The Rhetoric of Closed Borders : Quotas , Lax Enforcement and Illegal Immigration

In 2008, approximately 12 million immigrants lived illegally in the United States, and large numbers of undocumented foreigners resided also in other advanced destination countries. Hence, attempts at controlling immigration flows seem to often fail. If governments are not enforcing their “official” immigration policy, why do they set such a policy in the first place? The purpose of this paper is to address this apparent puzzle, using a political agency framework. We consider a setting in which there is uncertainty on the supply of migrants, and the policy maker – who faces elections – can be of one of two types. Either he has preferences congruent with the median voter, or he desires a larger number of migrants, because he is interested in the maximization of social welfare or has fallen prey to a pro–immigration lobby. We show that, if the incumbent wants to admit more migrants than the median voter, he might find it optimal to announce a binding quota to be re-elected, and strategically relax its enforcement. The control of migration flows can take place at the border or domestically, and we argue that even if the former is less effective as a policy tool, it might be chosen in equilibrium. Thus, our model illustrates how strategic considerations by elected officials play an important role in explaining both the observed large number of illegal immigrants and lax enforcement. JEL classification: F22, J61. Keywords: Illegal immigration, Immigration Policy, Political Economy. ∗Work on this project started while both authors were visiting the RSSS at the Australian National University in Canberra, whose hospitality is gratefully acknowledged. This paper is produced as part of the CEPR project “Temporary Migration, Integration and the role of Policies” (TEMPO) funded by the NORFACE Research Programme: “Migration in Europe Social, Economic, Cultural and Policy Dynamics”. We would also like to thank seminar participants at the Applied Economics Workshop in Petralia Sottana, III CES-Ifo Workshop on Political Economy, Erasmus University Rotterdam, IZA Conference on Legal and Illicit migration, KU Leuven, Norface CREAM migration Conference in London, Université Catholique de Louvain, Université de Luxembourg, University of Vienna, Warwick University and TOM CEPR workshops in Milan and Venice for very useful comments. „Erasmus University Rotterdam, Universita’ degli Studi di Milano, CEPR, LdA and CES-Ifo; [email protected]. …Royal Holloway University of London, Erasmus University Rotterdam and LdA; email: [email protected].