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Circular, invisible, and ambiguous migrants: Components of difference in estimates of the number of unauthorized Mexican migrants in the United States

Demography

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Abstract

Based on an equation that can be used with available data and that provides a basis for facilitating decomposition analyses, this research estimates that about 2.54 million total (as opposed to enumerated) unauthorized Mexicans resided in the United States in 1996. Comparing this figure with an estimate of about 2.70 million released by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) during the 1990s, we find that the two estimates involve different assumptions about circular, invisible, and ambiguous migrants. Such differences not only can have important policy implications; they can also be sizable and can operate in opposite directions, as illustrated by findings from a components-of-difference analysis. The results are also extrapolated to 2000, and implications for 2000 census counts are discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California at Irvine, 3151 Social Science Plaza, 92697-5100, Irvine, CA

    Frank D. Bean

  2. Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Tijuana

    Rodolfo Corona

  3. Consejo Nacional de Población, Mexico

    Rodolfo Tuiran

  4. Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, USA

    Karen A. Woodrow-Lafield

  5. Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, USA

    Jennifer Van Hook

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  1. Frank D. Bean
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  2. Rodolfo Corona
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  3. Rodolfo Tuiran
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  4. Karen A. Woodrow-Lafield
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  5. Jennifer Van Hook
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The support of a grant from the Hewlett Foundation is gratefully acknowledged. Some of the research in the paper was begun in conjunction with the work of the Mexico/ U.S. Binational Migration Study. We thank Thomas Espenshade, Jennifer Glick, Lindsay Lowell, Susan Martin, Jeffrey Passel, Marta Tienda, Robert Warren, the members of the Binational Study, three anonymous reviewers, and the editors at Demography for assistance or comments on parts of the research or on earlier drafts. Previous versions of the paper were presented at the 1998 annual meetings of the Population Association of America, held in Chicago on April 2-4, and at the conference “Current Issues in Agricultural Technology and Society” sponsored by the University of California and CONACYT, held in Mexico City on February 12, 2000.

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Bean, F.D., Corona, R., Tuiran, R. et al. Circular, invisible, and ambiguous migrants: Components of difference in estimates of the number of unauthorized Mexican migrants in the United States. Demography 38, 411–422 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1353/dem.2001.0023

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