IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedawp/2001-19.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do amnesty programs encourage illegal immigration? Evidence from the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA)

Author

Abstract

This paper examines whether allowing certain undocumented immigrants to legalize their status leads to additional illegal immigration. The authors focus on the effects of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which granted amnesty to over three million undocumented immigrants. They find that apprehensions of persons attempting to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border declined immediately following passage of the law but returned to normal levels during the period when illegal immigrants could file for amnesty and in the years thereafter. The authors? findings suggest that the amnesty program did not change long-term patterns of illegal immigration from Mexico.

Suggested Citation

  • Pia M. Orrenius & Madeline Zavodny, 2001. "Do amnesty programs encourage illegal immigration? Evidence from the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA)," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2001-19, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedawp:2001-19
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.atlantafed.org/-/media/documents/research/publications/wp/2001/wp0119.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Antonio Spilimbergo & Gordon H. Hanson, 1999. "Illegal Immigration, Border Enforcement, and Relative Wages: Evidence from Apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico Border," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1337-1357, December.
    2. Cynthia Bansak & Steven Raphael, 2001. "Immigration Reform and the Earnings of Latino Workers: Do Employer Sanctions Cause Discrimination?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 54(2), pages 275-295, January.
    3. Katharine Donato & Jorge Durand & Douglas Massey, 1992. "Stemming the tide? Assessing the deterrent effects of the immigration reform and control act," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 29(2), pages 139-157, May.
    4. Gordon H. Hanson & Raymond Robertson & Antonio Spilimbergo, 2002. "Does Border Enforcement Protect U.S. Workers From Illegal Immigration?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(1), pages 73-92, February.
    5. Frank Bean & B. Lowell & Lowell Taylor, 1988. "Undocumented Mexican immigrants and the earnings of other workers in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 25(1), pages 35-52, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Magris, Francesco & Russo, Giuseppe, 2016. "Fiscal Revenues and Commitment in Immigration Amnesties," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 75-90.
    2. Tim Krieger & Steffen Minter, 2007. "Immigration amnesties in the southern EU member states - a challenge for the entire EU?," Working Papers CIE 6, Paderborn University, CIE Center for International Economics.
    3. Michael A. Quinn, 2014. "Crossing The Border And Migration Duration," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 32(4), pages 843-861, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pia M. Orrenius & Madeline Zavodny, 2001. "Do amnesty programs encourage illegal immigration? evidence from IRCA," Working Papers 0103, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    2. Gordon H. Hanson, 2006. "Illegal Migration from Mexico to the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(4), pages 869-924, December.
    3. Pia M. Orrenius & Madeline Zavodny, 2004. "What are the consequences of an amnesty for undocumented immigrants?," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2004-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    4. Pia Orrenius & Madeline Zavodny, 2003. "Do amnesty programs reduce undocumented immigration? Evidence from Irca," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 40(3), pages 437-450, August.
    5. Emmanuelle Auriol & Alice Mesnard, 2016. "Sale of Visas: a Smuggler's Final Song?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(332), pages 646-678, October.
    6. Sherrie A. Kossoudji & Deborah A. Cobb-Clark, 2002. "Coming out of the Shadows: Learning about Legal Status and Wages from the Legalized Population," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(3), pages 598-628, July.
    7. Basu, Arnab K. & Chau, Nancy H. & Park, Brian, 2022. "Rethinking border enforcement, permanent and circular migration," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    8. Neeraj Kaushal, 2006. "Amnesty Programs and the Labor Market Outcomes of Undocumented Workers," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 41(3).
    9. Catalina Amuedo‐Dorantes & Fernando Lozano, 2015. "On The Effectiveness Of Sb1070 In Arizona," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(1), pages 335-351, January.
    10. Orrenius, Pia M. & Zavodny, Madeline, 2005. "Self-selection among undocumented immigrants from Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 215-240, October.
    11. Manuela Angelucci, 2012. "US Border Enforcement and the Net Flow of Mexican Illegal Migration," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(2), pages 311-357.
    12. Sengupta, Bonu & Hegde, S. Aaron, 2005. "Willingness to Pay for Legal Visas: A Case Study of Agricultural Workers in Southern California," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19235, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    13. Florian Kaufmann, 2008. "Attracting Undocumented Immigrants: The Perverse Effects of U.S. Border Enforcement," Working Papers wp187, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    14. Gordon H. Hanson & Antonio Spilimbergo, 2001. "Political economy, sectoral shocks, and border enforcement," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(3), pages 612-638, August.
    15. Jean-Louis Arcand & Linguère M'Baye, 2011. "Braving the waves: The economics of clandestine migration from Africa," CERDI Working papers halshs-00575606, HAL.
    16. Gathmann, Christina, 2008. "Effects of enforcement on illegal markets: Evidence from migrant smuggling along the southwestern border," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(10-11), pages 1926-1941, October.
    17. Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes & Cynthia Bansak, 2011. "The Impact of Amnesty on Labor Market Outcomes: A Panel Study Using the Legalized Population Survey," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(3), pages 443-471, July.
    18. Mark G. Guzman & Joseph H. Haslag & Pia M. Orrenius, 2002. "Coyote crossings : the role of smugglers in illegal immigration and border enforcement," Research Working Paper RWP 02-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    19. Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes & Susan Pozo, 2014. "On the Intended and Unintended Consequences of Enhanced U.S. Border and Interior Immigration Enforcement: Evidence From Mexican Deportees," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(6), pages 2255-2279, December.
    20. Cascio, Elizabeth U. & Lewis, Ethan G., 2019. "Distributing the Green (Cards): Permanent residency and personal income taxes after the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 135-150.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:fedawp:2001-19. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Rob Sarwark (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbatus.html .

    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.