Immigrants who decide to cross the border illegally will make that decision based on either job prospects or on the risks of crossing the desert and not from fear of punishment, a new study published in the American Sociological Review shows.
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Undocumented Mexican immigrants walk through the Sonoran Desert after illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border border on January 19, 2011 into the Tohono O'odham Nation, Arizona.
The study arrived at the not surprising conclusion that people are willing to cross into the U.S. illegally for employment. Likewise, they will choose not to cross because of concerns about surviving the desert. Either way, fear of being found breaking the law and being detained or deported rarely plays into the decision.
The study's author, Emily Ryo of Stanford University, used surveys of Mexican immigrants from the Mexican Migration Projectand the Becoming Illegal Survey to arrive at her conclusions. She looked at moral justifications and found that border crossers are also likely to think the U.S. Government has no right to limit immigration and that “Mexicans have a right to be in the United States.”
The study comes at a time when the Department of Homeland Security is coming under criticism from members of Congress for not releasing data that would help people understand what is being accomplished on the border. The Department frequently releases apprehension numbers but not recidivism rates. Yet, most new projects that Customs and Border Protection undertakes on the border – like the idea to place razor wire on the Nogales border wall – are announced as deterrents to illegal border crossings. In late July, Arizona Republican Matt Salmon wrote a letter to Homeland Security demanding the release of recidivism rates and the Border Patrol’s own analysis of the impact that measures like vehicle barriers, more agents, and ground sensors have had on illegal immigration.
