An Empirical Assessment of U.S. State-Level Immigration and Environmental Emissions

Abstract

This paper uses U.S. state-level data for CO, NO2, SO2, and PM10 emissions and a STIRPAT-inspired model to provide empirical evidence discrediting, at least in part, the restrictionist perspective on the immigration-environment relationship. The paper finds that U.S. states with a larger share of foreign-born residents are associated with lower NO2 and SO2 emissions. While these results do not necessarily imply that immigrants mitigate environmental emissions, they emphasize the importance of addressing the relationship between immigration and the environment based on an objective assessment of facts. Hence, it is this paper's contention that it is empirically unjustifiable to call for restrictions on immigration on environmental grounds.