No Surprises Here: The (Negative) Economic Impact of Immigrant-Related Local Ordinances

The Economic Impact of Immigrant-Related Local Ordinances October 20, 2011

This Americas Society white paper provides the first comparative look at the average economic effects of how restrictive versus non-restrictive immigration-related city ordinances affect a city’s business environment. In a context of high unemployment and lackluster business growth, along with rising anxieties regarding immigration in the United States, we believe it essential to provide a better understanding of how policies that seek to restrict immigration and those that support more flexible approaches affect the economies of communities across the country.

The Economic Impact of Immigrant-Related Local Ordinances finds that restrictive ordinances have a negative impact on the number of employees in a city when compared to cities that instead chose to enact non-restrictive ordinances. In fact, an average city with a restrictive ordinance has 0.18 times fewer expected number of employees than its non-restrictive counterpart. This means that beyond anecdotal evidence of how restrictive immigration laws are creating productivity losses in places like Alabama and Georgia, this paper shows—in a statistically significant manner—that non-restrictive city ordinances are better for a city’s overall jobs environment than restrictive ordinances.

KJ