rises to levels above the national mean. McKenzie and Rapoport (2004) obtain similar results, also theta = h(xli = US) h(xli = MX) = Pr(i = US Ix) Pr(i = MX) 46 Pr(i = MX Ix) Pr(i = US) using the MMP.45 These findings are similar to 46 Chiquiar and Hanson (2005) show how to derive a literature on internal migration in Botswana, weighting function similar to (12) that controls for differ- India, the Philippines, and other developingences in labor-force participation among workers in the two countries. To simplify the exposition, I leave out the analytics behind this extension. The results in figure 10 control for differences in labor-force participation between 45 On migrant selection in Mexico, see also Pablo Ibarraran and Darren Lubotsky (forthcoming). Mexico and the United States. This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 899 Thus, the counterfactual density in (11) can be estimated by taking the observed density for wage earners in Mexico and reweighting weights in (12) has as regressors dummy vari- grant workers in the United States. The wage individuals who exhibit a stronger ten- it to reflect characteristics of Mexican immi- weight in (12) can be estimated parametrically by running a logit on the probability of a Mexico-born adult being in the United ables for age, schooling, and marital status, and interactions of these variables. Consistent with table 6, it is not the lowest- dency to migrate to the United States. In either year, for Mexican immigrant males there is greater mass in the middle of the States, conditional on observed characteris- wage density and less mass in either tail tics, using a sample that combines Mexican immigrants and Mexican residents. By comparing actual and counterfactual when compared with the actual wage density of Mexico residents. The immigrant-resident wage densities, we can nonparametrically tail to just below zero, positive for middle wage values, and again close to zero in the summarize the nature of migrant selection in Mexico. Consider the difference between density difference is close to zero in the left right tail. This suggests that immigrant males are drawn disproportionately from the midthe actual wage density for residents of dle of Mexico's wage distribution, rather than Mexico and the counterfactual wage density that would obtain were Mexican immigrants from the bottom half. Low-wage and highwage individuals appear to be relatively less paid according to skill prices in Mexico: likely to migrate to the United States. These (13) gs(w) - gMX(w) counterfactual wage densities support inter- = f [OM - 1]fMx(wlx)h(x i = MX)dx. If there is negative selection of migrants in terms of observable skills, the difference in (13) would show positive mass in the lower part of the wage distribution-indicating migrants are overrepresented among Mexico-born individuals with below-average skills-and negative mass in the upper part-indicating migrants are underrepresented among the Mexico-born with above- average skills. In contrast, with positive selection there would be negative mass for low wages and positive mass for high wages. Figure 10 shows estimates of the density difference in (13) for men and women in 1990 and 2000, based on results in Chiquiar and Hanson (2005). The sample is workingage adults (21 to 65 years of age) who either reside in Mexico or are very recent Mexican immigrants in the United States. Immigrants are individuals twenty-one years or older at time of U.S. entry and who have been in the United States for three years or less. (Again, very recent immigrants are likely to include a relatively high fraction of illegal immigrants.) The logit regression used to estimate the mediate selection of immigrant men in terms of observable skills. The results for females contain even less support for negative selection. The immigrant-resident density difference is negative for low wage values, strongly positive for upper-middle wage values, and zero for high wage values. For women, there appears to be moderate positive selection of immigrants. Table 6 and figure 10 do not explicitly separate legal and illegal Mexican im-migrants, leaving it unclear how the two groups compare in terms of skill. What does theory suggest about the self-selection of legal versus illegal migrants? Consider a simple extension of Borjas (1991), who adapts the A. D. Roy (1951) model.47 Let individuals from Mexico, indexed by 0, choose whether or not to migrate to the United States, indexed by 1, where migration is a one-time decision (or, equivalently, a one-period decision). Residents of Mexico face a wage equation given by 47 For expositional simplicity, I consider a nonstochastic version of Borjas (1991), in which there is no unobserved component of skill. The extension to a stochastic setting is straightforward. This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �900 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) Figure 10. Immigrant (counterfactual)-Resident (actual) Wage Densities, 1990 and 2000 (counterfactual density for Mexican immigrants minus actual density for Mexican residents) This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 901 (14) In(wo) = g0 + o0s, agents are capable of migrating abroad, as in where for Mexico wo is the wage, p0 is the base wage, s is the level of schooling, and 60 is the return to schooling. If the population of Mexicans were to migrate legally to the (2004), and Orrenius and Zavodny (2005).48 To capture the relationship between credit constraints and skill, suppose that individual wealth in Mexico, Yo, is a linear function United States, they would face the wage equation (15) ln(wL) = pL + 6Ls, Rapoport (2002), McKenzie and Rapoport of skill, such that (18) Y0o = Po+ Cos. Low-skill individuals will be unable to while if they were to migrate illegally they would face wage equation, finance migration because they have insufficient collateral to secure a loan. The low- (16) ln(wI) = pL{ + 5s, feasible is est skill level for migration strategy i to be (19) = where wl is the wage, yp is the base wage, and S8 is the return to skill for Mexican migrants with status i. Higher levels of TFP and larger which is higher the larger ar relative supplies of capital in the United costs. Whether the least s States suggest the base wage is lower inmigrant is more or less skilled th Mexico (pi > p0, for i = I, L); higher U.S. rel- skilled illegal migrants depends ative supplies of human capital suggest that tive magnitude of legal and ill the return to schooling is higher in Mexico tion costs. In Cornelius (2005), recent (i8 > do, for i = I, L). Tables 4 and 5 supportborder-crossing costs for illegal migrants both assumptions. Kossoudji and Cobb-Clarkrange from $1,200 to $1,700 (in 2000 dol(2002) find that in the United States the base lars). The current costs of legal migration wage and the return to schooling are higherinclude fees paid to the U.S. government to for legal than for illegal immigrants, whichprocess a visa application, which range suggests p1> Ž4 p and 31 2 S~. from $700 and $1,000 for family-sponsored Migrant selection also depends on theimmigration visas, and the expense of hirstructure and financing of migration costs.ing a lawyer or immigration specialist to Consider a setup similar to Borjas (1987), inhandle the application process, which typi- which the migration cost for migration status i,cally ranges from $400 to $1,000.49 C', expressed in time-equivalent units,Ignoring the time costs involved in crossing 7' = C*/wo, is assumed to be constant acrossthe border illegally or in completing the individuals. Combining equations (14)-(16), a bureaucratic steps needed to obtain a green resident of Mexico will be willing to migrate tocard, entry costs for legal migrants from the United States under migration status i if Mexico appear roughly similar in value to (17) In(wi) - In(w0 + C') =- ln(wi) - In(wo) - ri > 0. those for illegal migrants, in which case s, and sL would also be similar. Based on (17), high-skill individuals will choose not to migrate because higher Suppose that migrants finance migration costs by borrowing and that to secure a loan 48 I limit the analysis to partial equilibrium. Rapoport of amount C' a migrant must have collateral (2002) develops a general-equilibrium model of credit conof amount yC', y > 0. Collateral requirements straints and migration, based on the occupation-choice model in Abhijit V Banerjee and Andrew F. Newman (1993). may reflect imperfect credit markets, which 49 On fees for immigration visas, see http://uscis.gov/ place initial wealth restrictions on whichand http://www.usavisanow.com/. This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �902 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) returns to skill in Mexico make it more U.S. green card in the future. As of yet, attract to stay at home. The highest skill level there is little empirical research on which for which migration strategy i is attractive is types of households in Mexico appear to (20) s have better access to legal channels of obtaining a U.S. green card. Combining (19) and (20), it is clear that as migration costs rise both legal and illegal which is higher the larger migrants the U.S.-Mexico become more positively selected in skillsmaller (i.e., the interval (s for i = I, difference in the base wage terms and of the the U.S.-Mexico difference in the to return L, shifts the right).to In the MMP, Orrenius skill. Thus, larger differences and in Zavodny the return to that as the level (2005) find of negative U.S. border enforcement rises (U.S. skill between countries make seleclinewatch enforcement tion of migrants in terms of skill more pro-hours increase) the nounced. I assume parameter values are probability a young adult male migrates to such that Si > si for i = I, L, which yields posthe United States falls, with the effect being itive levels of both legal and illegal migra-with lower schooling stronger for individuals tion. As long as the lower support the levels. This for suggests that higher migration distribution of skill is less costs than min (s_,sI)select lower-skilled disproportionately and the upper support of the distribution individuals out of of the migrant pool. Similarly, and Rapoport (2004) skill is greater than max (ssi), both McKenzie legal and in MMP communities with illegal migrants will tend tofind be that, drawn from individuals with intermediate skill U.S.-migration levels. If stronger networks, the legal and illegal migration costs are similar, inverted-U-shaped relationship between Kossoudji and Cobb-Clark's (2002) results migration and schooling is weaker. As migra- on base wages and returns to tion skill costs fall for (access legal to migration networks and illegal migrants would improves), suggest positive that selection of migrants becomes less pronounced. 9L >S or that the highest skilled legal There abundant evidence that Mexican migrants are at least as skilled as is the highest skilled illegal migrants. immigrants in the United States are disproThe simple theoretical model together portionately drawn from the middle of the distribution of observable skills in Mexico. with available empirical evidence suggests that legal migrants would beWhile more there positively are no data that explicitly differselected than illegal migrants in terms of entiate between the selection pattern of legal skill. However, this outcome and illegal implicitly migrants, there is intermediate selection among migrants depends on all prospective migrants in in the MMP, in Mexico having an equal probability which a very of high being fraction of migrants are illegal. Intermediate selection eligible for a U.S. legal immigration visa. is consistent with migrants credit constraints in financing There is no reason to expect thisfacing to be the case. If more-skilled individuals are more the cost of migration, such that low-skill, low- (less) likely to have family members who are income individuals are disproportionately U.S. citizens or U.S. legal permanent resiselected out of the migrant pool. Other factors that could contribute to intermediate dents, they will be more (less) able to obtain selection include higher discount rates, a U.S. green card, in which case there would be stronger (weaker) positive selection of greater risk aversion, or higher psychic migralegal migrants relative to illegal migrants.tion costs among low-skilled, low-income individuals, such that these individuals are Also, the discussion ignores dynamic considerations in which individuals may migrateless willing to migrate to the United States for any given binational wage differential. Credit illegally today in expectation of obtaining a This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 903 constraints or some other factor is needed to integration, as are cross-border trade and reconcile the facts that (a) the incentive to investment flows. migrate appears to be strongest for individuals with low schooling (as seen in tables 4 and labor flows from Mexico to the United 5), and (b) individuals with low schooling have a relatively low probability of migrating abroad (as seen in table 6). To examine further the determinants of States, consider a simple two-country model in which the aggregate production function for Mexico (indexed by 0) at time t is given by (21) Qo 3.4 Migration and the Supply of Labor in Mexico and the United States where A, is total factor produ the supply of capital, Loht is labor of skill type h, v < 1 d focuses primarily on the correlation elasticity of substitution betw between migration and U.S.-Mexico earnlabor (v= 1 - 1/KL), and < ings differences. There is little work on the the elasticity of substitution underlying causes on these wage differences skill types (K = 1- 1/o-hh, all h or whether migration is related to variation the wage to the marginal produ in these causal factors. The work that perhaps most closely addresses these issues is (22) InwOht = (1 - v)lnQ0 Robertson (2000), who examines the corre- As we have seen, the literature on labor flows from Mexico to the United States lation between U.S. and Mexican wages over time. Using synthetic cohorts con- structed from household data in the two + (v - K')lnL0, + (K - l)lnLoht where Lot is the labor aggreg Pot is the price of Mexico's out countries over 1987-97, he regresses the gate production function f quarterly change in Mexican wages for a given age-education-region cell on quarter-States (indexed by 1) has an an ture, with the added dimens ly changes in U.S. wages for the same skill type h, Llht, is an agg age-education cell and on the lagged difference in U.S. and Mexican wages for the cell.employment of native and im ers, who are imperfect substitu A shock that raises U.S. wages by 10 percent is associated with an increase in wages in (23) lht Mexican interior cities by 1.8 percent and wages in Mexican border cities by 2.5 per-where Llht is the supply of n cent.50 Positive comovements in U.S. and labor of skill type h, Iht is the s Mexican wages are consistent with the two grant labor of skill type h, an countries' labor markets being at least parmines the elasticity of substit tially integrated. Migration flows are one native and foreign labor (77 = factor that may contribute to labor-market marginal product of immigra United States (assumed to be 50 Robertson (2000) also finds that wage changes inlegal and illegal immigrants) i Mexico are negatively correlated with the lagged U.S.-Mexico wage difference, which suggests that over(24) time wages in the two economies tend to converge. The estimated convergence rates are very rapid, with equilibri- Inwlht = (1- v)lnQ1t + (v + (K - ?7)lnLlht + (hq - l)lnIht um U.S.-Mexico wage differentials being reached within one to two quarters. Rapid convergence seems at odds where with rising levels of trade, investment, and migration L,, is the U.S. labor agg is the price of U.S. output. between the two countries, which suggests that integration of U.S. and Mexican markets is incomplete and that wage If migration equalizes wages convergence between the two countries is more gradual. United States and Mexico, th This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �904 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) (25) Inw0ht-lnP0t = Inwth, - InP, - Incht, where Pkt is the consumer price index in country k (expressed in terms of a common currency) and cht = 1- Cht/(wIht/Plht) is the Mexico-U.S. relative real GDP per worker, the Mexico-U.S. terms of trade, and the Mexico-U.S. real exchange rate over the 1960-to-2000 period (based on the Penn World Tables). Relative real GDP per work- migration cost for labor type h expressed as a markup over the wage rate. Cht may be a function of U.S. border enforcement or, if er is a crude proxy for a term that combines the first, second, fourth, and fifth terms in migration networks exist, of the existing U.S. stock of immigrants from Mexico. of labor for skill type h and migration costs). Using (22)-(25) to solve for the level of immigration of skill type h, (26) InIht= + L1, (26) (i.e., all terms except the relative supply Relative income declines in the 1980s and is flat in the 1990s. Slow growth in Mexico's GDP and rapid growth in Mexico's labor force have combined to make the U.S.-Mexico gap in income per worker la er in 2000 than it was in 1980. Changes the terms of trade appear to have matte little for relative income changes. Over last two decades, the Mexico-U.S. terms trade have been stable, consistent with two countries exporting similar type Immigration of skill type h worker manufactured goods.51 Mexico is (a) decreasing in Mexico-U Changes in aggregate income may und state the contribution of binational ative GDP (which, in turn, is income decrea Mexico-U.S. relative TFP and the differences to Mexico-U.S. migration. Mexico-U.S. relative supply of capital), Relative (b) average aggregate income may hide increasing in the Mexico-U.S. relative variation labor in income across sectors or regions aggregate (as long as different labor in Mexico skill that affect migrant outflows. For negative income shocks to Mexican types are more substitutable than instance, are aggreagriculture or to Mexico's high-migration gate labor and capital, such that K - v a 0), (c) increasing in the Mexico-U.S. states relative would likely increase migration supply of skill type h (as long as immigrant abroad, even if positive income shocks to and native workers of the same skillother typesectors are or regions helped smooth more substitutable than are labor ofincome different at the national level. Also, the rela- tive variability of income may affect migraskill types, such that 7 - c > 0), (d) decreastion, independent of changes in relative ing in the Mexico-U.S. terms of trade, (e) mean income. increasing in the Mexico-U.S. relative cost As movements in Mexico's relative price level in figure 11 indicate, of living, and (f) decreasing in migration Mexico's economy has recently been subject costs. All else equal, immigration rises when to a high degree of price volatility. Mexico has slower productivity growth, slow- er capital accumulation, faster labor-force growth, or negative terms-of-trade shifts 51 Terms-of-trade relative to the United States. What is the relative contribution of the changes in the Penn World Tables may understate true terms-of-trade changes. Within indus- tries, Mexico and the United States tend to specialize at different ends of the production chain, with the United variables on the right of (26) to the increase States focused more on capital-intensive component proin Mexican migration to the United States?duction and Mexico focused more on labor-intensive product assembly. Such within-industry specialization may not Unfortunately, existing literature offers few be adequately reflected in conventional measures of the answers to such a question. For a prelimi- terms of trade, which fail to account for the fragmentation production. nary take on the data, figure 11 plotsof This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 905 Figure 11. Mexico-U.S. Relative Incomes, Prices, and Terms of Trade To characterize changes in relative labor supplies in Mexico and the United States, figures 12 and 13 show the relative size of the working-age population in the two countries over the period 1970 to 2000. I take the population of Mexican nationals to be the sum of individuals born in Mexico residing in either Mexico or the United States, which I then divide into age cohorts by gender. To examine a population of U.S. natives who are likely to be substitutable in production with Mexican labor, I restrict U.S. age and gender cohorts to be individuals with a high-school education or less. Over the 1980-to-1990 and 1990-to-2000 olds. By 2000, Mexico's supply was larger than the U.S. supply. The change in relative supply occurred in part because a large cohort of young Mexicans entered the labor force in the 1980s and 1990s and in part because more U.S. natives now continue their education beyond high school. The increase in relative labor supply is especially strong among women, for whom skill upgrading in the United States has been most pronounced (Katz and David H. Autor 1999). As further evidence of the contribution of relative labor-supply changes to Mexico-U.S. migration, figure 14 plots the stock of periods, there is a dramatic increase in theMexican immigrants in the United States supply of young Mexican nationals relativeagainst the Mexico-U.S. relative supply of to the supply of young less-educated U.S.labor by gender and age cohort over the natives. In 1980, Mexico's supply of 20-291970-to-2000 period (where I use five-year year olds was just over half the size of theage cohorts to increase the sample size). I U.S. population of less-educated 20-29 yearrestrict U.S. natives to be either those with a This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �906 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) Figure 12. Mexico-U.S. Relative Male Population, 1970-2000 Figure 13. Mexico-U.S. Relative Female Population, 1970-2000 This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 907 Figure 14. Mexico-U.S. Relative Labor Supply, 1970-2000 This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �908 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) high-school education or less or those with considerable micro-level evidence that less than a high-school education, which migration networks affect individual migra- roughly approximates a plot of ln(Iht) against ln(LOht/L1ht) in (26).52 Across cohorts and time, tion decisions, there are few estimates of the there is a strong positive correlation between impact of these networks on aggregate labor flows. Thus, the literature provides little Mexico-U.S. migration and the relative supply of Mexican labor. Figure 14 gives sug- growth, population growth, skill upgrading, gestive evidence that increases in the relative supply of Mexican labor contribute to migration abroad, presumably by pushing down Mexican wages. Surprisingly, the determinants of wage differences between the United States and guidance for thinking about how GDP or other shocks to national economies affect aggregate labor flows from Mexico to the United States. 3.5 Summary Differences in earnings between the Mexico and their link to Mexico-U.S. migra- United States and Mexico are one factor that tion flows are largely unexplored topics. A contributes to Mexico-to-U.S. migration. cursory glance at the data suggests that a Consistent with previous migration research combination of slow growth in Mexico's in many other contexts, labor outflows from economy and rapid growth in Mexico's labor Mexico increase when U.S.-Mexico income force have contributed to rising labor out- or wage differences increase. Illegal migra- flows in recent years. However, many details tion flows, measured either using survey data about this story are unknown. In the last two on migrant-sending communities in Mexico decades, Mexico has undertaken major eco- or apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border, nomic reforms, which may have changed the are quite responsive to relative income distribution of factor rewards or the distri- changes. Access to migration networks bution of regional incomes in a manner that also appears to facilitate cross-border labor increased the incentive to emigrate.53 The flows. migration function in (26) suggests the link The literature has made little progress in between relative factor supplies and migrantidentifying how the underlying determinants flows depends on the substitutability ofU.S.