Security issues and immigration flows: Drug-violence refugees, the ...

and enrollment in English as a second language school programs has gone up.
In this paper I presented the first quantitative evidence available, to show that
the reason behind this sui generis Mexican migration patterns is not to be found at traditional
explanations of migration dynamics. Mexicans are not crossing into the US to
get better-paid jobs or run away from economic hardship, at least this is not the only
reason. Instead, I argue that Mexicans are migrating out of fear of drug-related violence
and extortion which has spiked since 2008. This is particularly true at border counties
where Mexican drug-trafficking organizations have causes large increments in homicides
rates, and where migration to the US entails relatively low costs.
My estimates showed that even controlling for normal conditions fostering migration,
like employment and education, drug-related violence and extortion explain a
significant part of migration flows both within Mexico and from Mexico to the US. In
my preferred specification (model 3), every one point increase in the rate drug-related
homicides per 100,000 inhabitants is correlated with 6.34 Mexicans fleeing their county
of residency. A total of 264,693 Mexicans have moved their residency in direct response
to drug-related homicides.
Though my methodology does not allow me to disentangle what proportion of
Mexicans left violent cities to relocate at other less violent cities within Mexico versus
those who did it to relocate at the US, case studies of border communities such as Mier
and Juarez showed that quite a significant share of immigrants are actually crossing the
border to live in the US, particularly Texas. Further research would need to be done to
disentangle these two different migration destinations. The goal of this piece has been to
show that traditional economic factors determining migration patterns from Mexico to
the US cannot account for large, recent migration flows.
New Mexican immigrants are more similar to violence refugees than to illegal workers.
As such, the only way to stop migration flows to keep growing at the border is to
20