Graduation Year
2026
Date of Submission
4-2026
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Economics
Reader 1
David Bjerk
Rights Information
© 2026 Katherine E Schwab
Abstract
This thesis examines whether intensified interior immigration enforcement leads employers to increase demand for legal temporary foreign workers through the H-2 guest-worker programs. Using updated administrative data from the Office of Foreign Labor Certification, I first replicate the core findings of Amuedo-Dorantes, Arenas-Arroyo, and Schmidpeter (2021), who find that county-level enforcement significantly raises employer demand for H-2B non-agricultural workers, then apply the same empirical framework to H-2A, the agricultural equivalent.
My replication results are directionally consistent with the original study – the enforcement coefficient on H-2B demand is positive across specifications – though weaker in significance, reflecting routine vintage differences in the underlying source files rather than methodological error.
The H-2A extension yields a strikingly different result. Over a six-year panel of 3,076 counties, a one-unit increase in the enforcement index is associated with a statistically significant reduction of approximately 0.29 H-2A workers requested per 1,000 labor force (p < 0.05). This negative effect is robust across specifications, holds for both requested and certified workers, and persists when the sample is restricted to counties with active H-2A participation. The lag pattern – a sharp contemporaneous decline followed by a partial rebound at two years – is most consistent with enforcement disrupting the recruitment networks that H-2A agricultural hiring depends on, rather than with mechanization or permanent output contraction.
Taken together, these findings suggest that the legalization channel documented by AAS is not a general feature of employer adjustment to enforcement. In agriculture specifically, enforcement appears to depress rather than redirect guest-worker demand.
Recommended Citation
Schwab, Katherine E., "Does Immigration Enforcement Induce Legalization? Replicating and Extending the H-2B Evidence to Agricultural Guest Workers" (2026). CMC Senior Theses. 4155.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/4155