-Mexico wage differences affect binaMexican and U.S. labor, which we know lit- tional migration. Another unresolved issue is tle about (Borjas 2003).54 And, while there iswhy, given large income differences between the United States and Mexico and small 52 To keep this approximation as literal as possible, I observed costs in crossing the border illegally, define the supply of Mexican labor to be residents of migration flows are not larger. There appear Mexico and the supply of U.S. labor to be the sum of Mexican immigrants in the United States and less-educated U.S. natives (where both variables are measured by age and to be unobserved sources of migration costs (or heterogeneity in the perceived benefits of gender cohort). migrating abroad) that are important enough 53 These reforms include a liberalization of foreign trade and investment (unilaterally over the period 1985 to 1989 to impede many individuals from leaving and trilaterally with Canada and the United States under Mexico. These unobserved costs appear to be the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994), the especially large for less-educated individuals, privatization of state-run enterprises and the deregulation of industry (in the late 1980s and early 1990s), and changes who have relatively low migration propensiin the land-tenure system (in the early 1990s, which priva- ties despite having relatively large apparent tized land previously held by rural cooperatives). Ernesto Aguayo Tellez (2005) finds that in the 1990s individuals from communities more exposed land reform were more likely to migrate internally in Mexico. 54 Patricia Cortes (2005) and Gianmarco I. P. Ottaviano returns to migration. 4. Policies to Control Illegal Immigration and Giovanni Peri (2005) provide recent evidence that in Many government policies the United States low-skilled native and foreign labor are less than perfect substitutes. determining the level of illegal This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms play a role in immigration. �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 909 to enforcement, seen in figure 5, suggests Some policies, including the enforcement of international borders and the monitoring of hiring practices by employers, affect illegal that the lack of success is not for want of effort. immigration directly. By changing the intensity with which they enforce borders or mon- ture, rising illegal immigration tends to be itor employers, authorities effectively interpreted as a result of policy failure regulate the inflow of illegal immigrants from abroad. In the United States, enforce- (Peter Andreas 2000; Massey, Durand, and ment policies are under the control of feder- al government agencies and can be changed frequently, even on a day-to-day basis. Other policies, including quotas for permanent or temporary legal immigration, the rights of immigrants to draw on public assistance, and minimum-wage requirements, affect illegal inflows indirectly through their impact on In political science and sociology litera- Malone 2002; Cornelius et al. 2004; Cornelius 2005). Due to political con- straints, the United States has focused on border enforcement, rather than monitoring U.S. employers, which appears ill-suit- ed to curtail unauthorized entry in a country that shares a 2,000-mile long land border with a poor neighbor. Further, the United States has chosen to concentrate migration. In the United States, these and enforcement resources in border cities, leaving less populated corridors largely Congress and tend to change slowly over unpoliced through which illegal immigrants continue to enter the country in large num- time, which has made their impact on illegal bers. Are U.S. enforcement policies inef- the expected reward from unauthorized other such indirect policies are set by immigration difficult to gauge. In this section, I examine U.S. policies to fective? And, if so, why have U.S. enforcement policies, as these have been the immigration authorities chosen these policies? I deal with research on the first question in this section and on the second Theoretical literature considers the incen- subject of most academic research. question in the next. Each year, the U.S. Congress appropriates tives of countries to restrict illegal immigra- funds to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for enforcement of U.S. control illegal immigration. I focus on tion and the political economy of impediments to labor inflows from abroad; empirical literature examines the impact of borders, which falls under U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and for enforcement of enforcement policies on migrant flows. immigration laws in the U.S. interior, which falls under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (Prior to 2002, both border There is little work on policies that restrict labor outflows, as such policies do not exist in Mexico and are uncommon except in highly authoritarian regimes. 4.1 U.S. Border and Interior Enforcement Policies There is considerable academic and policy interest in the economic impact of U.S. actions to prevent illegal immigration. The increase in the stock of illegal immigrants in the United States, evident in table 1, indicates that U.S. enforcement efforts have and interior enforcement belonged to the now-defunct INS in the U.S. Department of Justice.) The U.S. Border Patrol, the primary agency responsible for border enforcement, is part of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Border Patrol officers may be deployed to linewatch duty, in which they attempt to apprehend unauthorized immi- grants at the U.S.-Mexico border; to entry points along the U.S.-Mexico and not succeeded in stopping illegal entry from U.S.-Canada borders, at which they monitor Mexico or other countries. The concomi- tant increase in U.S. resources devoted pedestrian and vehicular traffic entering the United States; or to traffic checkpoints along This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �910 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) major highways inland from border cross- ings, at which they conduct inspections. Some of these activities (linewatch duty) are And, of apprehensions of Mexican illegal aliens, less than 1 percent occurred at U.S. worksites. The vast majority of Mexican more oriented toward preventing illegal nationals apprehended were "seeking immigration, while others (traffic checks) are more oriented toward preventing the smug- employment," which generally means they were caught trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico gling of contraband. The broad scope of border illegally. Border Patrol activities suggests that DHS officials (and INS officials before them) have policy output. How might one measure sufficient discretion in allocating resources to allow them to vary the intensity with which enforcement, the primary inputs are officer they enforce borders against illegal immigra- tion. Discretion creates an opportunity for political pressure to influence enforcement activities over short time horizons (as well as through the more-protracted congressional appropriations process). The detection of illegal immigrants in the U.S. interior falls under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The activities of ICE agents (and of INS agents before Apprehensions of illegal immigrants are a inputs into enforcement policy? For border hours the Border Patrol spends policing the border and capital expenditure on enforcement infrastructure. In figure 5, between 1990 and 2003 officer hours devoted to bor- der enforcement increased by 3.8 times, from 2.5 million to 9.5 million. For interior enforcement, measures of policy inputs are more difficult to obtain. Those that are avail- able suggest immigration authorities devote a relatively small share of their resources to the creation of DHS) include attempts to the U.S. interior. Between 1999 and 2003, apprehend illegal immigrants at U.S. worksites, investigations of international smug- the number of man hours ICE agents devot- gling operations, and prosecutions and ed to worksite inspections declined from 480,000 (or 9 percent of total INS agent deportations of noncitizens who have been hours) to 180,000 hours (or 4 percent of total convicted of a felony in the United States. As ICE agent hours) (GAO 2005). Thus, in discretion in how ICE agents are deployed, 2003, U.S. immigration authorities devoted fifty-three times as many officer hours to with the Border Patrol, DHS officials have allowing them to vary the intensity of interi- linewatch enforcement as to worksite or enforcement against illegal immigration at the local, regional, and national level. worksite enforcement is that few U.S. Boeri, McCormick, and Hanson (2002) enforcement. One consequence of low employers who hire illegal immigrants are detected or prosecuted. The number of U.S. document that U.S. immigration authorities apprehend far more illegal immigrants at U.S. borders than in the U.S. interior. Table hiring unauthorized workers was only fifteen 7, which shows "deportable aliens" located by U.S. immigration authorities from 1992 two in 1998 and to zero in 2004. A recent to 2004, updates their data. (Deportable aliens include, primarily, apprehended illegal immigrants, and, secondarily, legal immi- grants subject to deportation because they have committed a criminal offense.) Over the period, 93 percent of deportable aliens were located by the Border Patrol, rather than by ICE or INS agents in the U.S. interior. Of those apprehended by the Border Patrol, 97 percent were Mexican nationals. employers paying fines of at least $5,000 for in 1990, which then fell to twelve in 1994 to U.S. General Accounting Office study concludes, "The worksite enforcement program has been a low priority under both the INS and ICE" (GAO 2005).55 55 Further, since September 2001 and the shift in government priorities toward preventing terrorist attacks, the majority of time ICE agents spend on worksite enforcement is devoted to monitoring "critical infrastructure sites," such as airports and power plants (GAO 2005). This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 911 This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �912 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) The emphasis of border enforcement over interior enforcement does not appear to be due to illegal immigrants being difficult to locate once they are inside the United prospective migrants appear to have shifted their attempts to enter the United States to the more remote desert regions of the California-Mexico and Arizona-Mexico bor- States. Several U.S. industries, including ders. Border Patrol operations have suc- agriculture, construction, and restaurants and hotels, appear to employ large numbers ceeded in reducing illegal border crossings of unauthorized workers. The U.S. at targeted locations, but not, as the increase in illegal immigration during the 1990s reveals, at other locations along the border. Department of Labor (2005) reports that, Thereof is active debate in policy circles over the period 1999 to 2002, 54 percent the U.S. farm laborers it surveyed about werethe in effectiveness with which U.S. immigration authorities deploy the resources the United States illegally. At harvest time, have in the late summer and early fall, they many of available. In their own defense, authorities these workers are plainly visible at farms in claim that they are overwhelmed California, Texas, Washington, and by current else- levels of attempted illegal immi- where in the western United States. U.S. gration (U.S. General Accounting Office immigration authorities simply choose not to2001). Even with the increase in enforcement resources, authorities suggest they have conduct large-scale raids on U.S. farms, conbeen unable to staunch in the inflow of unaustruction sites, or other places of business where illegal immigrants tend to work. thorized migrants because the number of those attempting to enter the United States Beyond concentrating on border enforceillegally has risen too fast. An opposing line of ment, U.S. immigration authorities target argument is that immigration authorities their efforts at specific locations along the deploy their enforcement resources ineffecborder. Figure 15 plots annual hours the tively for strategic motives (Cornelius et al. U.S. Border Patrol officers spent on 2004). In response to political pressure from linewatch duty by region along the border employers and other groups that benefit over the period 1977 to 2003. Officer hours from illegal immigration, goes the reasoning, increase sharply in the early 1990s in Texas, in the mid-1990s in Western California (San U.S. immigration authorities choose not to enforce U.S. laws against hiring illegal immiDiego), and in the late 1990s in Arizona. These increases reflect successive Border grants and to deploy the Border Patrol in a Patrol operations near specific U.S. border manner that allows large numbers of illegal cities, including El Paso, San Diego, El immigrants to enter the country. Centro, and McAllen (Reyes, Hans P. Has increased U.S. border enforcement in Johnson, and Richard Van Swearingen fact made illegal immigration in the Un2002). Operations involve increased patrols, ited States more costly?56 Hanson and constructing walls and barricades, and Spilimbergo (1999) find that, controlling for mounting electronic surveillance equip- the endogeneity of enforcement, border ment. Figure 16 plots apprehensions by U.S. apprehensions increase as border enforceBorder Patrol officers on linewatch duty by ment increases. This finding suggests that border region. Following the increase in expanded enforcement makes crossing the Border Patrol activities in Western border more difficult (since more of those attempting illegal immigration are being California, apprehensions declined in the region but shortly thereafter increased in nearby Eastern California and Arizona. 56 InFor earlier work on this question, see Espenshade (1994, 1995), Kossoudji (1992), Katharine M. Donato, response to greater border security in San Durand, and Massey (1992), and Massey and Singer Diego, which in the 1970s and 1980s was theFor other recent work, see Manuela Angelucci (1995). (2003). primary illegal entry point along the border, This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 913 Figure 15. Linewatch Enforcement by U.S. Border Patrol Region Figure 16. Linewatch Apprehension by U.S. Border Patrol Region This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �914 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) caught at the border), but it does not reveal whether greater difficulty in border crossing deters prospective migrants from attempting to enter the United States illegally. Gathmann (2004) provides more direct evidence of the consequences of expanded border enforcement for migration. She uses MMP data to examine the correlates of coyote prices paid by migrants from Mexico to smuggler prices. Gathmann documents that, as the United States carried out its 1990s bor- der buildup, many migrants shifted from higher-enforcement to lower-enforcement crossing points. We do not know how coyote prices would respond to a borderwide increase in enforcement as the United States has yet to carry out that experiment. Another issue is that MMP data may lead one to underestimate the impact of enforceimpact of coyote prices on migrantment de- on smuggler prices. MMP communities ahave sent migrants to the United States mand for smuggler services.57 The price forin decades. Many families in these commumigrant pays to a smuggler is higher nities years when border enforcement is higher. have long-term relationships with coythe United States and to estimate the otes. Prices coyotes charge long-term But the elasticity of coyote prices with may be less responsive to shocks respect to enforcement is small, incustomers the than prices they charge on the smuggling range of 0.2 to 0.5. During the sample period, a one-standard-deviation increase spotinmarket used by migrants in the rest of enforcement would have lead to an increase Mexico. Hence, in the rest of the country, attempted illegal migration could be more in coyote prices of less than $40; in the mid1990s average coyote prices were $410. The responsive to border enforcement than estimated demand for smuggler services Gathmann's results suggest. The United States has undertaken a masand the individual probability of choosing to migrate to the United States are both sive increase in the resources that it devotes quite responsive to changes in coyote to border enforcement. Yet, the apparent prices. However, given the small enforce- impact of this increase has been modest. observed increase in border enforcement reduced attempted illegal entry at what ment elasticity of coyote prices, the While expanded border enforcement has over 1986 to 1998 appeared to reduce the used to be major crossing points in average migration probability among MMP California and Texas border cities, it appears to have had a small effect on deterrespondents by only 10 percent. Gathmann's results, of course, are condi- ring illegal immigration overall (measured tional on the pattern of border enforcement either in terms of changes in smuggler that was realized over the sample period. By prices or the average probability a Mexican increasing enforcement in some border loca- national migrates to the United States). tions but not others, U.S. immigration author- One possibility is that there are important ities may have (intentionally or not) mitigated nonconvexities in enforcement, such that it the impact of expanded enforcement on only becomes an effective deterrent to ille57 In the estimation of coyote prices, Gathmann (2004) instruments for border enforcement using the drug budg- et of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). In the estimation of the demand for coyote services, she includes both the smuggler price and the level of border enforcement as regressors, instrumenting for the former with the average U.S. prison term for smugglers (which rises over the sample period) and for the latter again with the DEA gal entry at high levels of resource commitment. This is perhaps the implicit argument of those calling for further expansion of U.S. enforcement efforts.58 Another possibility is that U.S. enforcement strategies are ineffective by design, due to the political economy of immigration control. drug budget. Under the assumption of normality in the 58 See Steven A. Camarota, "Use Enforcement to Ease errors, she is able to control for selection into migration Situation," Arizona Republic, October 23, 2005. (by exploiting MMP data on nonmigrants). This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 915 4.2 Determination of U.S. Enforcement Policies In the absence of economic distortions, the optimal immigration policy would be to have open borders. All else equal, immigration raises national income by allowing countries to use fixed factors more productively, making free immigration welfare maximizing. In practice, countries may choose to restrict immigration because existing distortions, such as the existence of social-insurance pro- grams financed by non-lump-sum taxes, make a departure from free immigration the constrained optimum (Ulrich Scholten and Marcel Thum 1996; Dietmar Wellisch and Uwe Walz 1998; Assaf Razin and Efraim Sadka 1999).59 Or, governments may choose to restrict immigration because they weight the welfare of different individuals unequal- ly, for whatever reason favoring those opposed to immigration (James ForemanPeck 1992). For instance, if the median voter is a worker whose wages would be reduced by immigration, politicians may choose to restrict immigration in order to enhance their future electoral prospects (Jess Benhabib 1996). Policies to address illegal immigration enter a country's choice set when legal immi- grant admissions are subject to binding restrictions and the enforcement of borders against illegal entry is costly. Enforcement costs may be due to the expense of policing the border or to agency costs associated with giving immigration authorities an incentive to implement laws against unauthorized entry. Using Gary S. Becker's (1968) crime- theoretic framework, Ethier (1986a, 1986b) 59 See Hanson (2005) and Hanson, Kenneth F. Scheve, and Matthew J. Slaughter (2006) for evidence on how the public-finance consequences of immigration affect indi- vidual preferences toward immigration in the United States. See Hans-Werner Sinn, Gebhard Flaig, Martin Werding, Sonja Munz and Herbert Hofmann (2003) and Razin and Sadka (2004) for analysis of the public-finance consequences of immigration in welfare states similar to the European context. derives conditions under which border enforcement raises national income. In the absence of migration, wages in a home coun- try exceed wages in a foreign country. Restrictions on legal migration prevent legal labor flows from equalizing international fac- tor prices, creating an incentive for illegal migration. The home country interdicts illegal migrants through costly border enforcement. Let the probability of apprehension, 0 g < 1, be an increasing, convex function of expenditure on enforcement, E, which is financed by taxes on skilled labor. The home-country wage for unskilled natives, w, is then related to the alternative foreign-country wage of illegal labor, w*, through the equalization of expected wages that results from illegal migration: (27) w* = g(E)w* + [1 - g(E)]w - k, where k is the cost of migration (which, dis- tinct from Ethier (1986a), I suppose is incurred whether or not an individual is apprehended). Consider the impact of an increase in enforcement on the home-foreign wage gap. Totally differentiating (27) (28) dw The expression in (28) is posi greater enforcement increa foreign wage difference, a apprehension probability is enforcement (g' 2 0), the init positive (absent which ther incentive to migrate), and m (e.g., smuggler prices) are we in enforcement (k' 2 0). In (2 that changes in enforcement af for unskilled workers in the through three channels: by l in the foreign country (great increases foreign labor supply foreign wage), by lowering t that those attempting migrat entering the country (greater means a given level of atte immigration has a smaller This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �916 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) home-country's labor supply), and by raising the cost of crossing the border (greater enforcement raises coyote prices). Ethier (1986a) identifies two environ- ments in which interdicting illegal migrants raises national income: the exis- tence of downward wage rigidity in the home-country market for unskilled labor, such that border enforcement lowers use quarterly data for 1980 to 1997 on wages in immigrant-labor-intensive industries in U.S. border states and among less-skilled workers in Mexican border cities. For highimmigrant industries (apparel, textiles, food products, furniture) in California and Texas, they find zero correlation between wages and enforcement of the Mexico-U.S. border in that state. They also find no evidence of a positive effect of border enforcement on the unemployment by reducing illegal immiwages of workers with low-education levels gration; and the presence of market power in the home-country demand for foreign (high-school dropouts or high-school graduates) in border regions of California or labor, such that greater border enforceTexas.61 For Mexico, the impact of U.S. borment lowers the wage the home country enforcement appears to be larger. In has to pay immigrant workers. Inder the absence of these or other distortions, Tijuana, which is the most active crossing enforcement is welfare reducing.60 One implication of Ethier's work is that for border enforcement to be more than a point for illegal immigrants during the sam- ple period, greater U.S. enforcement at the city's border with San Diego is associated with lower wages for less-skilled workers (up resource drain on the home country it must to six years of education). affect outcomes in sending and receiving labor markets. We have already seen evi- There are two quite different inter- dence in Gathmann (2004) that, in Mexico,pretations of Hanson, Robertson, and higher U.S. border enforcement is associat-Spilimbergo's results. One is that that border ed with modestly higher smuggler prices andenforcement deters illegal immigrants, but illegal immigration has a minimal impact on modestly lower migrant outflows. Are there labor markets in U.S. border regions. U.S. measurable impacts of border enforcement in the United States? Hanson, Robertson, border regions may adjust to influxes of illeand Spilimbergo (2002) examine the effectgal immigrants without large changes in wages either through U.S. native workers of border enforcement on wages in U.S. and exiting these regions (Borjas, Freeman, and Mexican border regions. If enforcement impedes illegal immigration, and if illegalKatz 1997) or through border economies shifting toward industries that are relatively immigrants depress wages in the regions in intensive in the use of immigrant labor which they settle, then wages in receiving (Card and Lewis forthcoming). A second (sending) border