Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics

The availability of immigrant farm-workers from Mexico is a critical factor affecting the fresh fruit and vegetable sector in the United States. This paper uses a retrospective panel data set from rural Mexico to examine the impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Immigration Reform and Control Act on the supply of migrant labor to the United States. We find that, in contrast to policy expectations, both policies were associated with an increase in migration to U.S. farm jobs from rural Mexico.