Speaker

Renan Chicarelli Marques
Graduate Student, Sanford School of Public Policy
Duke University

Abstract

Destination countries increasingly delegate migration enforcement to transit countries, an approach whose efficacy and consequences remain largely unknown. We study Mexico’s 2021-22 introduction of a tourist visa requirement for Brazilians, Ecuadorians, and Venezuelans, which disrupted a key pathway of irregular migration: flying into Mexico before continuing overland to the United States border. Brazilian encounters at the US-Mexico border fell 84% and remained low; Ecuadorian encounters fell 68% but recovered within six quarters; Venezuelan encounters were unaffected. Rather than fly to Mexico, Ecuadorians and Venezuelans started to cross the deadlier Darién Gap to reach the United States; while deterred Brazilians shifted toward U.S. visa overstays. The United States reaped the benefits, migrants bore the risks, and Mexico the cost: genuine tourist arrivals, a significant share of the local economy, contracted significantly.