Search

We examine how firms adjust their labor demand to immigration policy changes resulting from intensified interior immigration enforcement. Using the temporal and geographic variation in the adoption of such policies as a source of identification, we find that firms boost their demand for low-skilled foreign-born labor under the H-2B visa program as enforcement intensifies. Furthermore, firms' increased demand for guest workers is inversely related to natives' employment in occupations where most H-2B workers are hired; however, it does not seem to alter natives' wages or work hours, nor does it seem to redistribute native labor away from those occupations.

With the COVID-19 outbreak imposing stay at home and social distancing policies, warnings about the impact of lockdown and its economic consequences on domestic violence have surged. This paper disentangles the effect of forced cohabitation and economic stress on intimate partner violence. Using an online survey data set, we find a 23% increase of intimate partner violence during the lockdown. Our results indicate that the impact of economic consequences is twice as large as the impact of lockdown. We also find large but statistically imprecise estimates of a large increase of domestic violence when the relative position of the man worsens, especially in contexts where that position was already being threatened. We view our results as consistent with the male backlash and emotional cue effects.

Using the 2005–2014 waves of the American Community Survey –a period characterized by the rapid expansion of interior immigration enforcement initiatives across the United States, we evaluate the impact of a tougher policy environment on undocumented immigrants’ fertility. We find that a one standard deviation increases in enforcement lowers childbearing among likely undocumented women by 5%. The effect stems from police-based measures linked to increased deportations, which may raise uncertainty about the future of the family unit and its resources.

Domestic violence is a serious under-reported crime in the United States, especially among immigrant women. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was an attempt to partially address this problem by allowing battered immigrants to petition for legal status without relying on the sponsorship of an abusive U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident spouse. The tougher immigration policy climate may have made immigrant women more vulnerable to domestic violence, as well as more reluctant to report domestic violence to law enforcement. Sanctuary policies, which limit local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities, may counteract these effects. After exploiting the temporal and geographic variation in the adoption of interior immigration enforcement and sanctuary policies, we can successfully identify the impact of sanctuary policies, which help boost the rate of VAWA self-petitions. Additionally, we provide suggestive evidence of the channel through which this impact is likely taking place—namely through victims’ increased willingness to report cases and leave their abusers. Understanding survivors’ responses to immigration policy is crucial given growing police mistrust and immigrants’ vulnerability to crime.

Over the past two decades immigration enforcement has grown exponentially in the United States. Using data from the 2005 through 2011 American Community Survey, we exploit the geographical and temporal variation in a novel index of the intensity of immigration enforcement to show how the average yearly increase in interior immigration enforcement over that period raised the likelihood of living in poverty of households with U.S. born children by 4%. The effect is robust to a number of identification tests accounting for the potential endogeneity of enforcement policies and residential location of immigrants, and is primarily driven by police-based immigration enforcement measures adopted at the local level, such as 287(g) agreements.

Tougher immigration enforcement was responsible for 1.8 million deportations between 2009 and 2013 alone--many of them were fathers of American children. We exploit the geographic and temporal variation in the escalation of interior immigration enforcement to assess its impact on the structure of families to which many of the deported fathers of U.S.-born children belonged. We find that the average increase in immigration enforcement during the 2005 to 2015 period has raised by 19 percent the likelihood that Hispanic U.S.-born children might live without their parents in households headed by naturalized relatives or friends unthreatened by deportation. Likewise, the same increase in immigration enforcement has raised by 20 percent these children's propensity to live with likely undocumented mothers who report their spouses as being absent--a reasonable finding given that most children with a likely undocumented father have undocumented mothers. Given the negative consequences of being raised by a single parent or without parents, plus the parallel increase in interior immigration enforcement, gaining a better understanding of the collateral damage of heightened enforcement on the families to which these children belong is well warranted.

Tougher immigration enforcement was responsible for 1.8 million deportations between 2009 and 2013 alone--many of them were fathers of American children. We exploit the geographic and temporal variation in the escalation of interior immigration enforcement to assess its impact on the structure of families to which many of the deported fathers of U.S.-born children belonged. We find that the average increase in immigration enforcement during the 2005 to 2015 period has raised by 19 percent the likelihood that Hispanic U.S.-born children might live without their parents in households headed by naturalized relatives or friends unthreatened by deportation. Likewise, the same increase in immigration enforcement has raised by 20 percent these children's propensity to live with likely undocumented mothers who report their spouses as being absent--a reasonable finding given that most children with a likely undocumented father have undocumented mothers. Given the negative consequences of being raised by a single parent or without parents, plus the parallel increase in interior immigration enforcement, gaining a better understanding of the collateral damage of heightened enforcement on the families to which these children belong is well warranted.

Over the last years several states have enacted policies granting undocumented immigrants access to driver's licenses. We exploit the state and temporal variation in the issuing of state driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants to estimate their impact on labor market outcomes. Using 2005 through 2017 data from the American Community Survey, we show that likely undocumented men increase their weekly hours of work in response to the availability of driver's licenses. Perhaps due to their already high labor force participation, the impact is somewhat moderate. We also find no similar impacts among similarly skilled foreign-born Hispanic men who have naturalized. The policy slightly raises commuting time, suggesting changes in work patterns, as well as likely undocumented immigrants’ propensity to have an occupation that requires driving. At a time when anti-immigrant sentiments are at an all-time high, understanding how these policies impact targeted groups and similarly skilled citizens is crucial for maintaining an informed immigration policy debate.

Tougher immigration enforcement has been responsible for approximately 1.8 million deportations between 2009 and 2013 alone. Children enter the foster care system when their parents are apprehended, deported, and unable to care for them. We find that the average increase in interior immigration enforcement over the 2001 through 2015 period contributed to raising the share of Hispanic children entering foster care between 15 and 21 percent. Given the revival of police-based immigration enforcement by President Donald Trump, further analyses of its consequences on families are well warranted.

Tougher immigration enforcement has been responsible for 1.8 million deportations between 2009 and 2013 alone, most of them involving fathers and heads of household. We exploit the geographic and temporal variation in intensified enforcement to gauge its impact on children’s propensity to live without their parents in households headed by relatives or friends, or in households singly headed by their mothers with absentee spouses. Given the emotional, cognitive and long run socioeconomic costs of being raised without parents or in a single-headed household, gaining a better understanding of the collateral damage of heightened enforcement on the families to which these children belong is well warranted.

A computer system based on Monte-Carlo simulation and fuzzy logic has been designed, developed and tested to: (i) identify covariates that influence remittances received in a specific country and (ii) explain their behavior throughout the time span involved. The resulting remittance model was designed theoretically, identifying the variables which determined remittances and their dependence relationships, and then developed into a computer cluster. This model aims to be global and is useful for assessing the long term evolution of remittances in scenarios where a rich country is the host (United States of America) while a poor country is the where the migrant is from (El Salvador). By changing the socio-economic characteristics of the countries involved, experts can analyze new socio-economic frameworks to obtain useful conclusions for decision-making processes involving development and sustainability.