U.S. Border Enforcement and Mexican Immigrant Location Choice

• Published in: Demography Vol. 52; no. 5; pp. 1543 - 1571
• Main Authors: Bohn, Sarah, Pugatch, Todd
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer 01.10.2015; Springer US; Duke University Press, NC & IL
• Subjects: Allocations; Border patrol; Border security; Border stations; Demography; Economic statistics; Enforcement; Geography; Humans; Hypotheses; Immigrants; IMMIGRANTS AND MIGRATION; Immigration; Immigration policy; Labor market; Land settlement; Law Enforcement; Medicine/Public Health; Mexican Americans; Mexico; Migrants; Migration; National security; Noncitizens; Population Economics; Public policy; Security; Social Sciences; Sociology; Southwestern United States; Spatial analysis; Spatial discrimination; Spatial distribution; Undocumented Immigrants - legislation & jurisprudence; Undocumented Immigrants - statistics & numerical data; United States; United States; Mexico; Southwestern United States; United States > US; Texas; California; ASW, USA, Texas; INE, USA, California; Border enforcement; Mexico; Unauthorized immigration; Residential location choice
• DOI: 10.1007/s13524-015-0416-z
• ISSN: 0070-3370

We provide the first evidence on the causal effect of border enforcement on the full spatial distribution of Mexican immigrants to the United States. We address the endogeneity of border enforcement with an instrumental variables strategy based on administrative delays in budgetary allocations for border security. We find that 1,000 additional Border Patrol officers assigned to prevent unauthorized migrants from entering a U.S. state decreases that state's share of Mexican immigrants by 21.9 %. Our estimates imply that if border enforcement had not changed from 1994 to 2011, the shares of Mexican immigrants locating in California and Texas would each be 8 percentage points greater, with all other states' shares lower or unchanged.