The Housing Slump and the Declining Border Apprehensions

A few days ago, Eduardo Porter wrote a story for the NYTimes discussing the impact of the contracting housing market on undocumented workers, many of whom have found jobs in construction over the past decade.  Porter’s story is here.   This news comes at the same time that DHS Secretary Chertoff and others in the Bush administration have been touting decreased apprehensions along the southern border as evidence of the success of the administration’s enforcement efforts.  Given the body of scholarship linking decreased migration to economic contraction in receiving countries, the Porter article made me wonder to what extent these recent decreases in apprehensions are actually manifestation of the typical contraction of migration that occurs in response to economic slowdowns.

-jmc