By the Time I Get To Arizona: Estimating the Impact of Legal Arizona Workers Act on Migrant Outflows

In 2007, the State of Arizona passed the Legal Arizona Workers Act (LAWA), which required all employers to verify the legal status of all prospective employees. Using the American Community Survey, we show that LAWA induced a large emigration away from Arizona. We estimate that roughly 36,000 Mexican-born people left Arizona as a consequence of LAWA. These effects were the most pronounced in the farming and construction sectors, among high school drop-outs, and among people with weak familial ties to the US. Finally, we show that about 25 % of those who left relocated to New Mexico, suggesting that LAWA had spillovers on adjoining states, which underscores a potential problem with lacking a cohesive national immigration policy