IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/intmig/v48y2014i4p1028-1061.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Explaining Undocumented Migration to the U.S

Author

Listed:
  • Douglas S. Massey
  • Jorge Durand
  • Karen A. Pren

Abstract

type="main" xml:id="imre12151-abs-0001"> Using data from the Mexican Migration Project and the Latin American Migration Project, we find that undocumented migration from Mexico reflects U.S. labor demand and access to migrant networks and is little affected by border enforcement, which instead sharply reduces the odds of return movement. Undocumented migration from Central America follows primarily from political violence associated with the U.S. intervention of the 1980s, and return migration has always been unlikely. Mass undocumented migration from Mexico appears to have ended because of demographic changes there, but undocumented migration from Central America can be expected to grow slowly through processes of family reunification.

Suggested Citation

  • Douglas S. Massey & Jorge Durand & Karen A. Pren, 2014. "Explaining Undocumented Migration to the U.S," International Migration Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(4), pages 1028-1061, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:intmig:v:48:y:2014:i:4:p:1028-1061
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/imre.2014.48.issue-4
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tjaden, Jasper & Dunsch, Felipe Alexander, 2021. "The effect of peer-to-peer risk information on potential migrants – Evidence from a randomized controlled trial in Senegal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    2. Simone Cremaschi & Carlo Devillanova, 2016. "Immigrants and Legal Status: Do Personal Contacts Matter?," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 1629, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    3. Katharine M. Donato & Douglas S. Massey, 2016. "Twenty-First-Century Globalization and Illegal Migration," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 666(1), pages 7-26, July.
    4. Andrés F. Castro Torres & Edith Y. Gutierrez Vazquez, 2020. "Gendered and stratified family formation trajectories in the context of Latin American migration, 1950 to 2000," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2020-027, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    5. Douglas S. Massey & Jorge Durand & Karen A. Pren, 2016. "The Precarious Position of Latino Immigrants in the United States," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 666(1), pages 91-109, July.
    6. Adriana Hernández Castañeda & Todd A. Sørensen, 2019. "Changing Sex-Ratios Among Immigrant Communities in the USA," Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 20-42, June.
    7. Andrés F. Castro Torres, 2020. "Family formation trajectories and migration status in the United States, 1970-2010," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2020-008, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    8. Douglas S. Massey, 2018. "Finding the Lost Generation: Identifying Second-Generation Immigrants in Federal Statistics," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 677(1), pages 96-104, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:intmig:v:48:y:2014:i:4:p:1028-1061. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0197-9183 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.