Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

In 2014, the United States experienced a “surge” of unaccompanied children arriving at the country’s southern border. During the 12 months of 2014, 63,676 unaccompanied children were apprehended, a stunning 45% increase from 2013’s 44,668 unaccompanied child apprehensions (U.S. Customs). As defined by the U.S. Code “unaccompanied alien child” refers to a child who— (A) has no lawful immigration status in the United States; (B)has not attained 18 years of age; and (C)with respect to whom—(i)there is no parent or legal guardian in the United States; or (ii)no parent or legal guardian in the United States is available to provide care and physical custody (6 U.S. Code § 279- Children’s affairs). With an estimated 10.7 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States (Krogstad et al. 2018), unaccompanied children making up an increasing proportion of apprehensions (CBP), and concentrated political effort to decrease both legal and unauthorized migration (Baker 2017), it is crucial to better understand the role that push and pull factors impact the flows of unaccompanied children into the United States.

Understanding why unaccompanied children migrate, and whether immigration policies specific to minors such as DACA increase illegal child migration flows, is important for U.S. immigration policy to be effective and efficient. This project utilizes a time series approach with a temporal distinction pre and post the 2014 surge, to conclude that other immigrants and UAMs are much more strongly associated post-2014 surge. These finding suggest that the mechanisms affecting migration flows during the 2014-2017 period were driving adults and children alike. Because adults would receive no benefit out of the DACA policy, the findings counters the suggested pull-factor theory based on DACA being responsible for the 2014 surge. In other words, if DACA were the pull factor increasing UAM migration then we would expect a weak association between the time series starting in 2014. By comparing the relationship between migration flows of unaccompanied minors (UAM) and other immigrants, this project is unique in comparing types of apprehensions and considering immigration flows across relatively unstudied identities, while pushing the literature by utilizing a time series approach that includes more periods than the current literature.