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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   14011 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 17, 2026

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In order to assess the degree to which rising border enforcement accounts for this downward trend, Massey, Durand, and Pren (2016) used a logistic regression model to predict whether a migrant returned within 12 months of entry (1 if yes, 0 otherwise). They found that the primary force driving return probabilities down over time was the increasing border enforcement. The dashed line in Figure 8 shows predicted probabilities generated by inserting the logged Border Patrol budge instrument into the equation while holding other variables constant at their means. Whereas the predicted probability fluctuated around 0.45 through 1984, after that date the likelihood of return migration moved steadily downward to reach a value of 0.17 in 2010, a decline of 62 percent.

Massey and Singer (1995) estimated that from 1965 to 1985 around 85% of undocumented entries were offset by departures

Or in other words: yes, outflow can absolutely be a big counterbalance to the inflow.

"All I have to do it to move there, have a kid, avoid ICE for 15 years and then I've secured a statistically better life for all my decendants for generations?"

Actually it's 21 years, only then can an American citizen sponsor their immediate relative for green card. Only overstay can potentially get clemency, the ones who came in illegally trigger a 10 year ban from re-entry if they stay illegally for more than 1 year (notice how that's actually an anti-outflow punishment as it incentivizes people to stay and not leave). And imagine if E-Verify is enforced and businesses are disincentivized to pay illegals while also making it easier and less costly for illegals to leave, illegals are then pushed tobe pro-outflow because how does one survive for 21 years anyway? Especially if the way they got the Visa was at least having had proved to US consular that they have enough ties in their home country to incentivize them going home.

But to be fair, I already said that birthright citizenship is anti-outflow and I do believe in American supremacy in certain ways so it makes sense people keeps wanting to come. In fact the more I think about it, I think America should start expanding. There certainly is a lack of more America in the world. Cape Verde is great I'm sure, but do we need more Cape Verde or do we need more America? I personally would choose the best country in the world.

I'm going to strongly caution about taking any CATO publication at face value, and against using a citation that CATO provides without examining it, in this particular field. They're not the single most dishonest actor, but that's damning with faint praise. Massey 2016 has a ton of bizarre modeling choices, but the most relevant one is that another study he cited and was recent at the time of his publication took the same underlying metrics and used a similar model to separate Border Patrol funding, and came to a drastically different conclusion for the exact same time frame.

Massey's approach only works by relying on survey data to find the most dedicated illegal immigrants, being surprised when they eventually got through, and then declaring enforcement has a null effect on inflows period. Of course reductions in outflows outweigh the impact on inflows once you assume enforcement has no impact on inflows, but that's a much more serious claim, and it's one that's only barely supportable at all, and then only by conflating times where Border Patrol funding wasn't even trying to reduce border inflows with those where it did.

I can't guarantee the counterfactual world without increased border enforcement would have also connected to vastly increased inflows under Massey's metrics, but given that we have the test case of the entire Biden administration, I think it's pretty clear that's a problem with Massey's metrics, rather than the difficulty of modeling the matter.

Thanks for telling me.

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