regions will tend to rise (fall) after an increase in enforcement. They interpretation of their results is that border enforcement has a minimal impact on illegal immigration, consistent with Espenshade 60 Extending Ethier's analysis, Eric W Bond and Tain- (1994) and Massey and Singer (1995). It Jy Chen (1987) introduce international capital mobility, Slobodan Djajic (1987, 1999) puts migration in a dynamic would still be conceivable that illegal immisetting, Subhayu Bandyopadhyay and Sudeshna Champati gration puts downward pressure on wages in Bandyopadhyay (1998) and Helena Gaytin-Fregoso and Sajal Lahiri (2000) consider interactions of trade policy or U.S. border regions but, since border foreign aid and illegal migration, and Alan Woodland and Chisato Yoshida (forthcoming) examine border enforcement where illegal migrants are risk averse. Another dis- 61 Both sets of results hold with or without instrumenting for border enforcement (to control for the INS setting tortion that could potentially justify positive border enforcement in response to economic conditions in U.S. or enforcement is the presence of welfare policies that result in net fiscal subsidies to illegal immigrants (through theirMexican border areas) using data on U.S. political cycles (see note 26) and entry activity at other U.S. international use of public schools, emergency health care, and other boundaries (ports and Canadian border crossings). public services). This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 917 enforcement does not impede illegal immi- labor. Their second assumption has more gration, there would be zero correlation between enforcement and wages in U.S. border regions. Gathmann's (2004) results suggest border enforcement does affect empirical support. Periodic attempts by the INS or ICE to increase interior enforce- migration costs. And it is the case that wages Association, a business lobby representing farmers in the western United States, issued in Tijuana decline following increases in border enforcement, even if wages don't change in California or Texas. The framework in Ethier (1986a, 1986b) is a normative analysis of border enforcement. Turning to positive questions, how does the U.S. Congress decide on the level of funding for immigration control and how do U.S. immigration authorities allocate budgeted resources between enforcement and other activities for which they are responsible? In the context of trade policy, Grossman and Elhanan Helpman (1994) develop a framework in which endogenously determined industry campaign contributions affect import tariffs on foreign goods. Giovanni Facchini and Gerald Willmann ment are met with political opposition. For instance, in 2005 the Western Growers a statement complaining that excessive enforcement was preventing farmers in Arizona from hiring sufficient immigrant labor to harvest their winter lettuce crop.62 In 1998, INS raids of onion fields at harvest time in the state of Georgia prompted the U.S. Attorney General, both Georgia U.S. senators, and three Georgia congressional representatives to criticize the INS for injuring Georgia farmers.63 There is also historical evidence of antienforcement efforts by business groups. In the 1940s and 1950s, the district commissioner of the U.S. Border Patrol in El Paso would routinely issue orders to stop apprehending illegal immigrants during the agricultural harvest season (Calavita 1992). On occasions when (2005) extend the Grossman-Helpman the Border Patrol did increase enforcement model to consider policies on international factor mobility. In their setup, governments activities, Texas farmers often complained restrict factor inflows from abroad through toa their congressional representatives, who per-factor unit tax or quota. Facchini and pressured the INS (through formal written Willmann make two important assumptions communication) to be less aggressive. about the structure of immigration policy:Lax worksite enforcement by the U.S. (1) the receiving-country government capgovernment is indirect evidence that polititures factor tax revenues or quota rents, cal factors influence the intensity with which which it rebates to citizens, and (2) individthe country enforces against illegal immigra- uals are organized according to their factor tion. Hanson and Spilimbergo (2001) search type and lobby the government on immigrafor systematic evidence of such effects. They tion policy. In equilibrium, each factor estimate the sensitivity of border enforcelobby offers the government campaign conment to relative price changes in industries tributions to support stronger (weaker) that use unauthorized immigrant labor restrictions on inflows of factors for which intensively (apparel, perishable fruits and its members substitute (complement) vegetables, in slaughtered livestock, construcproduction. tion). In theory, higher relative prices for Facchini and Willmann's first assumption immigrant-intensive industries would appears to be counterfactual. In the context of illegal immigration, the U.S. and other 62 See Miriam Jordan, "As Border Tightens, Growers See Threat to 'Winter Salad Bowl,'" The Wall Street governments do not collect payments assoJournal, March 11, 2005, p. 1. ciated with factor inflows. On the contrary, the government spends resources on enforcement to impede the immigration of 63 See Mark Krikorian, "Lured by Jobs, Illegal Immigrants Risk Death at Border Crossings," Santa Barbara News-Press, April 25, 1999. This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �918 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XLIV (December 2006) increase the returns to lobbying for weaker border enforcement. Controlling for macroeconomic conditions in the United States 5. Concluding Discussion In the United States, unauthorized immi- and Mexico, they find that increases in the gration accounts for one-third to one-half of relative product price for an immigrantnew immigrant inflows. Mexico is by far and intensive industry today is associated with away a the largest source country for those decrease in border enforcement six to ten entering the United States illegally. An months in the future. This finding suggestsemerging body of academic research on illeauthorities relax enforcement when the gal migration from Mexico to the United demand for undocumented workers increas- States has made progress on many fronts. es. Enforcement also rises when overall Yet, the literature is at an early stage. labor-market conditions in the United StatesHeightened policy interest in illegal immitighten, which suggests that the U.S. govern- gration, both in the United States and ment raises enforcement when attempted Mexico, suggests the many unanswered illegal immigration is expected to be high. questions, some of which I now highlight, It appears, then, that enforcement soft-will receive attention in the time to come. ens when the specific sectors that use illegal Available measures of the stock and flow aliens intensively expand but not when the of illegal migrants are imprecise, hampered overall demand for labor is high. This is by the unwillingness of official government suggestive of a free-rider problem among agencies to question individuals about their immigration status. With the U.S. populaspecial-interest groups, in which sectors that benefit greatly from lower bordertion of illegal immigrants now exceeding 10 enforcement, such as apparel and agricul- million individuals, one would expect that, at ture, lobby politicians on the issue (and lobby the very least, U.S. government household surveys would conduct postenumeration more strongly when the gains to higher immigration are greater), while sectors thatsurveys that explicitly ask individuals about their immigration status. This would allow benefit modestly are less politically active. researchers to estimate the stock of illegal 4.3 Summary immigrants with much more precision. Of Restricting unauthorized immigration only greater benefit would be incorporating questions about immigration status directly into makes sense for a country that is subject to distortions that would be exacerbated by ille- the U.S. Census of Population or U.S. Current Population Survey. There is precegal labor inflows. By selecting the intensity with which it enforces U.S. borders againstdent for U.S. government surveys including questions about whether a respondent has a unauthorized entry and monitors the employment practices of U.S. business, U.S.legal immigration visa. For over a decade, immigration authorities implicitly determine the U.S. Department of Labor has conductthe level of illegal immigration. The Uniteded surveys of U.S. farm workers in which it States makes stark choices in its enforcement explicitly asks whether an individual is in the United States legally or illegally (e.g., U.S. polices. It heavily polices specific U.S. border cities, maintains a lighter presence in less-Department of Labor 2005). populated areas, and weakly enforces U.S. A handful of data sources provide inforworksites. There has been little research bymation about illegal immigrants from economists on the political economy of poli-Mexico in the United States. Immigrants cies specifically related to illegal immigra-from Mexico, whether legal or illegal, are drawn disproportionately from the middle of tion. The work that does exist suggests that the country's schooling distribution. Over special interest groups are active in attempting to influence U.S. enforcement practices.time, illegal migrants appear to have become This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:54:59 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Hanson: Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States 919 more likely to be female, to work outside of in consumption, and credit constraints in agriculture, and to settle in the United States financing migration are all potential explana- on a long-term basis. Largely absent in the literature is analysis of the life-cycle behav- tions for the volume and composition of Mexican immigration. Research on these ior of migrants. Many individuals from issues is just beginning to emerge. Mexico first enter the United States as illegal immigrants and over time gain a legal permanent residence visa through sponsorship by a U.S. family member. One would expect that how a prospective migrant responds to changes in U.S. or Mexico economic condi- tions, or the extent to which a migrant already in the United States assimilates into U.S. society, would depend on whether the individual expects to obtain a U.S. green card in the future. Family sponsorship in the granting of entry visas may thus create a direct link between receiving-country policies on legal immigration and the incentive for illegal immigration. Individuals in Mexico with family members in the United States do appear to be more likely to emigrate. However, we do not know whether this represents the effect of migration networks, which lower the cost of migration, or prospects for obtaining a green card, which Over the last two decades, the United States has greatly increased the resources it devotes to controlling illegal immigration. The government has, in particular, beefed up enforcement at specific U.S. border cities. While the United States has criminalized the hiring of illegal immigrants, the government devotes few resources to monitoring U.S. worksites for the emplo ment of unauthorized workers. The net effect of changes in enforcement policy (coupled with changes in U.S. and Mexico economic conditions) has been increasing levels of illegal immigration. There is no formal political economy theory of immigration control that would explain why the United States chooses border over interior enforce- ment.64 The United States appears to be on the verge of granting an amnesty to at least some of the illegal immigrants residing in the country, which would come two decades raise the benefit to migration. after an earlier legalization under the Consistent with research in many other contexts, Mexico-to-U.S. migration flows are correlated with changes in relative incomes Immigration Reform and Control Act. There is also no formal theory that would explain why a country would choose to enact imperfect and costly enforcement against illegal in the two countries. Attempted illegal immigration appears to be particularly responsive to shocks to the Mexican econo- my, with surges in apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border coming shortly after downturns in Mexico. Yet, given the large magnitude of U.S.-Mexico wage differences and the small apparent cost of crossing the border illegally, the volume of migration flows from Mexico to the United States is surprisingly low. Also, given the high relative return to education in Mexico, it is puzzling that Mexican immigrants exhibit intermediate selection in terms of their observable immigration today and later grant an amnesty to those that entered illegally. Given the importance of illegal immigration for the U.S. labor market and for U.S. public finances, policies to control labor inflows have been the subject of surprisingly little research. 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Title A name given to the resource Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanson, Gordon, H Subject The topic of the resource Immigration Illegal Immigration United States Immigration Policy Description An account of the resource In this paper, I selectively review recent literature on illegal migration from Mexico to the United States. I begin by discussing methods for estimating stocks and flows of illegal migrants. While there is uncertainty about the size of the unauthorized population, new data sources make it possible to examine the composition of legal and illegal populations and the time-series covariates of illegal labor flows. I then consider the supply of and demand for illegal migrants. Wage differentials between the United States and Mexico are hardly a new phenomenon, yet illegal migration from Mexico did not reach high levels until recently. An increase in the relative size of Mexico's working-age population, greater volatility in U.S.-Mexico relative wages, and changes in U.S. immigration policies are all candidate explanations for increasing labor flows from Mexico. Finally, I consider policies that regulate the cross-border flow of illegal migrants. While U.S. laws mandate that authorities prevent illegal entry and punish firms that hire unauthorized immigrants, these laws are imperfectly enforced. Lax enforcement may reflect political pressure by employers and other interests that favor open borders. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Journal of Economic Literature Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2006–12 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Journal Article Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context https://www.jstor.org/stable/30032389 Language A language of the resource English https://dh.scu.edu/exhibits/files/original/90/2942/PDhistory_source_.pdf 1b3660953b85febfc4233d111060c80c PDF Text Text The Racialization of Latino Immigrants in New Destinations: Criminality, Ascription, and Countermobilization Author(s): Hana E. Brown, Jennifer A. Jones and Andrea Becker Source: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences , August 2018, Vol. 4, No. 5, Immigration and Changing Identities (August 2018), pp. 118-140 Published by: Russell Sage Foundation Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/10.7758/rsf.2018.4.5.06 REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: http://www.jstor.com/stable/10.7758/rsf.2018.4.5.06?seq=1&cid=pdfreference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. Russell Sage Foundation is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �The Racialization of Latino Immigrants in New Destinations: Criminality, Ascription, and Countermobilization H a na E. Brow n, Jen n ifer A. Jon es, a n d A n dr e a Beck er This article analyzes patterns in Latino immigrant racialization in the U.S. South. Drawing on a unique dataset of more than 4,200 news stories from the region, we find that Latino immigrants face multifaceted racialization in the news media and that this racialization shares substantive similarities with African American racialization processes. The most dominant negative characterizations of Mexican and Latino immigrants focus on their perceived criminal tendencies. Claims of Latino criminality apply implicitly coded racial language about black criminality to new Latino arrivals. A close qualitative analysis of these trends reveals an ongoing cycle of racialization in which immigration foes challenge Latino or Mexican immigrants as criminal elements and immigration advocates respond with charges of racism and discrimination. Supplemental analyses from four African American newspapers suggest that black elites perceive Latinos as sharing a common experience of racial discrimination at the hands of whites. Keywords: race, immigration, South, Latinos, criminalization, racialization Due in large part to immigration, the Latino share of the U.S. population has increased dramatically in recent years. Latinos now make up 16 percent of the U.S. population, accounting for half of the nation’s growth demographic in the past decade (Passel, Cohn, and Lopez 2011). By 2050, demographers project that the Latino population will have doubled to more than one hundred million (Krogstad 2015). Thanks to these transformations, a vigorous debate has Hana E. Brown is associate professor of sociology at Wake Forest University. Jennifer A. Jones is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Notre Dame. Andrea Becker is a PhD student in sociology at Vanderbilt University. © 2018 Russell Sage Foundation. Brown, Hana E., Jennifer A. Jones, and Andrea Becker. 2018. “The Racialization of Latino Immigrants in New Destinations: Criminality, Ascription, and Countermobilization.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 4(5): 118–40. DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2018.4.5.06. The authors would like to thank Felicia Arriaga, Ann Hollingsworth, Christina Lawrence, Robert Reece, and Nura Sediqe for their research assistance. Funding for this research was provided by a Russell Sage Presidential Authority Award (#88-­14-­05) and grants from the National Science Foundation (SES-­1728780), University of Notre Dame, and Wake Forest University. The first two authors are equal co-­authors, listed in alphabetical order. Direct correspondence to: Hana E. Brown at brownhe@wfu.edu, Department of Sociology, Wake Forest University, Box 7808, 1834 Wake Forest Rd., Winston-­Salem, NC 27109; Jennifer A. Jones at jjones23@nd.edu, Department of Sociology, University of Notre Dame, 749 Flanner Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556; and Andrea Becker at andrea.beccker @vanderbilt.edu, Department of Sociology, Vanderbilt University, PMB 351811, Nashville, TN 37235. Open Access Policy: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences is an open access journal. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-­NonCommercial-­NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �t he r aci a liz at ion of l at ino immigr a n ts emerged about the role that Latino immigrants occupy in the U.S. racial hierarchy (Bonilla-­Silva 2004; Chavez 2008; Lee and Bean 2004). Will Latinos join African Americans as collective minorities? Are they assimilating into whiteness? Or will Latinos occupy a distinctive racial position between whites and African Americans? These questions have taken on particular importance in the U.S. South, a region long characterized by stark black-­white divisions and now home to the fastest growth Latino population in the nation (Kochhar, Suro, and Tafoya 2005). Most work on these questions draws either from large-­scale analyses of survey data (Frank, Akresh, and Lu 2010; Golash-­Boza 2006) or on qualitative case studies focused on a single locale (Marrow 2011; Ribas 2015). Recognizing that the media are a critical site of racial formation (Omi and Winant 1994) and an important aspect of the context of reception (Menjívar 2016), we analyze patterns in Latino immigrant racialization in Southern news coverage. Our analyses of immigrant racialization draw from a unique dataset of more than 4,200 news stories from 2003 to 2013 from eight newspapers across four new destination states: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and North Carolina. Results indicate that Latino immigrants face multifaceted racialization in the news media and that this racialization is, in key ways, consistent in substance and form with that faced by African Americans. Rather than focus on immigrants as economic threats, the most dominant negative characterizations of Mexican immigrants and of Central and South American immigrants focus on their perceived criminal tendencies. Moreover, claims of Latino criminality apply implicitly coded racial language about black criminality to new Latino arrivals (Alexander 2012; Mendelberg 2001). Our results further suggest that pro-­immigration forces also racialize Latinos, albeit differently. Despite much evidence that immigrants use economic arguments to make claims for various rights (Deckard and Browne 2016), we find that an equally if not more common argument made to defend Latino immigrants in Southern newspapers is that they face racism and discrimination. The writers, editorial board members, and 119 political figures making these arguments routinely draw parallels between immigration enforcement efforts and the South’s historic commitment to racial inequality, Jim Crow, and segregation. A close qualitative analysis of these trends reveals an ongoing cycle of racialization in which immigration foes challenge Latino or Mexican immigrants as criminal elements, and immigration advocates respond with charges of racism and discrimination. Supplemental analyses of 476 news stories from the largest African American newspapers in these states reveal that these newspapers portray immigrants much more positively than mainstream newspapers do. Our results further suggest that African American political and cultural elites perceive Latinos as sharing a common experience of racial discrimination at the hands of whites. These findings suggest that, at this historical juncture, Latinos are not uniformly assimilating into whiteness. Rather, in key ways, Latinos in the South face racialization as collective minorities. Our results also suggest a need for renewed attention to the role that the social distinctions of place play in shaping ideas about race. Moreover, they indicate that making sense of the racially transformative effects of immigration requires a nuanced understanding of the racialization process. Existing research largely emphasizes explicit micro patterns of immigrant racial self-­identification and macro patterns of state ascription (but see Mora 2014). Although important, this focus neglects the effects that pro-­immigration forces, meso-­level organizations, and implicit racial appeals have on immigrants’ place in and adjustment to U.S. race relations and racial hierarchies. R aci a li z at i o n , I m m i g r at i o n , a n d N e w I m m i g r a n t D e s t i n at i o n s Over the course of U.S. history, racial dynamics and immigration trends have been closely intertwined (Calavita 2007; Lee 2002; Molina 2013). Immigration patterns not only affect individual and collective self-­identification, they influence intergroup relations, racial hierarchies, and racialized public policies (Lee and Bean 2004, 2012). Contemporary questions r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �120 Immigr ation a nd Ch a nging Iden tities about Latino racialization emerge from this broader entanglement of racial formation processes and immigration trends and settlement patterns.1 To assess the effect of immigration on racial formation requires a foundational recognition of the socially constructed nature of racial categories and groups. Racial meanings vary from society to society as well as overtime within a particular geographic and social context. These shifts arise in part due to racialization processes that make racial distinctions and schemas “common sense—a way of comprehending, explaining, and acting in the world” (Omi and Winant 1994, 60). Racialization, in Frantz Fanon’s formulation of the term, referred to colonialism’s erasure of intragroup differences and its imposition of racial categories onto previously distinct groups (2004). Today, racialization “signals the processes by which ideas about race are constructed, come to be regarded as meaningful, and are acted upon” (Murji and Solomos 2005, 1). Race and stratification scholars generally concur that racialization involves the mutually constitutive processes of ascription and identification (Brodkin 1998; Brown and Jones 2015; Nobles 2000). Ascription involves the application of arbitrary and usually phenotypic characteristics to lump together individuals into a meaningful social category. This process creates a common sense assumption of shared characteristics used to legitimate specific patterns of resource allocation and exploitation (Lacayo 2017). The identificational element of racialization involves acceptance of this designation, often for mobilization or identity construction (Espiritu 1993; Okamoto and Mora 2014; Omi and Winant 1994). U.S. research on racialization has focused heavily on black-­white racial dynamics, but racial formation involves groups such as Latinos as well. Since at least the mid-­nineteenth century, Latino racialization patterns have shifted in response to political, legal, and demographic actions (Jimenez 2009; Mora 2014; Oboler 1995; Portes and Rumbaut 2001; Rodriguez 2000; Rumbaut 2011; Sommers 1991). The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo classified Mexican-­origin people as legally white regardless of ancestry. However, this classification did not translate into social acceptance as whites (Gutiérrez 1995; Haney-­Lopez 1997; Montejano 1987). As a result, the first half of the twentieth century involved constant social and political negotiations over the racial status of Latin American and Caribbean origin individuals. Latin American and Caribbean origin peoples in the United States found themselves alternately subject to Jim Crow, segregation, and exclusion on the one hand, and the beneficiaries of resource access and protections not afforded to African Americans and Asian Americans on the other, depending on origin, phenotype, and location of settlement (FitzGerald and Cook-­Martin 2014; Hattam 2007; Ngai 2005). The racial positioning of Mexican Americans in particular varied by geography, by time period, and even by institutional setting (Fox and Guglielmo 2012). After the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, migration from Latin American countries swelled, and Latino identity and racialization took on new political significance. Motivated in part by a desire to eliminate legalized racial discrimination in both civil rights and immigration law, the law shifted the allocation of visas. With few visas available to immigrants from the Western hemisphere, Latinos, especially Mexicans and Central Americans, became further connected in the collective imaginary to “illegal” or undocumented immigration. In the 1990s and 2000s, various geopolitical and economic shifts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement set off unprecedented migration flows, marking an explosive period of Latino population growth in the United States that was compounded by high fertility rates among U.S.