Immigration Enforcement and Infant Health

Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes, Brandyn Churchill and Yang Song

No 13908, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The past two decades have been characterized by an unprecedented increase in interior immigration enforcement and heightened stress due to fears of family separation and loss of income among undocumented immigrants. Using vital statistics on infant births from the National Center of Health Statistics for the 2003 through 2016 period and a difference-in-differences design, we compare the health outcomes of infants with likely undocumented mothers before and after the intensification of immigration enforcement within U.S. counties. We find that intensified enforcement, especially during the third trimester, increases the likelihood of low birth weight (

Keywords: undocumented immigrants; immigration enforcement; infant health (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 I12 K37 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2020-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-law and nep-mig
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: American Journal of Health Economics, 2022, 8 (3), 323–358

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