Factors Associated with Net Zero Migration between Mexico and the United States, 2005-2015
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-88702025000200003Keywords:
Emigration, return migration, deportations, Mexico, United States of AmericaAbstract
This work examines factors associated with the decline in net migratory flow between Mexico and the United States to levels near zero in the period 2005-2015. We use a Poisson pseudo maximum likelihood gravity model, estimating state-to-state migration from Mexico to the United States with data from the Survey on Migration at the Northern Border of Mexico. Among the results, we find that the change with the greatest quantitative association to the flows was the increase in the presence of the Border Patrol and deportation policies against long-term migrants, which decreased the flow of emigrants and increased return migration. The drop in economic activity during the 2008 crisis reduced the attraction in the destination economies, but also increased incentives to migrate from the origin. Other factors such as migrant networks, distance, and population growth are also significant in explaining the migratory flows between the states of the two countries.
Downloads
References
Angelucci, M. (2012). US border enforcement and the net flow of Mexican illegal migration. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 60(2), 311–357. https://doi.org/10.1086/662575
Basu, S., & Pearlman, S. (2017). Violence and migration: Evidence from Mexico's drug war. IZA Journal of Development and Migration, 7(1), 18. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40176-017-0102-6
Beine, M., Bertoli, S., & Fernández-Huertas, J. (2016). A practitioners' guide to gravity models of international migration. The World Economy, 39(4), 496–512. https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.12265
Beine, M., & Parsons, C. (2015). Climatic factors as determinants of international migration. Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 117(2), 723–767. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjoe.12098
Bertoli, S., & Fernández-Huertas, J. (2015). The size of the cliff at the border. Regional Science and Urban Economics, 51, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.regsciurbeco.2014.12.002
Boyd, M. (1989). Family and personal networks in international migration: Recent developments and new agendas. International Migration Review, 23(3), 638–670. https://doi.org/10.2307/2546433
Bureau of Economic Analysis. (2016). Gross domestic product by state, advance 2015 and revised 1997-2014. https://apps.bea.gov/regional/histdata/releases/0616gsp/index.cfm
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2022). Local area unemployment statistics. https://www.bls.gov/lau/
Calva Sánchez, L. E., & Alarcón Acosta, R. (2018). Deported Mexican migrants and their plans to reenter the United States at the beginning of Donald Trump's administration. Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales, 63(233), 43–68. https://doi.org/10.22201/fcpys.2448492xe.2018.233.62603
Chort, I., & De la Rupelle, M. (2016). Determinants of Mexico-U.S. outward and return migration flows: A state-level panel data analysis. Demography, 53(5), 1453–1476. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-016-0503-9
Comisión Nacional de Salarios Mínimos. (2022). Tabla de salarios mínimos generales y profesionales por áreas geográficas [Table of general and professional minimum wages by geographic area]. https://www.gob.mx/conasami/documentos/tabla-de-salarios-minimos-generales-y-profesionales-por-areas-geograficas
Correia, S., Guimarães, P., & Zylkin, T. Z. (2020). Fast Poisson estimation with high-dimensional fixed effects. Stata Journal, 20(1), 95–115. https://doi.org/10.1177/1536867X20909691
Cuecuecha, A., Fuentes-Mayorga, N., & McLeod, D. (2021). Do minimum wages help explain declining Mexico-U.S. migration? Migraciones Internacionales, 12, 0. https://doi.org/10.33679/rmi.v1i1.2326
Data Commons. (2022). Data Commons. https://datacommons.org
Docquier, F., Peri, G., & Ruyssen, I. (2014). The cross-country determinants of potential and actual migration. International Migration Review, 48(S1), S37–S99. https://doi.org/10.1111/imre.12137
El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Unidad de Política Migratoria Registro e Identidad de Personas, Consejo Nacional de Población, Consejo Nacional para Prevenir la Discriminación, Secretaría del Trabajo y Previsión Social, Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, & Secretaría de Bienestar. (2023). Encuesta sobre Migración en la Frontera Norte de México [Survey on Migration at Mexico's Northern Border]. https://www.colef.mx/emif
Federal Bureau of Investigation. (2022). Crime in the United States. https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr/publications
Franc, S., Časni, A. Č., & Barišić, A. (2019). Determinants of migration following the EU enlargement: A panel data analysis. South East European Journal of Economics and Business, 14(2), 13–22. https://doi.org/10.2478/jeb-2019-0010
González-Barrera, A. (2021). Before COVID-19, more Mexicans came to the U.S. than left for Mexico for the first time in years. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/07/09/before-covid-19-more-mexicans-came-to-the-u-s-than-left-for-mexico-for-the-first-time-in-years/
Greenwood, M. J., & Hunt, G. L. (2003). The early history of migration research. International Regional Science Review, 26(1), 3–37. https://doi.org/10.1177/0160017602238983
Hanson, G. H., & Spilimbergo, A. (1999). Illegal immigration, border enforcement, and relative wages: Evidence from apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border. American Economic Review, 89(5), 1337–1357. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.89.5.1337
Harris, J. R., & Todaro, M. P. (1970). Migration, unemployment and development: A two-sector analysis. American Economic Review, 60(1), 126–142.
Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía. (2004). Encuesta Nacional de Empleo (ENE) [National Employment Survey]. https://www.inegi.org.mx/programas/ene/2004/#Tabulados
Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía. (2021). Sistema de Cuentas Nacionales [System of National Accounts]. https://www.inegi.org.mx/sistemas/bie/
Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía. (2022). Encuesta Nacional de Ocupación y Empleo [National Survey of Occupation and Employment]. https://www.inegi.org.mx/programas/enoe/15ymas/
Israel, E., & Batalova, J. (2020). Mexican immigrants in the United States. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/mexican-immigrants-united-states-2019
Jennissen, R. (2003). Economic determinants of net international migration in Western Europe. European Journal of Population, 19(2), 171–198. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1023390917557
Lindstrom, D. P. (1996). Economic opportunity in Mexico and return migration from the United States. Demography, 33(3), 357–374. https://doi.org/10.2307/2061767
Massey, D. S., Arango, J., Hugo, G., Kouaouci, A., Pellegrino, A., & Taylor, J. E. (1993). Theories of international migration: A review and appraisal. Population and Development Review, 19(3), 431–466. https://doi.org/10.2307/2938462
Massey, D. S., Durand, J., & Pren, K. A. (2016). Why border enforcement backfired. American Journal of Sociology, 121(5), 1557–1600. https://doi.org/10.1086/684200
Mendoza Cota, J. E. (2006). Determinantes macroeconómicos regionales de la migración mexicana [Regional macroeconomic determinants of Mexican migration]. Migraciones Internacionales, 3(4), 118–145.
Moslimani, M., Noe-Bustamante, L., & Shah, S. (2023). Facts on Hispanics of Mexican origin in the United States, 2021. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/fact-sheet/us-hispanics-facts-on-mexican-origin-latinos/
Nejad, M. N., & Young, A. T. (2016). Want freedom, will travel: Emigrant self-selection according to institutional quality. European Journal of Political Economy, 45, 71–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2016.06.002
Ortega, F., & Peri, G. (2009). The causes and effects of international migrations: Evidence from OECD countries 1980-2005 (NBER Working Paper N.º 14833). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w14833
Passel, J. S., Cohn, D., & González-Barrera, A. (2012). Net migration from Mexico falls to zero-and perhaps less. Pew Research Center, 202, 1–41.
Piore, M. J. (1979). Birds of passage. Cambridge University Press.
Rotte, R., & Vogler, M. (1998). Determinants of international migration: Empirical evidence for migration from developing countries to Germany (IZA Discussion Paper N.º 12). Institute for the Study of Labor.
Santos-Silva, J. M., & Tenreyro, S. (2006). The log of gravity. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 88(4), 641–658. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest.88.4.641
Secretariado Ejecutivo del Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pública. (2022). Datos abiertos de incidencia delictiva [Open data on criminal incidence]. https://www.gob.mx/sesnsp/acciones-y-programas/datos-abiertos-de-incidencia-delictiva
Simpson, N. (2022). Demographic and economic determinants of migration. IZA World of Labor, 373. https://doi.org/10.15185/izawol.373.v2
Stark, O. (2019). Behavior in reverse: Reasons for return migration. Behavioural Public Policy, 3(1), 104–126. https://doi.org/10.1017/bpp.2018.27
TRAC Reports. (2021). Latest data: Immigration and Customs Enforcement removals. https://trac.syr.edu/phptools/immigration/remove/
United States Border Patrol. (2020). Border Patrol agent nationwide staffing by fiscal year. https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2020-Jan/U.S.%20Border%20Patrol%20Fiscal%20Year%20Staffing%20Statistics%20%28FY%201992%20-%20FY%202019%29_0.pdf
United States Census Bureau. (2022). Accessing PUMS data. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/microdata/access.html
Villarreal, A. (2014). Explaining the decline in Mexico-U.S. migration: The effect of the great recession. Demography, 51(6), 2203–2228. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-014-0351-4
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 David Alejandro Calvillo Preciado, Jaime Lara Lara, Arnoldo Martínez Elizondo, Eliseo Samuel Pequeño Morán, Victor Manuel Velarde Villasana
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Article usage
- ViewsTimes this article's page was opened since the journal started recording statistics. One person can visit more than once.
- 166
- DownloadsTimes the full text of this article (usually the PDF) was opened or downloaded.
- 104
All time, as recorded by the journal.
Among the top 7% by views · last 2 yearsCompared with all the journal's articles by views in the last 2 years, this one is among the top 7%.
Last 2 years: 166 views, 104 downloads.
Main countries of traffic origin:Countries this article was consulted from, according to the internet connection. They are not necessarily people. Canada 9% · Peru 9% · Poland 9%
0.63 downloads per view (journal average 1.65).Downloads of the full text for every abstract view of this article, compared with the whole journal.
Explore the journal's metrics