-­based Latinos (Massey, Durand, and Malone 2003). This period also witnessed a fundamental shift in the settlement patterns of Latino in­ dividuals in the United States. Thanks to new economic opportunities and heightened immigration enforcement in some traditional des- 1. Whether Latinos constitute a race is much debated. We argue that Latinos experience racializing processes that homogenize a diverse population, institutionalize categories in a status hierarchy, and unevenly distribute resources along those lines (Browne and Odem 2012, 322). r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �t he r aci a liz at ion of l at ino immigr a n ts tinations, Latino immigrants began settling in large numbers in small towns and suburbs across the nation (Massey 2008; Singer, Hardwick, and Brettell 2008). Southeastern states such as Georgia and North Carolina saw massive increases in their Latino and foreign-­born populations and now rank in the top ten in terms of states with the highest population of unauthorized immigrants (Massey 2008; Singer 2004; Singer, Hardwick, and Brettell 2008). These demographic transformations raise old questions about Latino racialization but in a new context—the U.S. South. Given that racial dynamics in the South have largely revolved around black-­white relations and inequalities, what position do Latinos occupy in the region’s racial landscape? Some hypothesize that Latinos will join African Americans as collective minorities (Jones 2012; Smith 2014). Others highlight the possibility that Latinos will assimilate into whiteness (Alba 2016; Alba and Islam 2009; Gans 2017; but see Vargas 2015) or occupy a distinctive and possibly elevated racial position between whites and blacks (Bonilla-­ Silva 2004; Frank, Akresh, and Lu 2010; Gans 1999; Alba and Islam 2009; Lee and Bean 2004; Marrow 2011). To address this question, a collection of pathbreaking researchers have examined emergent racial dynamics on the ground in new immigrant destinations like the U.S. South. Focused largely on the early 2000s or periods prior, these studies present evidence of black-­ brown tensions, conflict, and distancing. Although both blacks and whites at the time perceived Latinos as outsiders, African Americans did so thanks in part to perceptions of resource competition and long histories of interracial hostility and resource competition (LeDuff 2000; Marrow 2011; Ribas 2015; Rich and Miranda 2005; Stuesse 2009). These results provide empirical support for the view that Latinos occupy a racial middle. However, this interpretation depends on whether distancing is understood as a short-­term mobility strategy used by immigrants throughout history to avoid association with blacks or a more lasting trian- 121 gulated position in which Latinos are neither accepted by whites nor demoted to collective blacks (Kim 1999; Roediger 2006). Further, shifts in immigration enforcement priorities and racial politics in the mid-­2000s may have altered Latino racial incorporation trajectories since these earlier studies were conducted (Jones 2012; Marrow 2017; Williams 2016). Indeed, in the South today, traditional indicators of racial incorporation, such as intermarriage rates and residential segregation patterns, show clear similarities between blacks and Latinos, suggesting possible shifts in racialization processes on the ground in recent years (Frey 2015; Lofquist et al. 2012).2 Existing studies on these questions draw largely on in-­depth ethnographic research that provides a nuanced and powerful picture of emergent race relations in individual communities. Although these are essential contributions to our understanding of the racializing facets of immigration, the emphasis on individual community relations offers limited insights into the broader context in which the dynamics of racialization and intergroup re­ lations occur, suggesting a need for cross-­ regional work. Moreover, because few of these studies account for cultural and institutional discourses, further work is required to understand the broader practices that drive ascriptive racialization and the location of Latinos in the racial hierarchy (Chavez 2008; Chavez 2012; Mora 2014; Santa Ana 2002). This gap in the research is consequential not only because ascription is an essential component of racialization, but also because it plays an important role in shaping race relations and social policy (Browne, Deckard, and Rodriguez 2016; McConnell 2011). Because the news media are an important part of the context of reception (Menjívar 2016), media analysis provides a useful opportunity to address these gaps. As Eileen McConnell notes, the mass media actively construct metaphors, ideologies, and beliefs about nonwhites in the United States, often emphasizing a narrow range of negative topics that link racial mi- 2. Out-­marriage rates for blacks and Latinos are similarly low in the four states under study here (Lofquist et al. 2012). Hispanic and black residential segregation rates are also similar, with Hispanic-­white segregation indices revealing increasing segregation in recent years (Frey 2015). r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Immigr ation a nd Ch a nging Iden tities 122 norities with social problems (2011). This focus shapes public perceptions of nonwhites as racialized nuisances and social threats. News media shape both conscious and unconscious biases about immigrants and racial minorities (Haney-­Lopez 1997; Kaufmann 2003). For example, the media have powerfully shaped popular understandings of African Americans, portraying them as dangerous outsiders, predators, and public menaces. These portrayals occur at rates that are disproportionate to the actual crime rate among African Americans, arise in both fictional and nonfictional contexts, and perpetuate stereotypes of pervasive criminality and social threat (Chiricos and Eschholz 2002; Dixon and Linz 2000b; Smiley and Fakunle 2016). The media in traditional immigrant destinations have also constructed Latinos and immigrants as existential threats to U.S. culture and the nation-­state (Chavez 2008; De Genova and Ramos-­Zayas 2003; McConnell 2011; Rodriguez 2000; Santa Ana 2002). Such representations characterize Latinos as unassimilable, foreign, and an economic threat. These media characterizations are not mere expressions of grievances. They shape the ideologies and social understandings of local residents toward racial groups and toward immigration (Brown 2013; Domke 2000; Flores 2003; Hopkins 2010). Because the media construct and disseminate cultural frames that give meaning to critical issues, they play a crucial role in the racialization process and in immigration politics (Gilens 1999; Menjívar 2016; Rodriguez 2018). They also shape the attitudes of bureaucrats, and policymakers who shape opportunities and access for these groups, closing off opportunities for incorporation and upward mobility (Dunaway, Branton, and Abrajano 2010; Sohoni and Mendez 2014). Examining newspaper coverage in Oregon, José Padín argues that news media play a critical role in shaping what he calls the “climate of new immigrant reception,” asserting that the media frames Latinos relationally, positioning them according to a set of normative racialized codes that are used to distinguish or establish similarities to other groups (2005). Such processes are deeply implicated in the construction of local racial hierarchies and in the identity formation of Latinos, who may decide to contest or accept this new set of ascriptive meanings and definitions assigned to them (Dávila 2012; Mora 2014). Data a n d M e t h o d s To assess Latino racialization in new destinations, we conducted a news media content analysis of more than 4,200 news stories from 2003 to 2013 from eight newspapers across the South. The use of newspapers to analyze public discourse is a long-­standing trend in the social sciences. In recent years, newspaper circulation has decreased, suggesting that newspaper framing may have less public impact than previously. That said, ample evidence suggests that that declining print subscriptions are counterbalanced by increases in online subscriptions and readership (Mitchell and Rosenstiel 2012). Studies also reveal that the content and framing of mainstream print, online, and social media news sources are relatively similar (Janssen 2010; O’Neill et al. 2015; Smith 2005). Given these trends and parallel framing processes, print media sources continue to present useful data for the analysis of cultural framing and public discourse. We analyzed newspapers from four Southern states: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and North Carolina.3 As table 1 shows, these four states have witnessed rapid growth in their Latino and foreign-­born populations since 1990 (Migration Policy Institute 2012). Using Access World News Database and the online archives of the Jackson Clarion-­Ledger, we randomly sampled news stories per year from 2003 to 2013 from each of the two largest newspapers in each state. To create these samples, we searched for articles including the term immigra and retained only those that discussed immigration-­ related issues in the United States. We then sampled from the eligible stories to retain fifty 3. The eight newspapers are the Jackson Clarion-­Ledger, the Biloxi Sun-­Herald, the Birmingham News, the Mobile Press-­Register, the Atlanta Journal-­Constitution, the Augusta Chronicle, the Charlotte Observer, and the Raleigh News and Observer. r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �t he r aci a liz at ion of l at ino immigr a n ts 123 Table 1. Foreign-Born Population and Change by State, 1990–2010 1990 Estimate 2000 Estimate 2010 Estimate 1990 to 2010 Percent Change 19,767,316 43,533 173,126 20,383 115,077 31,107,889 87,772 577,273 39,908 430,000 21,419,957 168,596 942,959 61,428 719,137 8.4 287.3 444.7 201.4 524.9 Region United States Alabama Georgia Mississippi North Carolina Source: Migration Policy Institute 2012. stories per state per year for analysis. We did so by taking every Nth story, where N equaled the number of eligible stories that year divided by fifty. After compiling the dataset, we used Dedoose, a cloud-­based qualitative content analysis software, to code these stories. All codes with less than 80 percent intercoder reliability were dropped from the analysis. The average for the retained codes was 98 percent agreement. The coding scheme included codes for racial labels, immigrant country or region of origin, speaker characteristics, positive and negative characterizations of immigrants, and article type and date. In addition to this specified analysis, we used the full universe of news stories on immigration (approximately twenty-­three thousand stories) to construct broader histories of immigration and immigration policy in each state to provide context for the study. We supplemented this analysis with content analysis of immigration-­related stories published in the one of the largest African American newspapers from each state.4 Following the same sampling and coding procedures as for the mainstream newspapers, we compiled and analyzed a dataset of 476 additional news stories from the African American newspapers. In what follows, we present results first from the mainstream newspapers, highlighting trends in reporting of immigrants over time. We follow that discussion with results from the African American newspapers. L at i n o R aci a li z at i o n i n M a i n s t r e a m N e w s pa p e r s Results reveal consistent patterns in the characterizations of immigrants in mainstream newspapers in the U.S. South. Table 2 presents descriptive statistics for the most frequently occurring themes for each code category. Overall, news stories contained slightly more negative characterizations of immigrants than positive ones. Approximately 31 percent of stories contained at least one negative characterization; 29 percent characterized immigrants positively. The relative balance between positive and negative characterizations may well reflect the long-­standing journalistic practices of seeking multiple competing viewpoints to demonstrate “objectivity” (Schudson 1981; American Press Association 2017). Our results suggest, however, that even if journalistic norms encourage reporters to balance both negative and positive viewpoints on immigrants, the substance of these viewpoints varies in important ways. Immigration advocates and opponents used distinct portrayals of immigrants that reveal complex and contested debate about the specific characteristics of immigrants worthy of discussion. The most common negative claim about immigrants emphasized the perceived criminal tendencies of noncitizens; economic threat claims were far less common. Nearly 60 percent of the negative arguments made about immigrants involved judgments about immigrants’ involvement in criminal activities or their crim- 4. These newspapers include the Jackson Advocate, the Birmingham Times, the Atlanta Daily World, and the Charlotte Post. Only the Atlanta Daily World is publicly available for our entire period, from 2003 to 2013. We acknowledge these limitations when discussing our data from these newspapers. r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Immigr ation a nd Ch a nging Iden tities 124 Table 2. Descriptive Statistics for Key Codes Code Total (N) Frequency Article type Letter to editor News reporting Opinion Total articles in categorya 320 2,857 1,033 4,208 0.08 0.68 0.25 1.00 Immigrant country or region Central or South America Mexico Vietnam Total articles in categorya 125 864 73 1,527 0.03 0.21 0.02 0.36 Negative immigrant Crime Drain collective resources Steal jobs Total articles in categorya 779 367 194 0.19 0.09 0.05 1,323 0.31 Positive immigrant Hard work Make collective resources Racism or discrimination Total articles in categorya 401 318 582 1,227 0.10 0.08 0.14 0.29 Race Asian Black Latino or Hispanic Total articles in categorya 104 428 982 1,245 0.02 0.10 0.23 0.30 Speaker Federal official or politician State, local elected official Advocacy, service, nonprofit Immigrant member of public Total articles in categorya 384 535 464 365 1,590 0.09 0.13 0.11 0.09 0.38 Source: Authors’ compilation. Total is the total number of articles with codes for that category. Because an article might have references to multiple subcodes within a category, totals are not the sum of all subcodes for the code category. a inal predispositions. This argument is exemplified by a 2005 piece in the Raleigh News and Observer, which reported on crimes involving local immigrants. The article noted that “Eight illegal immigrants from Honduras pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal charges related to a multistate scheme to steal and resell more than $2.5 million worth of baby formula and over-­ the-­counter drugs” (Weigl 2005). An article from the Jackson Clarion-­Ledger in Mississippi similarly highlighted the fact that the perpetrator of a local crime was an undocumented immigrant: “A police report shows the suspect in the Wheaton hit-­and-­run is Jaime Martinez, an illegal immigrant wanted for a homicide in Mexico, who was driving a borrowed 1997 white Cadillac” (Apel 2011). Like constructions of African Americans, these news stories portray im- r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �t he r aci a liz at ion of l at ino immigr a n ts 125 0.0050 0.25 0.0040 0.20 0.0030 0.15 0.0020 Crime characterizations Violent crime rate 0.10 0.0010 0.0000 Crime Claims Violent Crime Rate Figure 1. Crime Claims by Year and Violent Crime Rate 0.05 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 0.00 Source: Authors’ calculations. migrants as dangerous menaces. Further, media elites opted for language and contextual associations that depict illegal status as a criminal violation, despite the fact that unauthorized presence in the United States is a civil, not a criminal, infraction. Although illegality could be framed as a bureaucratic, legal, or administrative issue, by and large the news media chose to frame illegality as a form of criminality. These discussions of crime dwarfed the other negative stereotypes about immigrants, despite the fact that crime rates for immigrants and in immigrant-­heavy areas are consistently lower than in other areas (Ewing, Martinez, and Rumbaut 2016; Nowrasteh 2015; Rumbaut 2009). Indeed, as figure 1 shows, the prevalence of criminality claims in our data do not reflect any shifts in the crime rate in these four states under the study period.5 Although crime characterizations rose and fell between 2003 and 2013, the violent crime rate trend remained stable from 2003 to 2008 and gradually declined between 2008 and 2013. Moreover, the largest spike in crime characterizations in 2011 occurred despite a dip in the violent crime rate the same year. The crime characterization was so dominant in our data that the second most frequent negative characterization of immigrants (that they drain collective resources) constituted only 28 percent of all negative characterizations. A story from Georgia typified the “drain collective resources” argument when it reported that residents in the state “want the law to clear the state of illegal immigrants, who they say are taking advantage of Georgia’s schools, hospitals and workplaces, draining public funds as they take jobs that could help the unemployed” (Schneider 2011). Only 15 percent of articles contained the claim that immigrants steal jobs from citizens, despite prior scholars pointing to economic threat as a dominant anti-­immigrant sentiment (Wilson 2001; Deckard and Browne 2016; Fryberg et al. 2012). A news story from Raleigh, North Carolina, conveyed this argument in a 2011 story on opposition to immigration. The story quoted Ron Woodward, president of an North Carolina– based advocacy group called N.C. Listen, as saying, “If we had half of those people here illegally and those jobs were freed up, that’s 100,000 Americans today that would have a job that don’t have one . . . That would be a great improvement” (Barrett 2011). That the steal jobs argument appears so rarely in the data is surprising given the wealth of academic and public attention to the presumed economic costs of immigration to American-­born workers (Newton 2000; Simon and Sikich 2007; Stuesse 2009; Wright, Levy, and Citrin 2015). Although negative and positive characterizations appeared at similar frequencies in our 5. The trends in crime rates are not driven by a single state. In Alabama, the per capita violent crime rate remained the same from 2003 to 2013, but in the other three states it declined over the same period. r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �126 Immigr ation a nd Ch a nging Iden tities sample, positive characterizations and countervailing arguments about immigrants took a variety of forms. The most common counterpoint offered did not address crime but instead asserted that immigrants in the region face racism and discrimination. Indeed, nearly 50 percent of stories that portrayed immigrants positively made the case that immigrants experience racism or discrimination.6 The second most common positive argument made about immigrants characterized noncitizens as hard workers who contribute to the U.S. economy. These arguments about work ethic and economic contributions made up approximately 33 percent of all positive arguments made about immigrants. The third most common positive argument (26 percent) identified immigrants as contributors to the public good or as individuals who make collective resources from which others benefit. Around 14 percent of positive claims argued that immigrants have strong family values or that immigrant children are deserving members of society. If immigration opponents attempted to steer public discourse toward the assumed criminality of immigrants, supporters focused instead on racism and discrimination and on work ethic. To understand media trends in immigration coverage, we also examined the countries of origin noted for those immigrants discussed in the mainstream newspapers. Country of origin proved an important device for writers in framing their arguments about immigration. A full 36 percent of news articles noted immigrants’ country or region of origin. Of these articles, 57 percent focused on immigrants from Mexico, an unsurprising trend given the demographics of the newly arrived noncitizen population in these states. No other region or country of origin made up more than 8 percent of the total. Because public and media discourse about immigration also relies at times on racialized framing to make arguments about immigrants, we also coded for the use of racial labels in immigration-­related news coverage (Brown 2013). Approximately 30 percent of all articles used at least one racial descriptor in their reporting on immigration. The most commonly used racial category was Latino-­Hispanic (nearly 80 percent of all racial labels applied), suggesting that Southern media discourse on immigration is overwhelming centered on Latinos rather than other, in some cases, sizable populations such as Asian Americans. To assess news media depictions of Latino and Mexican immigrants specifically, we examined the co-­occurrence of negative and positive characterization codes with country of Mexican origin and Latino-­Hispanic race codes (see figures 2 and 3). First, we examined the most common negative characterizations made in articles that discuss Mexican immigrants. Surprisingly, only 15 percent of negative immigrant characterizations in our data set asserted that Mexicans newcomers steal jobs or otherwise threaten the economic stability of nonimmigrants.7 Rather than highlight the economic effects of immigration, the most common attacks levied against Mexican immigrants during this period characterized these newcomers as criminals. Nearly two-­ thirds of all negative characterizations in these stories labeled Mexican immigrants as perpetrators of crime. These stories took multiple forms, including news reporting on individual instances of criminal activity perpetrated by noncitizens, groups of immigrants implicated in gang activity and the illegal drug trade, and undocumented immigrants as inherently criminal due to their unauthorized status. Consider the following quote from a 2011 Augusta Chronicle story: U.S. Attorney Ed Tarver said Wednesday that 51-­year-­old Oscar Lazo and 35-­year-­old Eva Ramos were charged with conspiring to sell the stolen identities of U.S. citizens and harboring illegal immigrants. Prosecutors also charged Maurcio Cruz and Manuel Cruz— 6. Racism or discrimination claims appear at similar rates in Alabama, Mississippi, and North Carolina (around 50 to 52 percent of all positive claims and 14.1 percent to 16.6 percent of all stories) but are slightly less common in Georgia (36 percent of all positive codes and 38 percent of all published stories). 