Why I Won’t ‘Go Back to Where I Came From’: An Economic Analysis
of Illegal Migration
Mary Daniels / mdaniels@bellarmine.edu / Faculty
Advisor: Frank Raymond
The United States has witnessed a declining yet still significant
number of illegal migrants crossing the southern border over the past decade
while the European Union experienced a rapid increase in illegal migrants,
hosting over two million illegal migrants at the height of their migrant crisis
in 2015. This paper seeks to provide guidance to European and United States lawmakers
on creating effective immigration policy by identifying significant push and
pull factors that are driving illegal migration from West and North Africa to
Europe and from Latin America to the United States. This empirical analysis
indicates that, in both the United States and European Union, per capita GDP
and migrant acceptance rates were identified as strong pull factors for illegal
migrants. Furthermore, low employment was identified as a significant push
factor for migrants in West Africa and Latin America, reinforcing the need to
address chronic structural problems that exacerbate unemployment in these
countries.
