Migration Opportunities and Human Capital Investments

We examine how shocks to migration affect schooling in origin communities. Wefocus on the migration between Mexico and the United States, and explore how theexpansion of the Secure Communities program in the US —a federal data sharingprogram that substantially increased the risk of detainment and deportation for illegalmigrants— affected attendance, enrollment, and attainment in Mexico. Our resultssuggest that the Secure Communities program increased attendance, enrollment andeducational attainment in municipalities that had stronger migration ties with countiesin the US that adopted the program early-on relative to municipalities that has tieswith US counties that introduced the policy later. These results are consistent withthe interpretation that the Secure Communities program implicitly raised the returnsto education by making low-skill migration to the US less attractive.