LOCAL PUBLIC GOODS AND ETHNIC DIVERSITY: EVIDENCE FROM THE IMMIGRATION REFORM AND CONTROL ACT

This paper uses county-level data from California to test whether ethnic fragmentation and other measures of diversity and social capital are systematically related to spending on productive local public goods that affect rural quality of life. The specific focus of this paper is the impact of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986, which brought about 400,000 new immigrants to California, on demographic composition in that state.Public Economics,

Learning from IRCA: Lessons for Comprehensive Immigration Reform

If the current political stalemate over immigration reform is any indication, many U.S. policymakers have yet to heed the lessons of recent history when it comes to formulating a realistic strategy to control undocumented immigration. In 1986, lawmakers passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in an attempt to reign in undocumented immigration through heightened worksite and border enforcement, combined with legalization of most undocumented immigrants already in the country

Achieving the DREAM: The Effect of IRCA on Immigrant Youth Post-Secondary Educational Access

This issue of The Takeaway describes Dr. Kalena Cortes’s research on the relationship between the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) and subsequent enrollment of immigrant youth, providing insight into potential effects and intergenerational benefits of effective immigration policy. Reducing barriers to higher education for undocumented immigrant youth can significantly improve higher educational attainment for these populations, leading to more prosperous communities. Cortes’s research found a significant increase in post-secondary enrollment among immigrant youth to whom amnesty was granted by the IRCA

U.S. Immigration Reform and the Migration Dynamics of Mexican Males

The 1986 US Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was directed at tackling the problem of growing unauthorized migration through legalization of unauthorized immigrants, increasing border security and sanctioning employers who hired unauthorized immigrants. Our paper investigates how the IRCA affected the migration dynamics of male Mexican immigrants focusing on their age of onset of migration and the duration of their first trip. We find that the IRCA reduced unauthorized migration to the US while it does not seem to have had a significant effect on the return rate from the US to Mexico of undocumented male immigrant

Border Security: Immigration Enforcement Between Ports of Entry

This report reviews efforts to combat unauthorized migration across the Southwest border in the nearly three decades since the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) initiated the modern era in migration control. In reviewing such efforts, the report takes stock of the current state of border security and considers lessons that may be learned about enhanced enforcement at U.S. borders

The Labor Market Value to Legal Status

We present estimates of the effect of legal immigration status on earnings of undocumented workers. Our contribution to the literature centers on a two-step procedure that allows us to first estimate the legal status of an immigrant and then estimate the effect of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) on immigrants’ labor market outcomes using a triple difference approach. From a sample of young to middle aged Mexican men, our results show that IRCA causes a 20 log point increase in labor market earnings of Mexican immigrants over the long run, and that nearly all of this increase is in the occupational wage. These results suggest that the primary disadvantage for undocumented workers is the type of jobs that they are able to obtain. We estimate the model for immigrants from other countries not benefiting from IRCA to the extent that Mexican immigrants did, and find no systematic bias towards positive and significant results.immigration, legal status, immigration reform

The Impact of Amnesty on Labor Market Outcomes: A Panel Study Using the Legalized Population Survey

This paper tests whether amnesty, a provision of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), affected the labor market outcomes of the legalized population. Using the Legalized Population Survey (LPS) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) from 1987-1992, a quasi-experimental framework is developed to assess the differential impact of amnesty on the legalized population relative to a comparison group. After the implementation of the amnesty program, employment fell and unemployment rose for newly legalized men relative to the comparison group of already legal U.S. residents. For women, employment also fell and transitions out of the workforce increased among the newly legalized population. Increasing returns to skill, as captured by English proficiency, only played an important role in explaining the employment of newly legalized women. Finally, newly legalized men and women enjoyed higher wage growth rates than their working native counterparts, perhaps owing to their comparatively growing returns to U.S. educational attainment over this period.amnesty, legalization, labor market, Legalized Population Survey

Achieving the DREAM: The Effect of IRCA on Immigrant Youth Postsecondary Educational Access

This paper contributes to the existing literature on the effect of legal status on educational access among immigrant youth in the United States. The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 granted amnesty to undocumented immigrants who entered the United States before 1982. Using a difference-indifferences framework, I analyze the effect of this large amnesty program on immigrant youth's postsecondary educational access. My main finding shows that immigrant youths who were granted amnesty under IRCA are more likely to enroll in postsecondary education.</jats:p

Immigration Reform and the Earnings of Latino Workers: Do Employer Sanctions Cause Discrimination?

This paper investigates whether employer sanctions for hiring undocumented workers introduced by the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) adversely affected the hourly earnings of Latino workers in the southwestern United States. We exploit the staggering of the sanctions and employee verification requirements across sectors to estimate this effect. In particular, IRCA’s employer-sanctions provisions were not extended to agricultural employers until 2 years after their imposition on nonagricultural employers. Hence, Latino agricultural workers provide a control group against which to compare changes in the wages of Latinos in nonagricultural employment. We find substantial pre-post IRCA declines in the hourly earnings of Latino nonagricultural workers relative to Latinos in agriculture. This pattern, however, is considerably stronger for Latino men than Latina women. We do not observe similar intersectoral shifts in relative wages among non-Latino white workers. In fact, the relative wage changes for non-Latino white workers are of the opposite sign. Finally, the pre-post IRCA relative decline in Latino nonagricultural wages reverses the pre-IRCA trend in which the relative earnings of Latino nonagricultural workers had been increasing.