Search Results
Working Paper
The Impacts of Unauthorized Immigration on U.S. Labor and Housing Markets: New Evidence from Administrative Microdata
From early 2021 to early 2024, the U.S. experienced an unprecedented boom in unauthorized immigration, followed by a rapid slowdown beginning in mid-2024. We provide the first systematic empirical assessment of the labor- and housing-market effects of this episode. Using newly available administrative microdata on individual immigrants, we construct measures of net unauthorized immigration at the national and local levels and exploit plausibly exogenous variation across local markets. We find that unauthorized immigrant worker flows (UIWF) increased local employment approximately one-for-one, ...
Break-even employment declines as unauthorized immigration outflows continue
For policymakers, interpreting labor market conditions increasingly requires looking beyond headline payroll growth and incorporating timely measures of immigration and labor supply.
Working Paper
Unauthorized Immigration and Fiscal Competition
Reflecting upon recent enforcement policy activism of US states and countries within the EU towards unauthorized workers, we examine the overlap of centralized (federal) and decentralized (state or regional) enforcement of immigration policies in a spatial context. Among other results, we find that if interstate mobility is costless, internal enforcement is overprovided, and border enforcement and local goods are underprovided when regions take more responsibility in deciding policies. This leads to higher levels of unauthorized immigration under decentralization. Interregional migration ...
Working Paper
The impact of temporary protected status on immigrants’ labor market outcomes
The United States currently provides Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to more than 300,000 immigrants from selected countries. TPS is typically granted if dangerous conditions prevail in the home country due to armed conflict or a natural disaster. Individuals with TPS cannot be deported and are allowed to stay and work in the United States temporarily. Despite the increased use of TPS in recent years, little is known about how TPS affects labor market outcomes for beneficiaries, most of whom are unauthorized prior to receiving TPS. This study examines how migrants from El Salvador who are ...
COVID-19 and Unauthorized Immigration at the Southwest Border
A drop in U.S. enforcement encounters in the spring suggested the pandemic temporarily slowed unauthorized entry attempts, but such encounters have risen in recent months.
Journal Article
Unauthorized Immigration Effects on Local Labor Markets
The large increase and subsequent decline of unauthorized immigrant workers in recent years have raised questions about the impact of these changes on local labor markets across the United States. New analysis linking immigration data with employment data for specific areas suggests that the rapid rise in unauthorized immigrant worker flows increased local employment roughly one-for-one. Extending the analysis to the industry level further suggests that the slowdown of net immigration had a large negative impact on local employment, particularly for construction and manufacturing.
Working Paper
How do e-verify mandates affect unauthorized immigrant workers?
A number of states have adopted laws that require employers to use the federal government?s E-Verify program to check workers? eligibility to work legally in the United States. Using data from the Current Population Survey, this study examines whether such laws affect labor market outcomes among Mexican immigrants who are likely to be unauthorized. We find evidence that E-Verify mandates reduce average hourly earnings among likely unauthorized male Mexican immigrants while increasing labor force participation and employment among likely unauthorized female Mexican immigrants. In contrast, the ...
Working Paper
Labor Market Effects of Worker- and Employer-Targeted Immigration Enforcement
Hiring someone who is not authorized to work in the United States is illegal, and employers who knowingly hire unauthorized immigrant workers may face civil and criminal penalties. The federal government uses a variety of actions, including worksite raids and paperwork audits, to enforce the prohibition on hiring unauthorized workers. Compliance costs and the possibility of becoming the target of an immigration enforcement action may affect U.S. businesses’ decisions about whom to hire as well as how many workers to employ and how much to pay them, but little previous research has studied ...
Working Paper
Can Creating Legal Pathways Reduce Unauthorized Immigration? Evidence from the CHNV Parole Program
In an attempt to reduce unauthorized entries into the United States, the Biden administration created humanitarian parole programs for migrants from several countries experiencing crises. Migrants with a U.S. sponsor could apply from abroad and, if approved, were allowed to enter the country and remain for up to two years. Under the CHNV program, over 530,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela were paroled into the U.S. between late 2022 and mid-2024. Synthetic difference-in-differences models indicate a sustained drop in unauthorized attempted crossings between ports of entry ...
Recent Trends in Unauthorized Crossing Attempts at the Southwestern U.S. Border
An analysis compares the level of unauthorized border crossing attempts by different source nations before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.