Fighting the wrong battle: the effects of immigrant inflows on domestic migration of natives versus settled immigrants in the USA

Using a multilevel model to account for individual and state levels of analysis, we examined whether native-born workers and settled immigrants differed in their migratory responses to recent immigration. We investigated the disparate impact of recent immigration across varying macroeconomic situations: before the recession (2006), during the recession (2009), and after the recession (2012). Our empirical results revealed that as immigration increased, settled immigrants showed a tendency to migrate outside of their states, while native-born workers were more likely to remain. Despite its significant impact in 2006 and 2009, the share of recent immigrants became statistically insignificant in 2012. Regardless of macroeconomic situation, the probability of out-migration for native-born workers was found to be negatively associated with recent immigrant share. This finding challenges the existing notion that new immigration creates competition with native-born workers in the labor market and causes unnecessary domestic migration.