Onward and Upward: Legal Status and Onward Mexican Migration Away from a Newly Militarized Border, 1995-2000

• In Event: 20825 - Assessing the Causes and Consequences of Internal Migration

Abstract

For nearly a century, from 1900 to 1990, 85 to 90 percent of all Mexican immigrants in the United States lived in states along the U.S.-Mexico border. However, the 2000 U.S. census revealed that this percentage fell drastically to less than 70 percent due at least in part to “onward” Mexican migration away from the (newly militarized) border. This complex process of dispersion to “new destinations” is understood with an overwhelmingly theoretical narrative that suggests disparities among legal status that shape this dispersion. However, this narrative has not been subjected to much empirical scrutiny. Using the 5 percent public use micro-data sample from the 2000 census along with survey-based imputations of immigrants’ citizenship and legal status, this paper examines the dynamics driving the abrupt dispersion of Mexicans to new immigrant destinations and away from the U.S.-Mexico border. I find evidence consistent with the idea that this geographic dispersion was pioneered by the onward migration of Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs), a group that—at that time—consisted of large numbers of formerly undocumented Mexican immigrants who gained LPR status through the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). Free of risk from detention and deportation, and facing a complex of negative push factors along the border and American Southwest, IRCA adjustees were able to pursue expanding economic opportunities in non-traditional settlement regions. This line of argument is supported by multivariate models showing that LPRs were the most likely of all citizenship and legal status groups to pursue onward migration and that this trend is amplified for migrants living along the border in 1995. These findings also illuminate a potential policy solution for the ongoing migrant “crisis” along the border—expedited authorization for asylum seekers.

Author

• Kyle McDonald, Temple University