Analysis highlights the roles of labor market conditions and violent crime in Mexican migration, suggesting state-level policy has limited impact.
Abstract The discourse on undocumented immigration to the United States often centers on place-based policies, such as those that create "sanctuary" on the one hand, or that promote "self-deportation" on the other. How much do these policies actually affect migration patterns? This paper uses administrative data on likely undocumented Mexican immigrants to estimate the impact of state-level immigration policy on location decisions and compare this to the role of labor market characteristics and violence. Using a fixed effects model that accounts for Mexican state to US state networks, I do not find evidence that state-level policy drives immigration patterns and instead labor market conditions and violent crime explain Mexican migration across US states. JEL Codes: J11, R23, F22
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Dana Smith (2025) studied this question.
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