7. By contrast, the most frequently made negative claim in stories about Middle Eastern immigrants involved terrorism; Southeast Asian immigrants were chided for their lack of English skills. r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �t he r aci a liz at ion of l at ino immigr a n ts 127 Figure 2. Negative Characterizations of Immigrants 0.70 Mexico Latinos or Hispanics 0.60 Total negative Proportion 0.50 0.40 0.30 0.20 0.10 ts ris ob s Te r ro St ea lj us io re lig rly ve O N ot as s O ve rly im fe rt ile ila tin g h is En gl N o D ra in co Cr im e or cr im in al s D on 't wo lle rk ct iv e re so ur ce s 0.00 Source: Authors’ calculations. Figure 3. Positive Characterizations of Immigrants 0.60 Mexico Latinos or Hispanics Proportion 0.50 Total positive 0.40 0.30 0.20 0.10 sm s ci ra e Fa c ct iv e re so ur ce wo rk in g H ar d s lu e va ily Fa m En gl is ng ni ar co lle Le M ak e D es er As vi ng si m ila tin g ch ild re n h 0.00 Source: Authors’ calculations. both citizens of Mexico—with using the stolen identities to get hired at the restaurant. (Augusta Chronicle 2011) As is typical in the data, this story not only reports on law-­breaking activities by Mexican immigrants, but also stresses the criminal schemes hatched by those immigrants. Whereas the most common negative characterization of Mexican immigrants focused on criminal tendencies and activities, the two most common positive characterizations em- r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �128 Immigr ation a nd Ch a nging Iden tities phasized immigrants’ hard work and strong work ethic (44 percent) or claimed that immigrants face racism and discrimination (46 percent).8 Although the aggregate measures show the hard work and racism claims as equally prevalent, time-­series analyses reveal that arguments about Mexicans’ work ethic were most common in the earlier years of our sample, and racism-­discrimination arguments remain consistently high. In only one year (2006), did the hard work argument appear more frequently than the racism or discrimination argument, suggest that the latter argument about Mexicans was more dominant than the aggregate numbers reveal.9 These results indicate that, since 2003, immigration discourse in Southern news media has crystallized around two themes: the criminality of Mexican immigrants and the discriminatory treatment these immigrants face.10 But are these discussions primarily about race or primarily about country of origin? To answer that question, we examined characterizations of Latinos-­Hispanics in our dataset (see figures 2 and 3). Results reveal similar patterns. Again, the most common negative characterization in these articles involved crime and criminality. More than half (53 percent) of the stories that discussed Latinos also made assertions about their supposed criminal tendencies. Virtually the same proportion of stories with positive characterizations (47 percent) argued that Latinos face ongoing racism and discrimination. Notably, news stories were more likely to make claims of racism and discrimination when discussing Latinos or Hispanics (52 percent) than when discussing Mexicans specifically (46 percent). Arguments about immigrant work ethic were also far more common in stories about Mexicans (44 percent) than in stories about Latinos or Hispanics (34 percent). These linguistic distinctions may signal differences in an ethnic versus a racial framing, the former intended to construct and denote population characteristics that are cultural and more positive than the latter (Hattam 2007).11 Despite these distinctions, these findings suggest a deep racialization of immigration discourse in the news media, with media coverage focused on constructions of Latino criminality and anti-­ Latino racism. In at least three respects, this media characterization of Latino newcomers parallels the long-­standing associations between African Americans and criminality (Alexander 2012; Mendelberg 2001). First, the emphasis in our data on Latinos as dangerous outsiders with inherent criminal tendencies mirrors the long-­ standing characterization of African Americans as dangerous outsiders, predators, and public 8. These same patterns hold for stories that discussed Central American immigrants. We do not report this data because references to Central American immigrants were rare in our data set (fewer than two hundred references total or less than 5 percent of all stories). 9. These shifts do not appear to reflect increases in the employment of Latino journalists by newspapers in our data set. Our story-­by-­story analysis suggests that only 2 percent of all stories in the dataset were written by Latino journalists, with no increase overtime in the publication of Latino-­authored pieces. 10. Additional analyses suggest these patterns do not reflect significant differences in code distribution across article types (news reporting, letters to the editor, and opinion pieces). The majority of crime and racism codes appear in news stories. News stories constituted 68 percent of our total sample. Approximately 64 percent of racism claims and 72 percent of crime claims occur in news stories. Opinion pieces, which constituted 25 percent of the sample, contained 33 percent of the racism codes and 23 percent of the crime codes. Both codes are underrepresented in letters to the editor. A breakdown of results by state shows that these trends are not driven by a single state. Rather, trends appear regionally. 11. Whether there is an analytic distinction between race and ethnicity is heavily debated (see Brown and Jones 2015). Here, we follow panethnicity researchers and colloquial usage in treating national-­origin labels as ethnic, in contrast to panethnic or racial labels that homogenize diverse national origin groups (Okamoto and Mora 2014). In using the terms racial and ethnic in this fashion, we do not suggest a clear analytical distinction between the two concepts but rather argue that the two concepts conjure different “associative chains” that produce distinct discourses in the United States (Hattam 2007) r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �t he r aci a liz at ion of l at ino immigr a n ts 129 Figure 4. Crime and Racism Claims by Year in Mainstream Newspapers 0.25 Proportion 0.20 0.15 0.10 Crime 0.05 0.00 Racism 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Source: Authors’ calculations. menaces (Russell-­Brown 2008; Alexander 2012). Second, just as assumptions of black criminality often precede any actual criminal actions (Yancy 2016), news coverage of Latinos in our data typically assume criminality on the basis of a civil violation: unauthorized presence. Third, media portrayals of African American and Latino crime are disproportionate to the actual levels of crime committed by those groups (Dixon and Linz 2000a). Our results further suggest that Latino racialization originates not only from critics of immigrants who characterize Latinos and Mexicans as criminals but also from pro-­ immigration forces. Rather than make pro-­ immigrant arguments grounded in economic or human rights claims (Bloemraad, Silva, and Voss 2016; Deckard and Browne 2016; Fujiwara 2005; Lawlor 2015), immigration news stories more often asserted that immigrants, Latinos and Mexicans in particular, faced widespread racism and discrimination. The writers, editorial board members, and political figures making these arguments routinely drew parallels between immigration enforcement efforts and the South’s historic commitment to racial inequality, Jim Crow, and segregation. For example, in a column focused on immigration, Sid Salter of the Jackson Clarion-­Ledger dispelled common myths about Latino immigrants and argued, “Now that a measure of progress has been made in race relations between blacks and whites in Mississippi, it seems some among us are encouraging new avenues for racism and bigotry, and adding a side order of misplaced nationalism” (Salter 2003). Another article in the same newspaper quoted Bill Chandler, a Mississippi immigration advocate, as saying, “[Anti-­L atino racism] is the same kind of racism that has been perpetuated against African Americans for years” (Crisp 2010). Time-­series data show that these two racializing arguments (that of Latino criminality on one hand and of racial discrimination on the other) are not independent of each other. As figure 4 shows, these arguments about racism and discrimination rise and fall in tandem with criminality assertions. More specifically, both Latino criminality and racial discrimination claims rise and then decline from 2004 to 2006. Criminalization arguments rise again in 2007, followed closely by a steep increase of racial discrimination arguments the following year. This parallel relationship continues throughout the period of analysis—declining slowly after 2007, rising again between 2010 and 2012, and declining steeply through to 2013. Although these claims rise and fall concurrently, our data suggest that different actors make each argument. News stories highlighting the criminality of Mexicans and Latinos most commonly quoted state and local government officials, whereas those focused on racism and discrimination relied most often on reports from representatives from advocacy r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �130 Immigr ation a nd Ch a nging Iden tities and nonprofit organizations that serve local immigrants. Taken together, these trends suggest an ongoing and multifaceted cycle of raciali­ zation in which elected and appointed government officials challenge Latino or Mexican ­immigrants as criminal elements, and immigration advocates respond with charges of racism and discrimination. As counterpoints to racializing claims of Latino immigrant criminality, publishers choose to feed this racialization by citing claims of Latino-­targeted racism and discrimination. Although these two discourses have different implications and goals, both are “racial projects” that construct, emphasize, and give primacy to racial distinctions between Latinos and other groups (Omi and Winant 1994). A fr ica n A m e r ic a n N e w s pa p e r s Do the same patterns present in African American newspapers in the region? To answer this question, we turn to results from our content analysis of immigration-­related stories published in four African American newspapers. Slightly different patterns are evident. First, although positive and negative characterizations of immigrants appeared at the relatively same frequency in the mainstream newspapers (31 percent and 29 percent, respectively), African American newspapers portrayed immigrants in strikingly more positive terms. African American newspapers published more than twice as many positive characterizations of immigrants than negative. Approximately 15 percent of stories in the database contained at least one negative characterization versus 33 percent containing positive characterizations. Although the balance of positive and negative characterizations differed from the mainstream press, the content of immigration characterizations was quite similar. As in the mainstream press, the most common negative characterization of immigrants was the argument that immigrants perpetuate crime. Negative arguments made up only 15 percent of the total stories, but nearly 60 percent of the negative arguments about im­ migrants in African American newspapers ­involved judgments about immigrants’ involvement in criminal activities or their criminal dispositions. For instance, the Birmingham Times published a story in 2010 that reported on the criminal dealings of local Mexican immigrants: A federal grand jury today indicted two undocumented aliens for providing counterfeit identification documents, announced U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance and Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Resident Agent in Charge Jesse Blakeman. The indictment filed in U.S. District Court charges Adalberto de la Cruz-­Angeles, 42, a Mexican citizen, with two counts of transferring counterfeit Social Security and Permanent Resident cards, once in July and once in November. (Birmingham Times 2010) Although the African American papers focused on the supposed criminal tendencies and behaviors of immigrants, they differed from the mainstream papers in their secondary focus on immigrants as an economic burden. The claim that immigrants steal jobs appeared in approximately 39 percent of the articles that negatively characterized immigrants. Assertions that immigrants drain collective resources appeared in 21 percent. These articles typically asserted that immigrants drained public coffers by virtue of their overrepresentation in local prisons, their mental and physical health issues, and their reliance on various welfare programs. These claims echo popular arguments that African Americans see immigrants, particularly Latinos, as their direct competition for resources and employment (McClain et al. 2006). Rather than appearing as a dominant narrative in the African American press, however, these arguments represented only a small proportion of the total articles in the newspapers under study. The economic threat claims were also concentrated in the early years of our sample, peaking in 2006 and tapering off by 2008 (see figure 5). Despite commonly made claims about conflict between Latinos and African Americans, our results reveal that positive characterizations of immigrants, Latinos in particular, far outpaced negative ones in the African American press. Consider the following excerpt from the Atlanta Daily World in 2006. The author of the article included a quote from a nationally re- r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �t he r aci a liz at ion of l at ino immigr a n ts 131 Figure 5. Steal Jobs Claims by Year in African American Newspapers 0.35 0.30 Proportion 0.25 0.20 0.15 0.10 0.05 0.00 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Source: Authors’ calculations. nowned Latino advocacy group to advocate for humane immigrant policies: “Undocumented immigrants contribute about $850 billion more per year than they cost—a huge net gain for the United States,” said Brent Wilkes, national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citzens. “It’s about time that we provide a legal avenue for them to come here in recognition of their tremendous contributions to our country” (Curry 2006). The article not only emphasized the positive economic contributions of immigrants, it also advocated for policies that would facilitate authorized immigration to the United States. Although such arguments were common in African American papers, by far the most common defense of immigrants offered in the African American newspapers asserted that immigrants face discrimination or racism. Racism-­ discrimination claims constituted approximately 50 percent of all positive immigrant characterizations in the mainstream papers and higher than 70 percent in African American papers. An article from the Jackson Advocate illustrates these claims in its discussion of law enforcement and motorists. Quoting a local immigrant advocate, the article argued, “The past reports of ‘driving while black’ have been supplemented with accounts today of ‘driving while brown’. . . with the new focus being on Latino immigrants” (Vern 2010). This quote illustrates not only the common trend in black papers to argue that immigrants face racism but also the parallel trend of equating black-­ targeted discrimination with discrimination targeting Latino immigrants. So common were references to racism and discrimination in this dataset that these claims dwarfed other two most commonly occurring positive characterizations: of immigrants as hard workers (22 percent) and of immigrants as contributing to the public good (17 percent). As in the mainstream press, racism and crime claims rise and fall in tandem over the study period, spiking concurrently in 2006, 2010, and 2013 (see figure 6). Results from the African American newspapers also reveal distinct trends in the racial labels used in immigration-­related news stories, particularly when compared to the mainstream press. Whereas 30 percent of mainstream newspaper articles used at least one racial descriptor in their coverage of immigration, 67 percent of articles from African American newspapers used at least one racial descriptor. The most commonly used racial category was African American–black (87 percent), followed by Latino-­Hispanic (nearly 54 percent of all racial labels applied versus 80 percent in mainstream newspapers). These findings suggest that though immigration coverage focuses on Latinos in both venues, African American newspapers are far more likely than mainstream newspapers to also discuss immigration as it affects or connects to African American communities. To assess African American press descriptions of Latino immigrants, we examined the application of negative and positive characterizations of Latino immigrants. Characterizations of immigrants as criminal were the majority (73 percent) of negative characterizations, r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Immigr ation a nd Ch a nging Iden tities 132 Figure 6. Racism and Crime Claims by Year in African American Newspapers 0.45 Racism 0.40 Crime 0.35 Proportion 0.30 0.25 0.20 0.15 0.10 0.05 0.00 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Source: Authors’ calculations. followed distantly by the claim that Latino immigrants drain collective resources (27 percent). These patterns indicate that the dual racialization of Latinos as criminals and as victims of racism and discrimination appears in the African American as well as the mainstream press. The same time-­series patterns from the mainstream press also arise in African American newspapers. Like in the mainstream press, the racialized arguments about Latino criminality and anti-­Latino racism rise and fall in tandem, again suggesting a pattern in which immigration foes attack Latinos on the basis of perceived criminal tendencies and advocates respond with targeted claims of Latino immigrants facing racism and discrimination. The key difference between the mainstream and African American newspapers involves the prevalence of each argument and the timing of shifts in each argument. In the mainstream newspapers, criminality claims occur more frequently than racism claims in all but one year of the dataset (2012).12 And, as noted, in the African American press, racism arguments surpass criminality arguments in 2008 and remain more frequent through the end of our analysis period. Coupled with the fact that the African American press offered more positive than negative characterizations of immigrants than did the mainstream press, these trends may evidence broader shifts in black-­Latino relations in the South over the last decade and a half. As figure 7 makes clear, over the period of study, articles about Latinos became less likely to invoke negative characterizations of immigrants over time. The opposite pattern holds for positive portrayals, trending broadly upward after 2005. These patterns are specific to the African American newspapers. Mainstream newspaper articles about Latinos show slight declines in both positive and negative characterizations of immigrants during the study period. Time-­ series data indicates that characterizations of immigrants as criminal, followed by stealing jobs, diminish over time, and are less prominent than in the mainstream press, suggesting a shift in public discourse about black-­Latino relations over the last decade and a half, characterized by increasingly positive characterizations of Latino immigrants as they increased in size and visibility across the region.13 12. This year marked widespread state and national-­level attention to anti-­immigration laws such as Alabama’s HB56. Critics of these bills regularly cited them as evidence of racism and discrimination targeted at immigrants (Brown, Jones, and Dow 2016; Campbell 2016; Mohl 2016). 13. In the last years of our data, crime and racism claims also follow different patterns in the two data sets, both claims trending upward in the African American press and downward in the mainstream press. Our close read of the stories from these years does not suggest that these shifts were event driven. r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �t he r aci a liz at ion of l at ino immigr a n ts 133 Figure 7. Co-occurrence of Positive and Negative Claims and Latino or Hispanic by Year in African American Newspapers 0.35 Negative Positive 0.30 Proportion 0.25 0.20 0.15 0.10 0.05 0.00 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Source: Authors’ calculations. Di s c u s s i o n a n d C o n c lu s i o n In both the mainstream press and African American press, results indicate that since 2003 immigration discourse in Southern news media has crystallized around two themes: the criminality of Latino immigrants and the discriminatory treatment these immigrants face. Across both sets of newspapers, negative arguments about Latinos focus on their perceived criminal tendencies rather than characterizing immigrants as labor market competitors or economic threats. These claims arise in stories reporting disproportionately on Latinos under investigation for possible criminal offenses, suggesting the prominence of a racial threat narrative centered on public safety. These same characterizations also appear in news coverage about gang activity and in stories claiming that undocumented Latinos are criminals, by virtue of nothing more than their mere presence in the United States. Paralleling this criminality argument is the equally common claim that Latinos face mounting racism and discrimination akin to that African Americans face. That these trends are particularly pronounced for stories about Latinos and Hispanics (versus stories about Mexicans) further illustrates the racializing effects of these narratives. These trends appeared in both the mainstream and the African American press, with one important difference. Pieces in the African American press were far more positive toward immigrants rel- ative to the mainstream press. These findings cast doubt on claims that Latinos in the region are assimilating into whiteness or occupying an elevated position in the racial hierarchy. Our findings indicate key similarities between the racialization of Latinos and that of African Americans. The criminality claims that appear in our data are similar to patterns of media-­driven racialization of African Americans in at least three respects: they emphasize Latinos as dangerous outsiders, assume inherent criminal tendencies among Latinos, and overrepresent the proportion of crimes committed by this demographic group (Alexander 2012; Mendelberg 2001; Dixon and Linz 2000a). The central difference between constructions of black criminality and of Latino criminality in our data is the emphasis on Latino illegality as evidence of criminality. There is, to our knowledge, no corresponding narrative about black illegality in the media; however, definitions of criminal and illegal are elastic (Gilroy 2008). Unauthorized presence in the United States is not a criminal violation but rather an administrative one. The assumption that unauthorized presence is somehow criminal is a social construction, and historical immigration debates in the United States have not always equated unauthorized presence with criminality (Ngai 2005). A key finding from our study is that the news media in our sample choose to portray illegality as reflective of criminality ten- r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �134 Immigr ation a nd Ch a nging Iden tities dencies inherent to Latino immigrants rather opting to portray illegal presence as an administrative, human rights, or legal-­bureaucratic issue. This choice is similar to constructions of black criminality that have long been used to demonize African Americans as unfit for legal, social, and other forms of citizenship (James 2010). In our data, the constructions of Latino illegality as criminality do the same work. Our findings not only indicate similarities in the racialization of African Americans and Latinos, they also suggest that black political leaders and cultural elites perceive Latinos as sharing a common experience of racial discrimination at