IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cbo/wpaper/57022.html

Estimating the Legal Status of Foreign-Born People: Working Paper 2021-02

Author

Listed:
  • Julia Heinzel
  • Rebecca Heller
  • Natalie Tawil

Abstract

The Congressional Budget Office recently adapted a methodology to estimate, on an annual basis, the total number of people in the United States without legal status and to assign legal status to the foreign-born population in survey data to match those annual totals. This paper describes CBO’s methodology, the analytical choices made in developing that methodology, and the sensitivity of the outcomes to alternative choices.

Suggested Citation

  • Julia Heinzel & Rebecca Heller & Natalie Tawil, 2021. "Estimating the Legal Status of Foreign-Born People: Working Paper 2021-02," Working Papers 57022, Congressional Budget Office.
    • Handle: RePEc:cbo:wpaper:57022
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2021-03/57022-Legal-Status.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jennifer Hook & Frank Bean & James Bachmeier & Catherine Tucker, 2014. "Recent Trends in Coverage of the Mexican-Born Population of the United States: Results From Applying Multiple Methods Across Time," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(2), pages 699-726, April.
    2. Mohammad M Fazel-Zarandi & Jonathan S Feinstein & Edward H Kaplan, 2018. "The number of undocumented immigrants in the United States: Estimates based on demographic modeling with data from 1990 to 2016," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(9), pages 1-11, September.
    3. Robert Warren & John Robert Warren, 2013. "Unauthorized Immigration to the United States: Annual Estimates and Components of Change, by State, 1990 to 2010," International Migration Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(2), pages 296-329, June.
    4. J. David Brown & Misty L. Heggeness & Suzanne M. Dorinski & Lawrence Warren & Moises Yi, 2019. "Predicting the Effect of Adding a Citizenship Question to the 2020 Census," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(4), pages 1173-1194, August.
    5. Borjas, George J., 2017. "The labor supply of undocumented immigrants," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 1-13.
    6. Congressional Budget Office, 2020. "The Employment of Foreign-Born People," Reports 56357, Congressional Budget Office.
    7. Robert Warren & Jeffrey Passel, 1987. "A Count of the Uncountable: Estimates of Undocumented Aliens Counted in the 1980 United States Census," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 24(3), pages 375-393, August.
    8. Randy Capps & Julia Gelatt & Jennifer Van Hook & Michael Fix, 2018. "Commentary on “The number of undocumented immigrants in the United States: Estimates based on demographic modeling with data from 1990-2016”," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(9), pages 1-10, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Borjas, George J. & Cassidy, Hugh, 2019. "The wage penalty to undocumented immigration," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    2. Pia M. Orrenius & Madeline Zavodny, 2017. "Unauthorized Mexican Workers in the United States: Recent Inflows and Possible Future Scenarios," Working Papers 1701, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    3. Bhatiya, Apurav & Kadam, Shanta, 2025. "Small Boats, Big Impacts: The Ripple Effects of Irregular Migration," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 757, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    4. Sarah Miller & Laura Wherry & Gloria Aldana, 2022. "Covering Undocumented Immigrants: The Effects of a Large-Scale Prenatal Care Intervention," NBER Working Papers 30299, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Christoph Albert & Joan Llull & Albrecht Glitz, 2021. "Labor Market Competition and the Assimilation of Immigrants," Working Papers 1280, Barcelona School of Economics.
    6. McCully, Brett A., 2024. "Immigrants, legal status, and illegal trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    7. Chunbei Wang & Le Wang, 2025. "Undocumented immigrants and the growth of Hispanic entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 65(1), pages 163-189, June.
    8. Derek Christopher, 2023. "Seeking sanctuary: Housing undocumented immigrants," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(4), pages 1065-1091, September.
    9. Lucchetti, Gabriele & Ruggieri, Alessandro, 2025. "Unlucky migrants: Scarring effect of recessions on the assimilation of the foreign born," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    10. Jorgen M. Harris & Rhiannon Jerch, 2025. "The long‐run effects of temporary protection from deportation," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(1), pages 151-182, January.
    11. Stefano Comino & Giovanni Mastrobuoni & Antonio Nicolò, 2020. "Silence of the Innocents: Undocumented Immigrants’ Underreporting of Crime and their Victimization," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(4), pages 1214-1245, September.
    12. Marica Valente & Timm Gries & Lorenzo Trapani, 2023. "Informal employment from migration shocks," Working Papers 2023-09, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    13. Casarico, Alessandra & Facchini, Giovanni & Frattini, Tommaso, 2018. "What drives the legalization of immigrants? Evidence from IRCA," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 258-273.
    14. Quy-Toan Do & Michael Lokshin & Martin Ravallion, 2025. "Migrants as Social Protection? Simulations of a Market for Work Permits," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 39(4), pages 893-906.
    15. George J. Borjas & David J.G. Slusky, 2018. "Health, Employment, and Disability: Implications from the Undocumented Population," NBER Working Papers 24504, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Cho, Heepyung, 2022. "Driver’s license reforms and job accessibility among undocumented immigrants," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    17. Hintjens, Helen M. & Siegmann, Karin A. & Staring, Richard H.J.M., 2020. "Seeking health below the radar: Undocumented People's access to healthcare in two Dutch cities," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 248(C).
    18. Ortega, Francesc & Connor, Phillip, 2024. "Shattered Dreams: The Economic Impact of Eliminating DACA," IZA Discussion Papers 17066, IZA Network @ LISER.
    19. Randy Capps & Julia Gelatt & Jennifer Van Hook & Michael Fix, 2018. "Commentary on “The number of undocumented immigrants in the United States: Estimates based on demographic modeling with data from 1990-2016”," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(9), pages 1-10, September.
    20. Adam Sawyer, 2016. "Is Money Enough?: The Effect of Migrant Remittances on Parental Aspirations and Youth Educational Attainment in Rural Mexico," International Migration Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 231-266, March.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J60 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - General

    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:cbo:wpaper:57022. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cbogvus.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.