State-Scale Immigration Enforcement and Latino Interstate Migration in the United States

Abstract

In the late 2000s, several U.S. states and local governments enacted legislation to make work and life difficult for unauthorized immigrants within their jurisdictions. We investigate how these devolved immigration enforcement laws affected the migration of Latinos to these states. We find that after these hostile policies came into effect, noncitizen and naturalized Latinos from states without such policies were much less likely to move to states with them than in the 1990s. U.S.-born Latinos exhibit migration aversion to hostile states, albeit at a weaker level. Fear of discrimination and the blending of Latinos with different legal status within families might account for this broad Latino group migration response. Hostile policies produced no significant change in the interstate migration patterns of a control group of U.S.-born whites. A counterfactual analysis indicates that absent these enforcement regimes, the migratory redistribution of Latinos to hostile states from other states in the late 2000s would have continued the dispersive pattern of the late 1990s. We draw parallels between our research and state policy effects on U.S. internal migration for other groups.

2000 年代晚期, 美国若干州及地方政府颁布了使其辖区内的非法移民之工作与生活变得艰困的法案。我们探讨这些向下转移的移民法律执行, 如何影响移入这些州的拉丁裔移民。我们发现, 在这些恶意的政策开始施行之后, 来自没有这些政策的非公民以及归化入籍后的拉丁裔, 相较于 1990 年代而言, 更不可能移入施行这些政策的州。美国出生的拉丁裔, 则对迁徙至具有恶意的州呈现出厌恶, 儘管程度较弱。恐惧歧视, 以及拉丁裔家族成员中不同法律身份的混合, 或许解释了此一广泛的拉丁裔移民的回应。恶意的政策, 对于美国出生的白人控制组的跨洲移民模式而言, 未产生任何显着的改变。反事实的分析显示, 若这些实施的体制不存在, 2000 年代晚期拉丁裔人口从其它州迁徙至具有恶意的州的迁徙重分配, 将会持续1990 年代晚期的分散模式。我们在自身研究与州政策对美国其他团体内部迁徙的影响之间, 进行比较并寻找相同之处。

A finales de la década del 2000, varios estados y gobiernos locales de los EE.UU. aprobaron medidas legales para hacer difíciles el trabajo y la vida a inmigrantes ilegales dentro de sus jurisdicciones. Investigamos en qué grado afectó la aplicación de estas leyes a la migración de latinos hacia estos estados. Hallamos que luego de la aplicación de tales políticas hostiles, los latinos no nacionalizados y los naturalizados en estados que no aplicaban aquellas políticas tenían menos inclinación que en los años 1990 a desplazarse a estados que sí lo hacían. Los latinos nacidos en los EE.UU. exhiben aversión migratoria hacia estados hostiles, aunque con un grado mucho menor. El temor a la discriminación y la mezcla de latinos con estatus legales diferentes dentro de la familias podrían ser la explicación a la respuesta migratoria de este grupo latino más amplio. Las políticas hostiles no produjeron cambio significativo alguno en los patrones de migración interestatal en un grupo de control formado por blancos nacidos en los EE.UU. Un análisis hipotético indica que sin estos regímenes de aplicación de las leyes, la redistribución migratoria de latinos a estados hostiles desde otros estados, a finales de la década del 2000, habría continuado el patrón dispersivo de finales de los 1990. Trazamos paralelos entre nuestra investigación y los efectos de la política estatal sobre la migración interna americana para otros grupos.

Key Words:

• borders
• interstate migration
• Latinos
• state-scale immigration enforcement
• undocumented immigrants

关键词：:

• 边界, 跨州迁徙, 拉丁裔, 州尺度的移民政策执行, 无证移民。

Palabras clave:

• fronteras, migración interestatal, latinos, regulación de la inmigración a escala estatal, inmigrantes indocumentados

Acknowledgments

We thank the anonymous reviewers who provided useful feedback on an earlier version of this article.

Funding

The Geography and Spatial Sciences Program at the National Science Foundation funded this research through Award 0961232. The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development provided additional support through Awards 5R24HD042828 and 5T32HD007543.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mark Ellis

MARK ELLIS is a Professor in the Department of Geography and Director of the Northwest Federal Statistical Research Data Center at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include U.S. immigration and internal migration and their relationship to urban residential segregation change and local labor market dynamics.

Richard Wright

RICHARD WRIGHT holds the Orvil E. Dryfoos Chair in Public Affairs and, since 1985, has been a Professor of Geography at Dartmouth College, Hannover, NH 03755.E-mail: [email protected]. His research and teaching focuses on housing and labor markets and migration and immigration.

Matthew Townley

MATT TOWNLEY is Lead Data Scientist at spatially.com, a firm that uses sophisticated analytics to provide location-based intelligence, and a PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include the spatial structure of population and its relationship to health, population change, and urban dynamics.