the hands of whites. The pronounced emphasis on anti-­Latino discrimination in the African American press may be coincidental, but taken alongside new work on black-­Latino alliances (Brown, Jones, and Dow 2016) and shifts in black elite public opinion (Williams and Hannon 2016) it may also reflect a strategic choice to shore up a sense of shared minority status between African Americans and Latinos. Although characterizations of Latinos as victims of discrimination and racism may spur alliances between minority groups, such claims may also feed a sense of racial threat among whites by emphasizing the challenges of Latino immigration to existing resource distributions. Regardless of the intent and consequences, these patterns indicate that media-­driven racialization occurs through both negative characterizations of specific racial groups and through positive defensive pro-­immigrant claims. As a counterpoint to the heightened racialization of Latinos as criminals, newspaper editors and journalists choose to publish stories that defend immigrants as the targets of racism and discrimination. In the latter instance, racialization may serve as a defensive resource, in which advocacy efforts draw on histories of civil rights activism to make their case. These results suggest that to make sense of the racially transformative effects of immigration requires a nuanced understanding of the racialization process. Existing research largely emphasizes explicit patterns of immigrant racial self-­identification and state ascription. This focus neglects the effects that pro-­ immigration forces, meso-­level organizations, and implicit racial appeals have on immigrants’ place in and adjustment to U.S. racial hierarchies. Although our use of the term racialization refers to discursive constructions, these discourses are meaningful in a racialized social system, characterized by systemic inequalities and the primacy of racial hierarchies and divisions (Bonilla-­Silva 1997). As a result, these racialized appeals likely have important consequences for immigrant-­native relations. Efforts to frame immigrants positively as racialized minorities and victims of discrimination serve different purposes and may even serve different purposes for different groups. In the case of nonwhites, the framing of Latino immigrants as racialized minorities and targets of discrimination may spur interminority sympathies and intergroup coalitions, particularly in the U.S. South, where civil rights organizations and language have unique political visibility. Collaborative efforts by civil rights organizations, immigrant rights organizations, and African American representatives to pass sanctuary city ordinances in Jackson, Mississippi, and Birmingham, Alabama, may be evidence of such effects. Such efforts may also stimulate a sense of threat among whites (see also Schildkraut and Marotta 2018; Craig and Richeson 2018) and may yield renewed local and state immigration enforcement. Because these results are regional rather than constitutive of a single case, they have significant implications for the context of reception facing new immigrants. In using normative racial codes to situate Latino immigrants in relation to existing groups (Padín 2005), media not only discursively situate Latinos as most similar to blacks but also shape the patterns by which community and local level bureaucrats will extend access to services and social resources on the one hand, or engage in punitive behaviors on the other. In establishing the parameters by which Latinos are situated and understood in Southern communities, media discourses may play a significant role in shaping mobility opportunities for Latinos. A lingering question from this study involves the discursive tropes used by the Spanish-­language press to characterize Latino immigrants in the region. Given our interest in ascriptive processes of ra- r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �t he r aci a liz at ion of l at ino immigr a n ts cialization, this article focuses only on English-­ language sources. Further, at the time of our analysis and writing, Spanish-­language media in the South was unavailable in digitized news databases. Future analyses of Spanish-­language media in the region would provide a more detailed analysis of shifts in Latino racial identity, racialization, and incorporation during this period. Media racialization of Latinos may affect Latino identities, producing new in-­group meanings, boundaries, and political mobilization. A sense of proximity to blackness may play a significant role in shoring up a sense of Latino identity (Jones 2012; Sanchez 2008). 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Lan- Wilson, Thomas C. 2001. “Americans’ Views on Im- ham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield. r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:00:00 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Racialization of Latino Immigrants in New Destinations: Criminality, Ascription, and Countermobilization Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Brown, Hana, E Jones, Jennifer, A Becker, Andrea Subject The topic of the resource Latino Immigration Race and Equality Description An account of the resource This article analyzes patterns in Latino immigrant racialization in the U.S. South. Drawing on a unique dataset of more than 4,200 news stories from the region, we find that Latino immigrants face multifaceted racialization in the news media and that this racialization shares substantive similarities with African American racialization processes. The most dominant negative characterizations of Mexican and Latino immigrants focus on their perceived criminal tendencies. Claims of Latino criminality apply implicitly coded racial language about black criminality to new Latino arrivals. A close qualitative analysis of these trends reveals an ongoing cycle of racialization in which immigration foes challenge Latino or Mexican immigrants as criminal elements and immigration advocates respond with charges of racism and discrimination. Supplemental analyses from four African American newspapers suggest that black elites perceive Latinos as sharing a common experience of racial discrimination at the hands of whites. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018–8 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Journal Article Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7758/rsf.2018.4.5.06 Language A language of the resource English https://dh.scu.edu/exhibits/files/original/90/2943/Pdhistory_source2.pdf 65131ab1cf0ea07fb95c37ad27db3b01 PDF Text Text Exploring the Effects of U.S. Immigration Enforcement on the Well-being of Citizen Children in Mexican Immigrant Families Author(s): Lauren E. Gulbas and Luis H. Zayas Source: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences , July 2017, Vol. 3, No. 4, Undocumented Immigrants and Their Experience with Illegality (July 2017), pp. 53-69 Published by: Russell Sage Foundation Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7758/rsf.2017.3.4.04 REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7758/rsf.2017.3.4.04?seq=1&cid=pdfreference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms This content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. Russell Sage Foundation is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:05:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �Exploring the Effects of U.S. Immigration Enforcement on the Well-being of Citizen Children in Mexican Immigrant Families l au r en e. gulba s a n d luis h. z aya s In this article, we draw on ecocultural theories of risk and resilience to examine qualitatively the experiences of U.S. citizen children living with their undocumented Mexican parents. Our purpose is to render visible the various ways in which citizen children confront and navigate the possibilities—and realities—of parental deportation. We develop a framework to conceptualize the complex multidimensional, and often multidirectional, factors experienced by citizen children vulnerable to or directly facing parental deportation. We situate youth well-being against a backdrop of multiple factors to understand how indirect and direct encounters with immigration enforcement, the mixed-status family niche, and access to resources shape differential child outcomes. In doing so, we offer insights into how different factors potentially contribute to resilience in the face of adversity. Keywords: children, citizenship, deportation, undocumented, well-being An estimated 4.5 million U.S. citizen children live in families in which one or both parents are undocumented (Pew Hispanic Research Center 2013). Researchers are just beginning to understand the ripple effects of immigration enforcement policies on immigrant families, and particularly on those families whose members have different authorizations, or mixedstatus families (Dreby 2013). Given escalations in punitive measures that target undocumented individuals in the United States (Peutz and De Genova 2010), a growing number of citizen children face the harsh realities associated with parental deportation: forced family separations, material deprivation, anxiety, and depression (Gonzales and Chavez 2012; Zayas 2015). Citizen children living in Mexican immigrant families experience a disproportionate burden of risk because the sociopolitical practices aimed at policing migrant illegality increasingly target those of Mexican origin (Dreby 2012). Lauren E. Gulbas is an anthropologist and assistant professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Texas, Austin. Luis H. Zayas is professor, endowed chair, and dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Texas, Austin. © 2017 Russell Sage Foundation. Gulbas, Lauren E., and Luis H. Zayas. 2017. “Exploring the Effects of U.S. Immigration Enforcement on the Well-being of Citizen Children in Mexican Immigrant Families.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 3(4): 53–69. DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2017.3.4.04. Support for this research was provided by National Institute for Child Health and Human Development grant HD068874 to Luis H. Zayas. We express our gratitude to the families who participated in this study. Direct correspondence to: Lauren E. Gulbas at laurengulbas@austin.utexas.edu, School of Social Work, University of Texas, 1925 San Jacinto Blvd., D3500, Austin, TX 78712; and Luis H. Zayas at lzayas@austin.utexas.edu, School of Social Work, University of Texas, 1925 San Jacinto Blvd., D3500, Austin, TX 78712. This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:05:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �54 undocumen ted immigr a n ts a nd their ex perience w ith illega lit y To date, research has highlighted the various ways in which immigration enforcement practices increase the likelihood that citizen children will experience academic challenges, physical and mental health problems, and cognitive and developmental delays (CavazosRehg, Zayas, and Spitznagel 2007; Kersey, Geppert, and Cutts 2007; Perreira and Ornelas 2011; Potochnik and Perreira 2010; SuárezOrozco and Yoshikawa 2013; Yoshikawa 2011; Zayas and Bradlee 2015). Although this research has drawn much-needed attention to the multilevel risk profiles of citizen children, the predominant focus on risk has led to generalized assumptions about the vulnerability of this population and overshadowed the evaluation of citizen children’s strengths, agency, and capacity (Panter-Brick 2014). This speaks, in part, to the political nature of research on undocumented individuals and their families. Most research, for good reason, advocates for changes to current immigration laws because studies have been able to demonstrate the negative effects such laws have on citizen children in immigrant families. However, research that focuses attention solely on issues of risk obscures the ways in which citizen children actively navigate stressful situations. Attention to processes of resilience would offer a valuable complement to the literature. In this article, we draw on ecocultural theories of risk and resilience to examine qualitatively the experiences of citizen children living with their undocumented Mexican parents (Unger et al. 2013; Weisner 2010). We focus attention on how citizen children cope within the context of current immigration enforcement and deportation policies. In doing so, we identify factors that shape the well-being of citizen children and highlight the contextual circumstances that have the potential to produce variable individual outcomes. Our paper is framed to address the following research questions: What are the effects of immigration enforcement on the well-being of citizen children? How do citizen children cope with the fears associated with having an undocumented parent? What strengths do citizen children draw on as they face the reali- ties—and consequences—of parental deportation? A N EC O C U LT U R A L P E R S P EC T I V E O N R E S I LI E N C E I N M I X E D - S TAT U S FA M I LI E S Over the past decade, social scientists have turned their attention to resilience-based research to counter the dominant focus on vulnerability, victimization, and suffering. Whereas studies of risk attend to circumstances and behaviors that increase the likelihood of negative outcomes, resiliency approaches emphasize elements and processes that sustain or promote well-being. As the anthropologist Catherine Panter-Brick notes, studies of resilience “uncover how people manage to live their lives and make the best of dire circumstances” (2014, 439). In such efforts, resiliency-oriented research can identify crucial leverage points that facilitate successful coping and shape well-being. Studies of resilience draw on a range of theoretical approaches that emphasize, to different degrees, the salience of individual factors and the broader context. Many social scientists consider Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model to be foundational for understanding how interactions between individuals and their contextual environment shape childhood development (Bronfenbrenner 1979; Ungar, Ghazinour, and Richter 2013). Bronfenbrenner posits that proximal processes—those direct interactions between children and their immediate social and material environments (microlevel)—are the basic elements shaping development (Bronfenbrenner and Morris 1998). Broader ecological systems, such as the mesosystem (interaction between microsystems) and macrosystem (broader cultural and structural context) were understood as both shaping and being shaped by interactions in the microsystems (Bronfenbrenner 1993). In this way, change within one system could reverberate across systems. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological approach has influenced studies of risk and resilience by focusing attention to micro-, meso-, and macrolevel factors that inhibit or facilitate wellbeing (Ungar, Ghazinour, and Richter 2013). r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:05:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �t he effects of immigr at ion en forcemen t Building on Bronfenbrenner’s model, anthropologists and sociologists have reconceptualized the role of culture within his ecodevelopmental framework, critiquing the distal role that he presumed culture to play in the lives of children and their families. As the sociologist Jonathan Tudge argues, “what is missing is that there is no sense . . . that cultural groups with values, beliefs, lifestyles, and patterns of social interchange different from those found in North American middleclass communities would necessarily value different types of proximal processes” (2008, 72– 73). Eco- developmental approaches have drawn little attention to the significant ways in which cultural processes directly shape childhood experiences and outcomes. Such a limitation is particularly relevant for studies of citizen children, whose experiences are invariably affected by macro-level contexts that mandate discrepant treatment and access to resources based on ethnicity and citizenship status. In light of this, our paper adopts an ecocultural approach that prioritizes attention to culture, or the everyday activities, routines, and behaviors that children enact within their surrounding environment (Super and Harkness 1986; Trudge 2008; Weisner 2010; Worthman 2010). Ecocultural theory emphasizes the importance of family practices and strategies that families pursue to facilitate child development and well-being (Weisner 2002). As the anthropologist Thomas Weisner notes, families everywhere need to construct and sustain family practices that foster survival, create meaning, and ensure positive outcomes for their children (2010). Yet not all family practices are equally effective or achievable. Even though families actively construct practices, features in the surrounding environment are also an influence. These influences include material and institutional resources, health and safety characteristics of the home and community environment, expectations about the division of household and economic labor, informal and formal systems of support, and sources of cultural influence. Accordingly, family practices reflect a negotiation between opportunities and constraints in the sur- 55 rounding environment and the cultural scripts that families draw on to organize and give meaning to everyday life and promote childhood well-being. The nexus of culture, environmental factors, and everyday family life is constituted in the family niche (Weisner 2002, 2010). We extend an ecocultural conceptualization of the family niche to highlight the unique circumstances facing mixed-status families. A mixed-status family niche reflects both the micro-environment families create as they balance their needs and the daily challenges associated with having an undocumented family member. Crucial to understanding the mixed-status family niche is what we call a “cultural script of silence.” As Genevieve Negrón- Gonzales notes, “silence is a fundamental part of the undocumented experience in this country . . . [because] the potential consequences of discovery are so severe” (2014, 271). Drawing on the notion of a cultural script of silence, we analyze the ways in which citizen children interpret, manage, and navigate everyday life. Citizen children’s daily lives are organized around the very real possibility that their undocumented parents could one day be detained and deported. In this context, developmental tasks take on new meaning when a knock on the family’s door has the potential to signal a shift in the safety and integrity of the family and the beginning of a terrifying ordeal of parental detention and deportation. Our purpose is to render visible the various ways in which citizen children confront and navigate the possibilities—and realities—of parental deportation, in order to identify factors that potentially contribute to resilience in the face of adversity. In doing so, we highlight those factors that potentially distinguish citizen children from their peers in citizen families. METHODS Data analyzed were drawn from a mixedmethod, multisited binational study that examined the psychosocial functioning of citizen children with undocumented Mexican parents. Study sites included Austin, Texas; Sacramento, California; and several locations r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:05:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �56 undocumen ted immigr a n ts a nd their ex perience w ith illega lit y Table 1. Demographic Characteristics of Citizen Children in Study Sample Accompanied Parent to Mexico (n = 31) Characteristic M (SD) Age n (percent) 11.1 (1.9) Living in United States with Undocumented Parent (n = 34) Remained in United States (n = 18) M (SD) n (percent) 11.7 (1.8) M (SD) n (percent) 11.6 (1.9) Total (n = 83) M (SD) n (percent) 11.4 (1.9) Gender (girl) 19 (61.3) 11 (61.1) 20 (58.8) 50 (60.2) School enrollment (yes) 30 (96.8) 18 (100) 34 (100) 82 (98.8) Living arrangement Both parents One parent No parent 20 (64.5) 10 (32.3) 1 (3.2) 10 (55.6) 8 (44.4) 0 (0.0) 26 (76.5) 7 (20.6) 1 (2.9) 56 (67.5) 25 (30.1) 2 (2.4) Source: Authors’ compilation. throughout Mexico (Distrito Federal, Hidalgo, Michoacán, Oaxaca, and Sinaloa). The sampling strategy entailed recruitment of three groups of U.S. citizen children between eight and fourteen years old with at least one undocumented Mexican parent: those who had accompanied their deported parents to Mexico; who stayed in the United States with a parent or guardian after one or both parents underwent deportation proceedings, had been deported to Mexico, or returned to the United States following deportation to Mexico; and whose undocumented parents had never been detained by immigration enforcement. Potential participants were excluded if they did not fall within the targeted age range or were living in foster care or child welfare at the time of the study. Additional exclusionary criteria included a diagnosis of psychiatric disorder or cognitive or developmental disability because these present unique challenges that might shape the well-being of citizen children. Recruitment was carried out with the help of staff at local community agencies at each site. After identifying potential participants who met criteria for participation, agency staff discussed the study with parents. Parents who expressed interest were referred to the research team. All parents and children provided consent and assent for their participation, and in- stitutional review board approval was granted at each of the institutions and sites where research activities took place. Participants Table 1 presents the demographic characteristics of citizen children recruited for participation. Of the total eighty-three participants, thirty-one accompanied their deported parent or parents to Mexico, eighteen remained in the United States after their parent or parents were deported, and thirty-four were not directly affected by deportation at the time of the interview. Across participant subgroups, the majority were girls (60.2 percent). Nearly all participants were enrolled in school and living with both parents at the time interview. Data Collection In-depth interviews were conducted with citizen children to elicit their narratives about living with parents who were undocumented, and, when applicable, to gather detailed accounts of their perceptions and experiences with immigration enforcement and parental deportation. All interviewers were bilingual, and the majority were Mexican or Mexican American women pursuing graduate degrees in the social sciences and trained to conduct qualitative interviews with children. Each in- r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:05:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �t he effects of immigr at ion en forcemen t terviewer conducted the interview in the language the participant preferred; approximately 42 percent of the interviews were in Spanish. To help reduce interviewer bias across multiple research sites, the research team constructed a semistructured interview guide to provide a series of probes and prompts to facilitate deeper exploration of topics. Questions were open-ended to capture how citizen children communicated, gave meaning to, and constructed their experiences and perceptions (Ochs and Capps 1996). The interview was conducted in a way that simulated a casual and everyday conversation; to faciliate rapport, interviewers encouraged children to ask questions and provide feedback about the interview process. Interviews began with a “grand tour” question to explore participants’ perceptions about home and family life, including descriptions of family activities and relationships, the child’s roles and responsibilities within the family, and social life outside the home (Spradley 1979). These questions set the stage for a discussion about direct and indirect experiences with immigration enforcement or parental deportation. Interviewers focused on eliciting what the child remembered as meaningful, placing particular emphasis on having children describe their perceptions, thoughts, emotions, feelings, reflections, and interpretations to ascertain the psychosocial impact of parental removal or having an undocumented parent. If applicable, children were asked to reflect on how their life had changed as a result of the deportation. Throughout qualitative data collection, several procedures were followed to monitor and enhance the data quality. All interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed, and analyzed in the language of the interview to enhance validity (Guest and MacQueen 2008). Interview transcripts and notes were systematically reviewed, and a series of debriefing meetings were held with research team members to discuss the rigors of the data collection process (Mack, Bunce, and Akumatey 2008). Data Analysis Transcripts were analyzed using a thematic approach to identify and describe participant perspectives (Guest, MacQueen, and Namey 2012). 