Is immigration enforcement shaping immigrant marriage patterns?

Abstract

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Immigration Policy and the Rise of Self-Employment among Mexican Immigrants

“…5 Alternatively, we follow the advice of Neumark et al (2014) to consider other methods to control for confounding trends. First, we include the interactions between pre-treatment characteristics at the MSA level (e.g., the share of noncitizens, the share of people voting for Republican officials, and the unemployment rate in 2000) with time trends to control for differential trends across MSAs spuriously correlated with the adoption of tougher enforcement (Acemoglu, Autor, and Lyle 2004;Hoynes and Schanzenbach 2009;Amuedo-Dorantes et al 2020). Additionally, in Online Appendix B we present evidence from a tripledifferences estimation that accounts for unobserved MSA time-variant heterogeneity (Angrist and Pischke 2008).…”

“…Recently, researchers have grown interested in learning about the role of tightened immigration policies in explaining undocumented immigrants' choices. Several major response mechanisms have been identified, including migrating out of states with tightened enforcement, marrying U.S. citizens with the intent of adjusting their immigration status, or engaging in incomegenerating criminal activities (Amuedo-Dorantes, Arenas-Arroyo, and Wang, 2020;Bohn and Lofstrom, 2013;Bohn, Lofstrom, and Raphael, 2014;Freedman et al, 2018;Wang and Wang, 2012).…”

“…As a result, researchers have grown interested in learning about undocumented migrants' responses to tightened immigration policies. Several major response mechanisms have been identified, such as migrating out of states with tightened enforcement, marrying US citizens with the intent of adjusting their immigration status, or engaging in income-generating criminal activities (Wang and Wang 2012;Bohn and Lofstrom 2013;Bohn et al 2014;Freedman, Owens, and Bohn 2018;Amuedo-Dorantes, Arenas-Arroyo, and Wang 2020). Very few studies have considered self-employment as a response to immigration enforcement.…”

“…immigrants who comprise the majority of the undocumented population (Orrenius and Zavodny, 2009;Bansak 2012, 2014;Bohn and Lofstrom, 2013). Likewise, research has documented other significant impacts on these immigrants' lives, altering their marriage patterns, fertility, household formation and mobility patterns (Amuedo-Dorantes et al, 2013; Amuedo-Dorantes and Arenas-Arroyo, 2017; Amuedo-Dorantes, Arenas-Arroyo, and Wang, 2020;Bohn, Lofstrom, and Raphael, 2014;Hoekstra and Orozco-Aleman, 2017;Wang and Wang, 2012).…”

Marriage and immigration enforcement: The impact of Secure Communities on immigrant women

“…There is some empirical evidence of such a response. For example, Wang and Wang (2012) find that intermarriage increases after 9/11 in the United States, while Amuedo-Dorantes et al (2020) find that marriage to native-born individuals increases for immigrant men and women when immigration policy becomes more restrictive.…”