Immigration Enforcement, Parent–Child Separations, and Intent to Remigrate by Central American Deportees

Abstract

Given the unprecedented increase in the flow of migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to the United States, this article analyzes the impact of U.S. interior enforcement on parent–child separations among Central American deportees, along with its implications for deportees’ intentions to remigrate to the United States. Using the EMIF sur survey data, we find that interior enforcement raises the likelihood of parent–child separations as well as the likelihood that parents forcedly separated from their young children report the intention to return to the United States, presumably without documents. By increasing parent–child separations, interior enforcement could prove counterproductive in deterring repetitive unauthorized crossings among Central American deportees.