Does The Legalization of Undocumented Immigrants in the US Encourage Unauthorized Immigration from Mexico? An Empirical Analysis of the Moral Hazard of Legalization
| Published date | 01 April 2017 |
| Author | Hillary Kosnac,Tom K. Wong |
| Date | 01 April 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12319 |
Does The Legalization of Undocumented
Immigrants in the US Encourage
Unauthorized Immigration from Mexico? An
Empirical Analysis of the Moral Hazard of
Legalization
Tom K. Wong* and Hillary Kosnac*
ABSTRACT
Does the prospect of a legalization programme in the US increase unauthorized immigration
from Mexico? The logic of the moral hazard of legalization suggests that providing lawful sta-
tus to undocumented immigrants has the unintended effect of incentivizing further unautho-
rized immigration. However, we argue and show that concerns about the moral hazard of
legalization may be overstated. We conceptualize our argument using two distinct temporal
dimensions: a concurrent dimension and a prospective one. Our analysis of the 2007 Mexican
Migration Field Research Program (MMFRP) survey provides evidence supporting our argu-
ments. The data show that knowledge regarding a prospective legalization programme in the
US does not increase the intent to migrate among prospective migrants. Our results hold when
accounting for a range of potential confounding factors, across several multivariate model
specifications, and also when analysing comparable respondents who are matched using
propensity score matching (PSM) techniques.
INTRODUCTION
Does the prospect of a legalization programme in the US lead to more unauthorized immigration
from Mexico? This study empirically analyses this question using survey evidence to examine
whether knowledge regarding a prospective legalization program in the US increases the intent to
migrate among prospective Mexican migrants. This question is an important one to answer, not
only because of its relevance to the broader immigration reform debate, but also because the depth
of our understanding of the moral hazard of legalization has thus far relied mostly on anecdote and
has lacked a firm empirical basis. For example, in 2013, the US Senate passed a comprehensive
immigration reform (CIR) bill, S.744, which included a path to citizenship for undocumented immi-
grants currently living in the US. However, the optimism surrounding the prospects for CIR was
quickly tempered, as the debate over immigration reform legislation turned to the House of Repre-
sentatives. In May 2013, the House Judiciary Committee (HJC) held a hearing in which the legal-
ization of undocumented immigrants and an eventual path to citizenship were questioned. These
questions renewed debate over whether legalization (or even just talk of legalization) leads to more
* University of California, San Diego
doi: 10.1111/imig.12319
©2017 The Authors
International Migration ©2017 IOM
International Migration Vol. 55 (2) 2017
ISSN 0020-7985Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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