Deporting “Bad Hombres”? The Profile of Deportees under Widespread Versus Prioritized Enforcement

Abstract

US President Trump’s administration has vowed to boost immigration enforcement to get rid of “bad hombres,” or undocumented immigrants with criminal records. Using past data on the alleged detention motives for a representative sample of Mexican deportees, we evaluate how prior widespread and prioritized enforcement has fared in that regard. We find that while the early sweeping approach to enforcement raised deportees’ propensity of being detained for minor offenses, the trend reversed with prioritized enforcement. These findings inform policy tactics that, aside from proving effective in prioritizing serious criminal offenses, can also lead to significant savings to taxpayers.