Data and Code for: Political Polarization and US-Mexico Migration

We study how the US presidential election of 2016 affected the subsequent inflow of Mexican-born immigrants. We use the “Matricula Consular de Alta Seguridad” data to construct proxies for annual inflows and internal movements of Mexican-born individuals, including undocumented immigrants, across US commuting zones. We find that a 10-percentage point increase in the Republican vote share in a commuting zone reduced inflows by 1.8 percent after the 2016 Trump election. The internal relocation of established Mexican immigrants primarily explains this reduction, though inflows of new immigrants decreased as well.

本研究考察2016年美国总统选举对后续墨西哥出生移民入境规模的影响。研究采用"Matricula Consular de Alta Seguridad（墨西哥领事安全身份证）"数据集，构建代理变量以衡量墨西哥出生人群（含无证移民）的年度入境规模及美国国内各通勤区之间的内部流动。研究发现，在2016年特朗普当选美国总统后，某通勤区的共和党得票率每提升10个百分点，该区域的移民入境量将下降1.8%。尽管新入境移民的规模也有所缩减，但本次入境规模减少的主要成因是已定居墨西哥移民的国内迁移行为。