Obama Immigration Policy and Cascading Behavior
Original Link: http://online.wsj.com/articles/obamas-immigration-plan-seen-impacting-wages-job-moves-1416502561
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On Thursday, Nov. 20, President Obama announced a new immigration plan that will temporarily protect certain undocumented immigrants — estimated between 4 and 5 million people that meet certain criteria — from deportation. This politically controversial move will also allow these individuals to legally apply to jobs and pay taxes. Looking at information presented by an article from the Wall Street Journal, it seems apparent that these affected immigrants will be heavily influenced by the Cascading Behavior phenomenon explored in Chapter 19, especially when it comes for job-searching.
The article, called “Immigrants Likely to Seek More Pay — Economists Say Obama Executive Order Could Bring Increased Job Competition to Some Sectors,” says it is likely that immigrants affected by Obama’s plan will shift from farming and sales jobs into higher-paying jobs in other industries due to their sudden protection from deportation. This process can be modeled using a network that tracks behavior between immigrants who work in lower-paying jobs (“B”) vs those who work in higher-paying jobs (“A”).
As an undocumented immigrant facing the threat of deportation, the value on A ends up being relatively low compared to B, because it is harder to keep a high-paying job as an illegal immigrant (so the risk outweighs the reward). As the article states, “Many undocumented immigrants have recently steered away from manufacturing jobs and employers like meatpackers, fearing raids from immigration officials.” With the introduction of Obama’s plan, millions of workers will have temporary protection from deportation and thus the value of A becomes higher than B, ultimately reducing the threshold level q by a significant level. Workers who were previously unlikely to apply for higher-paying jobs are now much more likely to be affected by people with behavior A, and it is likely that there will be a strong behavioral cascade among immigrant communities.