The Labor Market Effects of Immigration Enforcement

Chloe East, Philip Luck (), Hani Mansour () and Andrea Velasquez
Additional contact information
Philip Luck: University of Colorado Denver

No 11486, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper examines the effects of reducing the supply of low-skilled immigrant workers on the labor market outcomes of domestic workers. We use temporal and geographic variation in the introduction of Secure Communities (SC), a county-based immigration enforcement policy, combined with data over 2005-2014 from the American Community Survey to estimate a difference-in-difference model with geographic and time fixed effects. We find evidence that SC had a negative impact on the employment of low-skilled non-citizen workers, who are likely to be directly affected by the policy. Importantly, we also find that SC negatively impacted the employment of citizens working in middle to high-skill occupations. This is the first paper to provide quasi-experimental evidence on the labor market effects of immigration enforcement policies on citizens across the occupational skill distribution, which is of paramount importance given the current immigration policy debates.

Keywords: immigration policy; international migration; labor demand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J11 J23 K37 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 52 pages
Date: 2018-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int, nep-lab, nep-mig and nep-ure
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

Published - published in: Journal of Labor Economics, 2023, 41 (4), 957–996

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Labor Market Effects of Immigration Enforcement (2023)
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