wages & immigration

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Fri Sep 10 09:10:32 PDT 1999


"Does Border Enforcement Protect U.S. Workers from Illegal

Immigration?"

BY: GORDON H. HANSON

University of Michigan

Department of Economics

University of Texas

RAYMOND ROBERTSON

Syracuse University

Department of Economics

ANTONIO SPILIMBERGO

International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Research Department

Paper ID: NBER Working Paper No. 7054

Date: March 1999

Contact: GORDON H. HANSON

Email: Mailto:gohanson at umich.edu

Postal: University of Michigan

Department of Economics

611 S. Tappan

Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA

Phone: (734)764-2355

Fax: (734)764-2769

Co-Auth: RAYMOND ROBERTSON

Email: Mailto:rarobert at syr.edu

Postal: Syracuse University

Department of Economics

Syracuse, NY 13244 U.S.A.

Co-Auth: ANTONIO SPILIMBERGO

Email: Mailto:aspilimbergo at imf.org

Postal: International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Research Department

700 19th Street NW

Washington, DC 20431 USA

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ABSTRACT:

In this paper, we examine the impact of government enforcement

of the U.S.-Mexican border on wages in the border regions of the

United States and Mexico. The U.S. Border Patrol polices U.S.

boundaries, seeking to apprehend any individual attempting to

enter the United States illegally. These efforts are

concentrated on the Mexican border, as most illegal immigrants

embark from a Mexican border city and choose a U.S. border state

as their final destination. We examine labor markets in southern

California, southwestern Texas, and Mexican cities on the

U.S.-Mexico border. For each region, we have high-frequency

time-series data on wages and on the number of person hours that

the U.S. Border Patrol spends policing border areas. For a range

of empirical specifications and definitions of regional labor

markets, we find little impact of border enforcement on wages in

U.S. border cities and a moderate negative impact of border

enforcement on wages in Mexican border cities. These findings

are consistent with two hypotheses: (1) border enforcement has a

minimal impact on illegal immigration, or (2) immigration from

Mexico has a minimal impact on wages in U.S. border cities.

JEL Classification: D20, F10



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