57 To develop the coding framework, the first author and a graduate research assistant independently read two interviews, recording their initial interpretations of text. Emergent themes were discussed in a team meeting, and a draft of a codebook was developed from this discussion. Additional interviews were read to test the utility of preliminary themes, with attention directed toward the emergence of new themes. After eight interviews had been read, themes in the codebook appeared to be well established and a final draft of the codebook was produced. To test the utility of the codebook and establish intercoder reliability, four interviews were uploaded into NVivo9, independently coded by the first author and the research assistant, and percent agreement was calculated using the coding comparison module. Text that fell below a 75 percent threshold was discussed during a team meeting, and the codebook was revised as necessary (Miles and Huberman 1994). Interviews were subsequently coded using NVivo9, first by the research assistant, and then by the first author. This approach facilitated the transparency of the coders’ interpretations of the data by reviewing and monitoring all coded text. After data coding was completed, a framework matrix was generated in NVivo9. A framework matrix organizes data by themes (columns) and participants (rows). Each cell of the matrix contained reduced data in the form of direct quotes and summarized information about the manifestation of a given theme in a particular case. The matrix was then exported and converted to a text document that contained the reduced and summarized information pertaining to each specific participant, or case. To protect against bias in the interpretation of the cases, a panel of thirteen experts reviewed the data to compare the experiences of citizen children across cognitive, emotional, psychological, cultural, and socioeconomic dimensions. The panel included clinical psychologists and social workers in Mexico and the United States, each of whom had expertise in the mental health and cultural issues that Latino youth and their families experience. Each panelist evaluated a random selection of twenty cases to ensure that each case was re- r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:05:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �58 undocumen ted immigr a n ts a nd their ex perience w ith illega lit y Figure 1. Framework for Understanding Effects of Immigration Enforcement on Citizen Child Outcomes The Political Economy of U.S. Immigration Policy Distribution of Resources (for example, housing, employment, schooling, physical and mental healthcare, immigration resources, social support, community solidarity) Mixed-Status Family Niche Parent Characteristics Immigration Enforcement Fear ● Arrest ● Detention Deportation ● Separation Relocation Family Characteristics • Structure • Family roles and expectations • Dynamics and relationships • Personal roles and expectations • Internal/psychological resources • Gender • Substance abuse, trauma • Education, language • Legal status Cultural Script of Silence • Communication • Stressors • Legal status • Family and cultural history Citizen Child Characteristics • Personal roles and expectations • Internal/psychological resources • Gender, age, developmental level • Substance abuse, trauma • Education, language • Legal status Child Outcomes Negative . . . . . . . . . . Positive • Mental, emotional status • Levels of stress • Social/material well-being • Sense of identity, belonging • Academic performance Source: Authors’ compilation. viewed by multiple panelists. The panelists were brought together, by telephone in Mexico and in person in the United States, to discuss the results of their analysis. Their discussions were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed to develop a list of all the issues that citizen children face and the contextual factors that exacerbated or ameliorated their direct and indirect experiences with immigration enforcement. The list originally contained 339 items, which were organized into sixty-one categories, each of which was linked to the interview data by annotating which cases corresponded to a given category. The research team then reviewed and discussed the arrangement of items and specification of categories and revised them accordingly. The list of categories was finalized by consensus and a framework developed to capture the differential effects of immigration enforcement on the well-being of citizen children. The framework was revised and finalized through an iterative team process (see Sobo 2009). R E S U LT S In figure 1, we offer a framework to describe the varied circumstances facing citizen children to conceptualize the range of effects immigration policies have on the well-being of U.S. citizen children. Figure 1 illustrates the interrelationships among five categories that emerged as salient to the perspectives of citizen children: immigration enforcement, the cultural script of silence, the distribution of resources, the mixed-status family niche, and child outcomes. Variations in child outcomes, as experienced and narrated by citizen children, depended strongly on the particular processes and characteristics in place within specific contexts. We begin with a description of the script of silence, followed by an exploration of the ways in which citizen children drew on the cultural script of silence to navigate the various personal, social, and material ecologies that characterized their lives in their efforts to cope with and adapt to situations beyond their control. To contextualize the framework, we present accounts of U.S. citizen children, in their own words. All names are pseudonyms. T H E C U LT U R A L S C R I P T O F S I LE N C E As illustrated in figure 1, the cultural script of silence emerges within a specific context: the enforcement of U.S. immigration policies. Given the potential for an act of immigration enforcement to rupture family ties, most children perceived encounters with immigration enforcement as the worst event that could be- r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:05:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �t he effects of immigr at ion en forcemen t fall a family. Encounters could be indirect— through the potential threat of parental deportation or knowing others who had been deported—or direct—through the arrest, detention, and deportation of a parent. The condition of illegality, which rendered a parent’s deportation possible, created and maintained a context ripe for the development of a cultural script of silence. Nearly every citizen child in our study described the salience of silence within their families. We call this phenomenon the cultural script of silence, referencing a shared script, or code, held among family members that prohibited the discussion of legal status both within and outside the household. The script of silence shaped parents’ interactions with their children and what they told their children about immigration, citizenship, and undocumented status. The script not only guided the ways in which parents and children interacted, but also informed how parents taught or modeled behaviors, and the ways in which parents communicated and provided support. The importance of silence was first learned indirectly. As fiftteen-year-old Tommy, whose father had been detained, explained, “I guess it wasn’t really that I found out [about my parents’ status]. It was more like, like an idea you settle into, and that you think is normal. And like all the fears they have, you start to have, too.” Like Tommy, most participants in our sample stated that their parents rarely discussed the realities associated with being undocumented, though many children referenced an embodied comprehension of their parents’ undocumented status as a result of the various ways in which illegality organized dynamics within the mixed-status family. Children came to know definitively about their parents’ status only through a specific event that forced parents to explain. For example, when one participant, Marianela, was eight years old, she learned that both her parents were undocumented when her father became severely ill. As she recalled the moment, “I told my mom that we should take him to the hospital to see what is going on with him. . . . And that’s when my mom told me that we can’t take him to the hospital. And that’s when I said, ‘He’s sick. We need to take him to the hospital.’ And my mom told me that my dad didn’t have any papers.” 59 Once citizen children learned that their parents were undocumented, they became keenly aware of the ways in which a cultural script of silence delineated family expectations for children’s interactions outside of the home. For example, Tommy explained that his parents provided him with explicit instructions to monitor his behavior in public: “Whenever we were around important people, you know like, those people who deport other people, I have to behave very well.” In other families, citizen children were strongly encouraged to remain silent about their parents’ undocumented status. As nineyear-old Catarina explained, “Because my mom doesn’t want me to tell anyone she says that she could get in trouble if I talk to people about it.” To be sure, participants were aware of the pragmatic necessity for silence to protect their parents from detection by immigration enforcement agencies. For example, fourteenyear-old Jessica recounted a time when her friend’s mother had been deported after being reported to legal authorities: “It happened to my friend. That’s the only reason why her mom went to Mexico. Because her neighbors snitched them out that her mom didn’t have papers. I worry if I tell someone, the same thing is gonna happen as it happened to her.” Despite the pragmatic need for discretion, the script of silence contributed to experiences of powerlessness among citizen children. As Tommy explained, “we can’t really say our mind or protest because we might get taken. We have to, like, stay to the laws a lot more than other people. Because they’ll judge us on our skin and say, ‘Oh, you’re Mexican. Go to your side.’” In its most extreme manifestation, the cultural script of silence could set into motion a series of emotional or family dynamics that negatively affected the well-being of citizen children. The cultural script of silence shaped children’s cognitive and emotional expression, and some participants described conscious efforts to “not think” about their parents’ situation. Maya, nine years old, put it this way: “I really don’t think about that. I just think fun things.” For many participants, the potential for a direct encounter with law enforcement produced considerable fear, worry, and stress. r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:05:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �60 undocumen ted immigr a n ts a nd their ex perience w ith illega lit y For example, Maria, a ten-year-old who lived with her undocumented parents and younger citizen brother, explained, “I have papers, and they don’t. They can’t really go places. They could go to prison.” This awareness led to extreme fear of police officers. When Maria saw a police car near her house, she would run inside, close the curtains, and cry profusely. It was not until the police left the vicinity that Maria would realize her parents were safe, and only then would she come out of hiding. Her fear of law enforcement stemmed from the very real possibility that “maybe one day, they can just take them. And then, me and my little brother would have to go to foster homes. I really don’t want that.” Deliberate efforts to silence thoughts and emotions prevented children from having a space, either with family or friends, to process their fears, anxieties, and worries. The importance of silence within families sometimes acted to weaken supportive bonds between parents and children, and participants reported becoming distrustful of their parents as a result. As eleven-year-old Anthony noted, “They’re lying and all that. Like they knew they did not have papers, but they didn’t tell me.” Surprisingly, silence often continued even after families experienced the worst possible circumstance: the arrest, detention, and deportation of a parent. Children who experienced parental detention or deportation explained that they knew very little about the immigration proceedings that led to the deportation of their parents. For example, Anthony did not understand why his father “went” to Mexico. Although his father had been deported eight months prior to the interview, he reported that he knew “only that my dad was going to Mexico. [My mom] didn’t want to talk about it.” Similarly, for elevenyear-old Ernesto, the events resulting in his father’s deportation were unclear. Ernesto explained that he woke up one day to learn that his father had been “taken” to Mexico. As he described it, “I just woke up and asked mom what happened. And she said they took him back to Mexico. He was somewhere, and they sent him to Mexico. I think he did something bad . . . I don’t know.” Some participants could vividly recall the circumstances surrounding parental deportation because they witnessed directly the arrest and detention of their undocumented parent. For example, Christina was twelve years old when her mother was arrested. According to Christina, who was fourteen at the time of the interview, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrived at Christina’s house early one morning: Like five in the morning. They just came . . . knocking on the door. And like, my mom, she was really scared. And my dad was like, “pack your stuff! And let’s leave.” And [my mom] looked outside the window, and the house was surrounded. It was surrounded by like ICE people. And I heard, like, loud knocking. And like, I just got up . . . and I was like, “what’s going on?” Because there were, like, a lot of people on the porch. Everywhere. I was, like, super scared . . . . And like, they took her. And she gave me the last hug, and um . . . She walked out of the door. And I was like, “You can’t leave us!” [Christina’s voice cracks, and she starts to cry quietly] So . . . me seeing my mom go away, it was very hard for me. Christina recounted how she retreated into herself following her mother’s arrest. As she explained, “I quit my grades, and with, like, everything.” Christina’s eventual healing occurred only after she found a space to vocalize her experience. Still, when Christina reflected on that horrible night, she actively wished that she could erase, not only her mother’s arrest, but also her presence during it: “If I could change anything in my life, I would probably change that. I would wish not to be there whenever they took my mom. I wish I would never see that.” Not a single participant in our study described having a plan in place that would help guide and assist children about what to do in the event that a parent was arrested and detained. In this way, the cultural script of silence seemed to thwart the implementation of emergency plans for children and their families. As a result, participants described intense emotional experiences during the arrest and detention of a parent, and in turn, active efforts to r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:05:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �t he effects of immigr at ion en forcemen t mute the painful memories associated with such experiences. For example, thirteen-yearold Guillermo described the arrest and detention of his father this way: “Like sometimes it comes to my mind, but mostly I don’t think about that. I don’t know. When I’m about to go to sleep, it just comes up.” The middles of the night, when he would wake from nightmares about his father, were some of the bleakest times for Guillermo. It is important that the cultural script of silence was not static or unchanging in its manifestation. The salience of the script, both in guiding family dynamics and the extent to which it affected the well-being of citizen children, depended on the quality of resources available to children and their families. Although the script of silence operated as a kind of mediating force that shaped specific patterns of emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and dynamics within the mixed-status family, the well-being of citizen children was more than the simple presence or absence of a cultural script. Rather, well-being was also shaped by the availability and distribution of and access to social and material resources. DISTRIBUTION OF RESOURCES All of the participants in our study came to feel, experience, and understand the sociopolitical condition of illegality via their encounters with public institutions and broader community settings. Health care, employment, housing, neighborhood violence, and discrimination emerged as salient nodes around which citizen children came to understand the meaning of their parents’ undocumented status, the political and economic constraints associated with lack of citizenship, and their own location within the constellation of discourses surrounding perceptions of individuals deemed illegal. The political and economic consequences of illegality reverberated across families of mixed-status through everyday experiences. Varied assemblages of legal statuses within and across families—citizen, authorized, undocumented—shaped the everyday experiences of citizen children differently, and the distribution of resources was often the driving force behind these differential experiences. As figure 1 illustrates, access 61 to financial, education, extracurricular, mental health, legal, and immigration-related resources often translated to the differences between suffering, on the one hand, and resiliency, on the other. In mixed-status families with one authorized or citizen parent, citizen children described less acute financial and housing struggles. In this way, legal status operated as a definitive resource. Nevertheless, the condition of illegality reverberated across the household even when only one parent was undocumented. In these cases, issues related to the institutional invisibility of the undocumented parent loomed large. For example, Cecilia, the tenyear-old daughter of an undocumented mother and citizen father, recounted that “the school doesn’t know my mom’s name. She can’t sign our paperwork, and they only see my dad.” Her mother’s undocumented status altered the domestic organization of responsibilities within the household, and her father was charged with acting as both mother and father in the public sphere. Among citizen children whose parents were detained, chronic experiences of political and economic marginalization sometimes shaped family decisions to accept deportation. In the case of Jennyfer, a fourteen-year-old who lived with her undocumented grandmother and undocumented mother, her mother became gravely ill. Her mother had been diagnosed with hepatitis C, which Jennyfer thought had been the result of a blood transfusion her mother received during childbirth. The family considered returning to Mexico to enable her mother to receive health care, but soon after this discussion, Jennyfer’s grandmother was arrested and detained. Given the status of the mother’s health, the grandmother accepted deportation so that the mother could receive the care she needed in Mexico. Although Jennyfer felt “sad” to leave the United States, she noted, “I would prefer that we moved here so that my mother could get better rather than stay there and watch her get worse.” For Jennyfer and her family, barriers to accessing health care influenced the conditions under which they would “accept” deportation. In the end, Jennifyer decided that she would do whatever it would take to stay close to her mother. r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:05:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �62 undocumen ted immigr a n ts a nd their ex perience w ith illega lit y Many participants who relocated to Mexico to reunite with their deported parents described how they initially missed the conveniences and material abundance associated with life in the United States, such as shopping at big box stores. However, these experiences gave way to more profound sensations of loss about their potential futures and resources. As twelve-year-old Clarissa explained, “If I stay here [in Mexico] I won’t have the chance to have any kind of future.” Participants described Mexico as a place with limited educational and employment opportunity. Twelveyear- old Luciana narrated a particularly difficult adjustment to the school setting in Mexico. She described repeatedly asking for help in her studies, but her teachers did not respond to her requests. They would tell her they were “too bored” by her questions. As a result, she lost any desire to do well in school: “I see that my grades have dropped a lot because I’m like, why would I try if no matter what I do, the teachers aren’t even going to notice?” Cases such as these reveal the various ways in which access to resources might have contributed to different outcomes for children in our study. Although legal status excluded many families from accessing resources, such as safe employment and healthcare, key players within institutional and family settings figured prominently in facilitating participants’ access to what limited resources were available. For example, soon after the arrest and detention of Christina’s mother, described above, her father was detained and deported. Although her mother was eventually released, Christina and her siblings experienced major disruptions in terms of housing and access to material resources. Desolate, Christina broke the script of silence and reached out to her school counselor: “I told my counselor that we really needed help ’cause, like, it was more than ten people living at my aunt’s house. And she didn’t have enough money for us. So [my counselor] got most of the teachers, they donated food and clothes. I remember coming home from school with a lot of bags full of like food and diapers and other stuff.” For Christina and members of her family, the school staff provided material resources needed to sustain family life. Moreover, the counselor created a supportive environment for Christina to process her emotional reactions to her father’s deportation. For other citizen children, extended kin emerged as key brokers to accessing resources. Karla, twelve years old, described the significance of extended kin in shaping her experience of reuniting with her family in Mexico following her father’s deportation. Her grandfather helped ease the transition economically by providing Karla’s family with a house in Mexico and giving her father a job working in his painting business. On occasion, Karla’s grandfather would supplement the family’s income when they needed the extra money. With this additional money, Karla was able to maintain her involvement in sports, which helped to provide continuity between her former life in the United States and her new life in Mexico. Karla had participated in club boxing in the United States and was able to join a boxing gym in Mexico. During the interview, Karla noted excitedly that she was anticipating her first boxing match. She had been training for “a long, long time. They put me up against a ninth grader, and I am barely in sixth grade. But she’s tiny! And I’ve been training for this . . . for the day that I’ll fight.” The cases of Christina and Karla reveal how access to resources was shaped by relationships between citizen children and other individuals within their social network. In this way, social support functioned as a critical resource, particularly when trusted family and friends constructed a space to dismantle the cultural script of silence. Fourteen-year-old Elena, for example, described how she became withdrawn and uncommunicative on learning that her father had been detained. In response, her mother reached out to her and enrolled her in dance class to provide an outlet for her “frustration.” In this way, Elena’s mother provided support by finding a space in which Elena could process her emotions. In addition to family, trusted peers operated as a strong system of social support, buffering against the trauma associated with immigration enforcement by breaching the script of silence. Elena described school as a kind of second family: “We all know each other. We’ve been knowing r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:05:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �t he effects of immigr at ion en forcemen t each other since fifth grade. So we already have really strong connections because we’ve been growing and our school, they’re like, team and family. So all of us are like our family.” Close friendships at school created