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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   11108 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026

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People respond to incentives

I think we can start from here and expand on what it means to have a regime of "pro-stock and anti-flow", and also examining the 2nd and 3rd order effects of certain policies. As I delve into this topic and reading other discussion here, I'm also seeing that we need to differentiate inflow and outflow because with "anti-flow" what I think most really mean is "anti-inflow and pro-outflow". I'm also seeing a need to differentiate "pro-stock" is not to mean growing the stock, but rather as in develop and pathway to legalization so that they don't remain "stock".

Take this paper published in 2016 which tackles the effect of border enforcement:

Prior to 1986, Mexico-U.S. migration was characterized by great circularity, but since then circularity has declined markedly for undocumented migrants but increased dramatically for documented migrants. Whereas return migration by undocumented migrants dropped in response to the massive increase in border enforcement, that of documented migrants did not. At present, the Mexico-U.S. migration system has reached a new equilibrium in which undocumented migrants are caged in as long term settlers in the United States while documented migrants increasingly range freely and circulate back and forth across the border within rising frequency.

...

Although deportations from Mexico rose from 15,000 in 1990 to 307,000 in 2012 these removals have apparently not had a significant effect on undocumented population size. According to official estimates, the number of undocumented Mexicans dropped by just 200,000 between 2008 and 2012, despite more than 1.9 million deportations over the period

...

U.S. immigration and border policies have implicitly rested on a neoclassical foundation, seeking to drive up the costs and risks of undocumented border crossing while lowering the odds of unauthorized employment and depressing earnings to reduce the incentives for migration. If Mexican migrants are indeed operating according to the precepts of NE (Neoclassical Economics), then the main issue is whether expected U.S. earnings can be reduced enough to deter migrants from heading northward. If, however, migrants are operating according to the precepts of NELM (New Economics of Labor Migration), then driving up the costs and risks of border crossing could well backfire by curtailing circular migration. Having experienced higher costs and risks at the border, migrants might hunker down and stay north of the border rather than returning home to face those costs and risks again. Border enforcement, therefore, can be expected to play an outsized role in the decision making of undocumented as opposed to documented migrants.

Prior work indicates that until 1986 movement between Mexico and the United States was heavily circular, in keeping with expectations from NELM, suggesting a significant risk of backfire from a policy of intense border enforcement. Massey and Singer (1995) estimated that from 1965 to 1985 around 85% of undocumented entries were offset by departures; and Jasso and Rosenzweig (1982) estimated that 56% of legal immigrants from Mexico who arrived in 1970 had returned by 1979. Although we cannot know for sure how many documented and undocumented migrants moved with motivations assumed by NE versus NELM, it is clear that clear that circulation was common in both groups.

Here is an interview, bolded mine:

“The greatest need now is a path to legal status for the 11 million undocumented residents who are already here, who mostly have been here now for 15 years or more and increasingly have U.S. citizen children,” he said. “If we were to grant these people permanent legal status, many would actually return home, secure in the knowledge they could re-enter whenever they want.”

Reading that, what I get are:

  1. Migration programs like temporary visitor programs is "pro-outflow"
  2. Increasing the "cost of border crossing" would definitely be "anti-inflow", but is actually having an "anti-outflow" effect. So any "anti-inflow" effect doesn't matter because any inflow at all is trapped and over time becomes stock.
  3. path to legalization (pro-stock) is counterintuitively "pro-outflow".
  4. As @MadMonzer mentions, and the quotes above reinforces, being documented is a "pro-outflow" move.

Other things that I thought about:

  1. US entities that keep supporting illegal undocumented stock is therefore "pro-inflow" and "anti-outflow". Yet ICE raids surge, but few employers face charges so clearly an avenue of being "anti-inflow" and "pro-outflow" is not being exercised
  2. "On "anchor baby," in 2024, approximately 250k got their green card as a parent. That's a huge number, but at the point when a 21 year old American sponsor you, would another average American consider them stock or flow? I bet most would say closer to stock than flow.
  3. Birthright citizenship is undoubtedly "pro-inflow" and "anti-outflow" and increasing the "stock".
  4. Foreign development that leads to lower fertility rate and makes people less likely to want to leave their country is undoubtedly "anti-inflow" and "pro-outflow" (because those who already came will be attracted to come back).

I think this is a good exercise to think about regarding any immigration policy.

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