Is U.S. border patrol worth the cost?
Open border might be best option

Many countries, including the United States, struggle to control illegal immigration by enforcing border patrols, intended to assist legal immigrants as well as impede illegal immigrants. Increasingly, smugglers, known in Mexico as coyotes, are hired to thwart these border patrols, leading to increased government expenditures to effectively patrol the borders. A new study by a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher found that spending more resources to enforce borders may actually induce coyotes to intensify their efforts. Consequently, government efforts devoted to restricting the flow of illegal immigrants may not actually reduce illegal immigrations.

"The question has to be whether the extra resources deter coyotes enough so that the immigration and naturalization service gets a big bang for its buck," said Joseph Haslag, associate professor of Economics. "If, for example, spending more resources on border patrols does not affect the market quantity for coyote services, then U.S. citizens paying taxes to pay for the patrols are actually worse off. The key message is that markets arise that are outside the control of the country to which people are immigrating. Since a government does not exist in a vacuum, it is unwise to ignore these market forces."

Illegal immigrants pay coyotes to help them get across the border quickly, so they can spend more time working in the United States. Coyotes have an incentive to invest in learning border patrol practices and methods. As coyotes develop new avoidance techniques, the limited resources the government spends on border patrol becomes less effective. In other words, coyotes must indicate to potential buyers that their service is worth paying for; in short, there is a market test for coyote services, Haslag said.

In the study, Haslag examined whether changes in border enforcement affected the level of smuggling activity and the overall level of illegal immigration. Through series of equations, formulas and economic scenarios involving illegal immigrants, coyotes and border patrols, Haslag determined that the increase in border enforcement was not deterring the number of illegal immigrants immigrating to a new country. Because of this, the impact that border enforcement had on the capital-labor ratio was small enough that an open border could be the optimal policy. In the long run, it is too costly for host-country natives to pay for the border enforcement.

"If the deterrence effect is small, the United States suffers because the gain in income is more than offset by the tax increases; consequently, an open border is optimal," Haslag said. "Border enforcement reduces the amount of time that a migrant worker is productively employed in the United States. The most important message is to recognize the importance of the coyote market when debating immigration interdiction efforts."

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Links:

Joseph Haslag
Department of Economics

working paper

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