Immigration Enforcement and the Hiring of Low-Skilled Labor

摘要

There is an ongoing debate about the benefits and drawbacks of intensified immigration enforcement. While immigration policies are often introduced with the goal of protecting native workers, their influence on firms' labor demand is often overlooked, clouding our understanding of the overall impact of immigration policies on natives' labor market prospects. Using a unique dataset, we document how increasing immigration enforcement at the local and state levels raises firms' demand for foreign workers under the H-2B visa program. Ironically, the increase, brought about by intensified immigration enforcement, has a negative impact on natives' employment prospects, albeit rather small. Altogether, the results are suggestive of how the intensification of interior immigration enforcement can alter the channels through which firms hire workers, with marginal spillover effects on native labor. Further research on the role of immigration policy on firms' labor demand is well warranted.