@article{Aguiar:331826,
      recid = {331826},
      author = {Aguiar, Angel and Walmsley, Terrie},
      title = {Economic Analysis of U.S. Immigration Reforms},
      address = {2009},
      pages = {41},
      year = {2009},
      note = {Presented at the 12th Annual Conference on Global Economic  Analysis, Santiago, Chile},
      abstract = {In January 2004, President George Bush proposed the  creation of a temporary worker program to allow more  migrant workers to enter the US legally. This new temporary  worker program would be open to undocumented workers in the  US, as well as to prospective migrants currently residing  abroad. The program would temporarily allow immigrants to  fill jobs that, according to employers, would otherwise go  unfilled at the current wage. The US Congress vetoed the  presidential proposal, however, and requested a stricter  enforcement of immigration law and the consequent  deportation of undocumented immigrants. This study analyzes  the economic effects of these immigration reforms on the US  economy using an applied global general equilibrium model  of migration. In this paper the global trade and migration  model (GMig2) developed by Walmsley, Winters and Ahmed  (2007) is modified to include a third labor category –  undocumented unskilled – to reflect estimates of  undocumented workers residing in the United States. The  model is then used to analyze the impacts of two policy  scenarios on the US economy: first, the deportation of  undocumented workers currently residing in the US; and  second, the legalization of undocumented Mexican workers.  The first scenario is implemented through a decline in the  number of undocumented workers residing in the US to zero,  and a corresponding increase in the number of workers in  Mexico. The second scenario is achieved by allowing  undocumented workers to obtain legal status, thereby  increasing their wages and productivity. We find that the  deportation of undocumented workers causes a considerable  loss to the US economy in terms of real GDP. Legalization  of Mexican undocumented immigrants, on the other hand, is  found to increase US real GDP. Hence the paper demonstrates  there are clear advantages to the US economy of  implementing proposals that both allow migrant workers to  remain in the United States and increase the workers  ability to participate freely in the US labor force as  legal residents.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/331826},
}