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Resum
Using the 2005-2014 waves of the American Community Survey –a period of expansion in interior immigration enforcement, we exploit the temporal and geographic variation in the adoption of tougher policy measures to identify their impact on undocumented immigrants’ fertility. We find that a one standard deviation increase in enforcement lowers the childbearing likelihood of likely undocumented women by 5 percent. The effect emanates from police-based measures that raise uncertainty about the future of the family unit and its resources. Understanding these impacts is important given the critical contribution of immigrants and their offspring to the sustainability of the welfare state.
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