spaces of perceived safety in which citizen children could divulge their worst fears, worries, and anxieties. As Elena noted, There is this girl. She is my best friend, and we have known each other since the second grade. And I know that her parents don’t have any papers too, so I mostly tell her everything about my life. Because, um, she told me everything about her life, and how she feels scared that she could lose her parents if they are ever sent to Mexico. So we tell each other everything, and we try to help each other out. School enabled citizen children like Elena to foster relationships based on their shared experiences. Moreover, the school administration facilitated classroom curricula designed to break the script of silence and raise awareness about immigration: See, in our school, like in our history class they teach us about different topics and one of the topics has been, um, immigration. We can connect a lot to that since our school is 99.9 percent Hispanics. We already know most of the things so sometimes, like sometimes, it’s an emotional class where we stay strong. So, it’s kind of good to know something else that could help you. Unfortunately, Elena’s experience was rare. Her story reveals the ways in which her links to institutional resources and supportive relationships contributed to her well-being during her father’s detention. Yet, the constellation of individual and family characteristics within her mixed-status family niche also facilitated positive outcomes as well. For example, Elena’s parents had divorced many years before her father was detained. Although her family often spent time together in activities that included both her parents, such as family dinner, Elena did not live with her father. This is not to say that the detention of Elena’s father was no less 63 distressing to her, but rather that her wellbeing was shaped by the complex interaction of various factors, including those within the mixed-status family niche. T H E M I X E D - S TAT U S FA M I LY N I C H E Figure 1 illustrates the elements that make up the micro-setting of daily life in mixed-status families, or the mixed-status family niche. The niche represents the dynamic interplay between characteristics and behaviors at the individual and family level. Parent characteristics and family cohesion were cited as key to the capacity for the family to act as a system of social support and foster well-being. Participants noted that their well-being was deeply tied to their parents’ vulnerabilities and strengths, and thus that parental well-being held the potential to be a source of comfort or of stress for citizen children. Among participants, family histories of substance abuse or trauma were perceived as particularly stressful, capable of exacerbating the negative effects of immigration enforcement experiences. For example, Marisa, a thirteen-year-old who had reunited with her parents in Mexico after their deportation, noted that her father’s history of substance abuse overshadowed her own adjustment to living in a new environment. Marisa had hoped that in reuniting with her parents in Mexico she would recover the parental love and support that she needed and desired. Yet, her relationship with her father was strained, and she described him as distant and uncommunicative. As she explained, “With my father taking drugs, he can’t work and he spends a lot [on drugs]. And my mom has to work to be able to keep up the house. He has promised us so many times, he has sworn to us, that he is going to quit, but he never does. Sometimes he just spends the day in the house sleeping.” In reuniting with her family in Mexico, Marisa was forced to renegotiate her expectations for parental care. Her father’s substance abuse affected his capacity to act as an engaged father and family member, but also produced financial strain. In turn, Marissa’s mother worked extended hours and was rarely home. Marissa noted that the family did not agree about the reorganization of family life in Mex- r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:05:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �64 undocumen ted immigr a n ts a nd their ex perience w ith illega lit y ico, which generated significant family conflict. In contrast, personal strengths were perceived as diminishing the negative effects or stressors that stemmed from immigration enforcement. For example, Marco, a fourteenyear-old boy, described the importance of a strong work ethic, which was instilled in him by his father. He noted that his father “wants to teach me how to work so I can get our family a better future. I work. I find anything I can do. I help my mom.” Marco’s narrative reflected the way in which he was becoming socialized to become the patriarch of the family, a process that had been accelerated by the fact that his father was facing deportation. Marco sometimes struggled with his newfound responsibilities but nevertheless accepted them. He explained: I don’t really have my childhood anymore. I don’t get to play around anymore. I always have to be there. I have to be strong for my brothers. I guess I miss when I was smaller and everything being so innocent for me. The world just being there as a playground for me. A place for me to have fun. Now it’s kind of more like a . . . How would you call it? Um . . . obstacle ground. With obstacles. Obstacles I have to go through. I don’t like it, but there’s nothing I can do to take it off of me. I have to be there. It’s my responsibility, and I have to hold it up, and I have to be there. For Marco, like many citizen children, age and gender shaped the ways that parents organized household roles and responsibilities. The effects of immigration policies and practices often made it difficult for families to build consistent routines for children, which frequently resulted in confusion or resentment about their roles and responsibilities within the household. This was particularly the case among older girls who reunited with their families in Mexico. For example, in the case of fifteen-year-old Melina, she felt that the task of sibling and domestic care detracted from her personal motivation to focus on her education. Both her parents were required to work long hours outside of the household, and they charged Melina with caring for the household. As she explained, “[In the United States], I didn’t have to clean, or work in the kitchen, or anything. It was pure studying because that is what I spent my time doing. But here, no, here it is different. Here, you spend all your time cleaning the house, taking care of your siblings. Now it’s no longer about studying.” Reflecting on the change in routines in Mexico, Melina noted that she felt resentful toward her new responsibilities in the household. She said that she often took it out on her younger siblings by ignoring them. As her case illustrates, the ways that participants interpreted sudden changes in their routines and responsibilities could produce resentment, frustration, and angst, particularly when new household practices were perceived as thwarting their individual expectations and needs. In contrast, older boys and younger girls in our sample sometimes embraced the opportunity to contribute to the household. Thus, consensus among family members regarding the gendered and age-based organization of household responsibilities contributed to supportive interactions, whereas conflict between personal and family expectations could lead to tension. Individual characteristics and behaviors of children and parents were perceived as shaping the quality of family dynamics, yet many participants were cognizant of the ways in which family dynamics were singularly constrained by the broader political economy of U.S. immigration policy. This recognition led numerous citizen children to declare, “Things would be better in my family if only my parents had papers.” C H I LD O U TC O M E S Figure 1 illustrates how, within the context of the political economy of U.S. immigration policy and encounters with enforcement agencies, the distribution of resources, the arrangement of factors in the mixed-status family niche, and the cultural script of silence interact to shape outcomes for citizen children. A range of effects on well-being is suggested, from negative to positive in terms of social and material wellbeing, the mental and emotional status of chil- r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:05:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �t he effects of immigr at ion en forcemen t dren, levels of stress, sense of identity and belonging, and academic performance. In this regard, an important theme in our research is that no single and definitive profile encapsulates the experiences of citizen children in mixed-status families. As illustrated in figure 1, the effects of immigration encounters on the well-being of citizen children depend heavily on many factors, reflecting the combined and continued effects associated with the political economy of U.S. immigration policy, the resources available to children and their families, the organization of the mixed-status family niche, and the cultural scripts that individuals draw on to navigate daily life. Across participants, well-being was experienced differently depending on family circumstances. Without legal status, wage earners were subject to the realities of participating in an unskilled and informal labor market. As a result, most youth hoped their parents could get papers one day so that they would be able to find more satisfying—and better paying— work. As Jose, thirteen years old, noted, if his parents had papers, “they could be here and be comfortable. I just know that my dad says that he wants the papers because he wants a better job.” Additionally, some participants described confusion about their national, ethnic, and legal identities. Having an undocumented parent imposed boundaries of exclusion within school and community settings, even among those who had never experienced parental deportation. For example, twelve-year-old Anna recalled, “a lot of people are very racist at my school. And a lot of them say, ‘Go back where you came from.’” Experiences of discrimination had a disempowering effect on children’s understandings of their social location within these broader settings. As fourteen-year-old David explained, “I don’t feel like other kids in school. I feel kind of like an outlaw.” For youth who experienced parental deportation, some participants described not knowing where they belonged. Ten-year-old Daniel, who accompanied his deported father to Mexico, described “being between two worlds. I have family here and family over there, in both places. I’m like in the middle of Mexico and the U.S.” 65 The potential threats to well-being could bring heightened stress and emotional and mental distress. Fear and worries about their parents’ status, or experiences of parental deportation, made it difficult for youth to engage actively in daily life. One eleven year old, Emma, recounted that every time she left her mother’s side, even at school, she became increasingly nervous that something would happen to her mother and she would not be nearby to help: “It’s just worrying. Like [if I] leave her side. Like not be there to support her.” In another case, Manny, who was fourteen years old, began to experience intense headaches and nausea when his father was deported to Mexico. At the time, he was living with his mother, a U.S. citizen, and younger brother. As he described the experience, “It was nerves. Pure nerves. I was scared that something would happen to my mom. Like, someone would hurt her or kidnap her, or something like that, because my dad wasn’t there.” As time passed, his symptoms worsened, and he began to vomit at school, almost daily. In response, the school sent him home because, as he said, “I couldn’t be without my mom. It scared me.” Finally, his mother took him to a psychologist, who recommended that the family reunite for Manny’s emotional well-being. The family heeded the psychologist’s advice and moved to Mexico to rejoin Manny’s father, whereupon Manny’s symptoms disappeared. In our sample, Manny was not alone in his experience of intense distress. Nearly 30 percent of participants in the study described symptoms often associated with anxiety and depression, including intense bouts of crying, loss of interest in activities, difficulties sleeping, loss of appetite, feelings of fear, and suicidal thoughts. Although intense suffering was experienced across our sample, citizen children who were in the midst of parental deportation processes reported suffering more frequently than children in other groups. Among children who accompanied their deported parents to Mexico, the majority described difficulties adjusting to the different ecocultural environment, and these difficulties could be experienced more intensely depending on the constellation of factors outlined in figure 1. r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:05:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �66 undocumen ted immigr a n ts a nd their ex perience w ith illega lit y Such experiences were not universal, however, as described in many of the cases, and some citizen children exhibited extraordinary resilience in the face of the many adversities they confronted. Unfortunately, narratives of well-being were described with less frequency across all groups. This was especially so among citizen children experiencing parental separation due to detention and deportation at the time of the interview: no child in this group reported doing well. In comparison, only seven citizen children whose parents had never been deported and only six who accompanied their parents to Mexico described feeling safe, emotionally secure, and socially connected. Among these children, access to resources to nurture well-being appeared to be a key leverage point in shaping how participants were able to manage their everyday lives. The most fundamental resource, at least from the perspective of citizen children across groups, was family cohesion. As Karla eloquently described it after her family reunification in Mexico, Really, I am happy there [in the United States], and I am happy here [in Mexico]. I am happy as long as I have my parents with me. If I am separated from one of them, I don’t know what to do. It hurts. I can’t be as happy as I would if I lived with both of them. I have always lived with both of them. DISCUSSION In this paper, we describe a framework for conceptualizing the effects of immigration enforcement on the well-being of citizen children living with their undocumented Mexican parents. The framework illustrates the complex multidimensional, and often multidirectional, factors citizen children vulnerable to or directly facing parental deportation experience. Our findings suggest that the everyday realities facing citizen children—and the ways in which these realities shape well-being—cannot be reduced to simple explanations. Thus, we situate youth well-being against a backdrop of multiple factors to understand how indirect and direct encounters with immigration enforcement, the mixed-status family niche, and access to resources shape differential child outcomes. Participants in our study described wellbeing in terms of a dynamic relationship between personal qualities and the social context surrounding them. In this configuration, the presence or absence of parents emerged as a significant theme. Forced family separations were perceived to be the worst stressor facing participants in our sample. Among citizen children without experiences of parental deportation, the potential for a forced separation was never far from their minds. Indeed, the “deportability” of their parents was described overwhelmingly as a major cause for emotional distress (De Genova 2002). For citizen children facing parental deportation, families were forced to confront whether they should separate so that children could remain in their citizen country or relocate to Mexico to keep the family together. In deciding, citizen children had to evaluate the potential emotional, social, and material costs, and brace themselves for the aftermath. The adverse circumstances citizen children faced were not limited to forced family separations and reflected the broader consequences associated with the political economy of U.S. immigration policy. Participants described the varied financial and emotional costs associated with illegality, supporting research that describes the ways in which citizen children suffer the consequences of their parents’ undocumented status (Chavez et al. 1997; Guendelman et al. 2006; Kersey, Geppert, and Cutts 2007; Perreira and Ornelas 2011). Our results reveal how the personal strengths of parents and children had the potential to shield children from the negative effects of stressors that stemmed from indirect and direct encounters with immigration enforcement. Strengths were often entwined with the availability of resources that could enhance well-being. Access to financial, educational, extracurricular, mental health, legal, and immigration-related resources buttressed individual strengths and buffered against traumatic experiences related to immigration enforcement and forced family separations. Extended kin and individuals in school and religious institutions emerged as supportive networks that facilitated access to those resources that were important to well-being. Social connection, however, was not without its r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:05:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �t he effects of immigr at ion en forcemen t risks.1 A strong social network was key to the facilitation of well-being among citizen children, but its loss could exacerbate the emotional costs of relocation to Mexico after parental deportation. In our findings, we point to the cultural script of silence as an additional risk factor that is unique to the experience of mixedstatus families. The presence and pragmatics of cultural silence have been well documented among families and communities of undocumented individuals (De Genova 2002, 2009; Fassin 2001; Menjívar and Kanstroom, 2014). Yet, as Joanna Dreby convincingly argues, U.S. immigration policies have “a profound impact on children in Mexican families regardless of the parents’ or children’s legal status or the family’s actual involvement with the Department of Homeland Security” (2012, 843). The consequences of illegality, and the cultural logics of silence, extend beyond the boundaries of legal status to affect the lives of citizen children as well (Zayas 2015; Zayas and Bradlee 2015), and our findings point to the different ways in which silence operates. Although all participants knew that their parents were undocumented, the cultural script of silence manifested through other processes that encouraged youth to be silent about their experiences of suffering with kin, their peers, and even themselves.2 Arguably, silencing not only leads to emotional and mental distress, but also fractures citizen children’s understanding of their place in the world (Fivush 2010). Without a community to safely break the code of silence, citizen children—and their undocumented peers—must risk the potential integrity of their families should they choose to voice their experiences. It is for this reason that any resistance to the cultural script of silence will be found in the most closed, trusted, and intimate spaces. The experiences of immigrant families will remain, for the most part, hidden, camouflaged, and unspoken. Continued re- 67 search on the effects of silence on well-being is warranted, especially comparative research that examines the differential experiences of citizen children and the spectrums of silence. The categories and factors illustrated in figure 1 are derived from a rigorous approach to qualitative data analysis. Nevertheless, additional research is warranted to test our model and to determine the extent to which certain factors affect citizen children in immigrant families of different national origin. Additionally, we did not examine the unique circumstances of children living with psychiatric, cognitive, or developmental disability. Living with disability poses unique opportunities and challenges for families, which might distinguish their experiences as citizen children living in mixed-status families (Farrell and Krahn 2014). Research is still needed that examines the intersections of disability and legal status. Our framework opens the door for a critical discussion of the different factors that affect citizen children, and it is our hope that subsequent revisions are made to the framework based on the results of additional research. Of particular importance is the need to investigate how resources available in citizen children’s local environment shape the degree to which cultural scripts, such as the script for silence, and individual coping mechanisms become helpful or harmful. Our findings provide opportunities to influence immigration enforcement policies and practices. Experiences of family cohesion and dissolution hold particular relevance for this population, signifying potential avenues to reorganize programs and policies to enhance the well-being of citizen children. For example, the significance of the theme of family separation suggests the need to reconsider detention procedures that thwart family togetherness. Current practices that detain parents in locations that are geographically distant from family households pose serious risks to the emotional 1. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for the suggestion regarding this point. 2. Our participants were aware of their parents’ legal status, and this distinguishes our results from other research that reveals that many children, especially those who are undocumented, remain unaware of their families’ legal status until they attend college (Gonzales 2011). This points to the diversity of experiences within immigrant families, both in terms of how children become aware of legal status differences and the experiences that such knowledge engenders. r sf: t he russell sage f ou n dat ion jou r na l of t he so ci a l sciences This content downloaded from 129.210.115.230 on Fri, 04 Mar 2022 02:05:16 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms �68 undocumen ted immigr a n ts a nd their ex perience w ith illega lit y well-being of citizen children (Zayas 2015). In the end, our results point to many resources that were perceived as mattering most. It is our hope, in offering a comprehensive account of the effects of immigration enforcement, that the framework can be used to modify leverage points that offer the potential for change in micro and macro settings in ways that appreciate the diversity of citizen children’s experiences. Farrell, Anne F., and Gloria L. 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Title A name given to the resource Exploring the Effects of U.S. Immigration Enforcement on the Well-being of Citizen Children in Mexican Immigrant Families Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gulbas, Lauren, E Zayas, Luis, H Subject The topic of the resource Mexican Immigration Health and Well-Being Immigration Enforcement Description An account of the resource In this article, we draw on ecocultural theories of risk and resilience to examine qualitatively the experiences of U.S. citizen children living with their undocumented Mexican parents. Our purpose is to render visible the various ways in which citizen children confront and navigate the possibilities—and realities—of parental deportation. We develop a framework to conceptualize the complex multidimensional, and often multidirectional, factors experienced by citizen children vulnerable to or directly facing parental deportation. We situate youth well-being against a backdrop of multiple factors to understand how indirect and direct encounters with immigration enforcement, the mixed-status family niche, and access to resources shape differential child outcomes. In doing so, we offer insights into how different factors potentially contribute to resilience in the face of adversity. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017–7 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Journal Article Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7758/rsf.2017.3.4.04 Language A language of the resource English Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Immigration Act of 1917 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States Government Subject The topic of the resource Immigration Law Legal Documents Description An account of the resource Presents the text of the Immigration Act of 1917, which regulated immigration of aliens to the United States. Definitions used in the Act; Prohibitions settled upon those seeking admittance; Prohibitions against indentured service. 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