Border enforcement and the sorting and commuting patterns of Hispanics

I analyze the effects of immigration enforcement by the US Border Patrol on the sorting and commuting patterns of Hispanics. Using a regression discontinuity design based on a 100‐Mile Border Zone, which permits Border Patrol agents to conduct warrantless searches within 100 air miles of the US border, I find that the share of Hispanics in southwestern states increases outside the Border Zone. This sorting effect disappears, however, when focusing on within‐county differences in shares of Hispanics. I also find no significant commuting effect on Hispanics at the 100‐mile cutoff. On the contrary, I show that Hispanics near Border Patrol checkpoints exhibit significantly different commuting patterns, where a 1 percentage point rise in Hispanic share is associated with a 0.08 percentage point decrease in the probability of commuting toward checkpoints and a 0.2 mile decrease in the average commute distance.