Title: Do amnesties pull in illegal immigrants? An analysis of European apprehension data

Authors: Frank Wehinger

Addresses: Danube Labs – Social Engineering, Pannonhalma Straße 4, 78234 Engen, Germany

Abstract: In political debates on illegal immigration, it is often argued that legalisation campaigns encourage future illegal immigration. This alleged pull effect is tested for the first time with an exclusive focus on the European Union by using national apprehension data. The results of the multivariate models suggest that amnesties indeed exert a small attracting influence on illegal immigration. The results must be interpreted carefully, however, because of the low reliability of the data.

Keywords: illegal immigration; undocumented immigration; undocumented immigrants; amnesties; legalisation; data reliability; European Union; EU immigration; national apprehension data; multivariate modelling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMBS.2014.066312

International Journal of Migration and Border Studies, 2014 Vol.1 No.2, pp.231 - 246

Received: 05 Nov 2013
Accepted: 06 May 2014
Published online: 23 Dec 2014 *

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