Cycle on Jul 13, 2026

I will begin this research cycle by checking for any open threads or watches that need attention. This will help align the research with previous queries or active monitoring tasks.

I will fetch the current macro backdrop data to anchor our baseline labor market numbers (such as unemployment, CPI, etc.) and see if there are updated estimates or indicators that relate to our topic.

I see the current unemployment rate is at 4.2%. Now I'll do a web search to look for recent empirical research on the labor-market impacts of immigration, specifically looking for new papers, replication studies, or policy-related natural experiments published recently (e.g., in late 2025 or 2026), or major updates regarding the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) annual net immigration estimates (which is the subject of our ongoing watch). Let's search for CBO net immigration statistics updates in 2025/2026 and recent empirical papers on native wage/employment impacts.

Let's broaden the search query, as the previous one was quite specific. I will search for "CBO" "immigration" "labor" or "CBO" "budget outlook" "immigration" to find the latest reports on net immigration estimates and their economic/labor market impacts. Let's also search for papers on the wage and employment impacts of immigration from NBER or major journals in 2025/2026.

The search results point to a highly relevant and fresh report from January/February 2026: 1. `https://www.brookings.edu/articles/macroeconomic-implications-of-immigration-flows-in-2025-and-2026-january-2026-update/` (by Wendy Edelberg, Stan Veuger, and Tara Watson) 2. `https://www.cbo.gov/publication/62105` (The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2026 to 2036, published recently) Let's fetch the Brookings article first to see what the latest estimates and academic consensus are on the macroeconomic and labor market implications of immigration flows in 2025 and 2026. This will directly feed into our ongoing watch and provide solid, up-to-date empirical evidence.

This is incredibly valuable and highly fresh data (as of January 2026) regarding the shift in net migration to negative territory in 2025/2026. This directly impacts our ongoing watch on DHS/CBO estimates and the post-pandemic unauthorized immigration surge topic. Now, let's search for another major angle: new empirical research on how immigration affects native wages and employment, specifically focusing on skill groups, sector-specific findings, or methodological debates (like Card vs Borjas or the CEPII meta-analysis). I'll run a search for recent labor economics papers on immigration wage effects in 2025 or 2026.

We have some excellent new results here! 1. `https://www.frbsf.org/research-and-insights/publications/economic-letter/2026/02/unauthorized-immigration-effects-on-local-labor-markets/` (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Economic Letter, Feb 2026, about unauthorized immigration effects on local labor markets by Wilson and Zhou 2025/2026). 2. `https://gborjas.scholars.harvard.edu/resource/jole2026` (A 2026 Journal of Labor Economics paper by George Borjas: "Gender, Selection into Employment, and the Wage Impact of..."). 3. `https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2026/05/the-employment-effects-of-immigration-enforcement-an-initial-assessment/` (American Affairs Journal, May 2026, "The Employment Effects of Immigration Enforcement: An Initial Assessment"). Let's fetch the San Francisco Fed Economic Letter first, as it directly connects with our "unauthorized-immigration-local-labor-and-housing-markets" slug or provides a fresh replication/methodological perspective.

This SF Fed letter is perfect. It gives us empirical evidence of a "one-for-one" relationship between unauthorized immigrant worker flows (UIWF) and local employment growth, and highlights construction, hospitality, and manufacturing as the most impacted sectors. Now, let's look for George Borjas's 2026 paper "Gender, Selection into Employment, and the Wage Impact of..." or the American Affairs Journal article on the employment effects of immigration enforcement. Let's do a search on the American Affairs Journal article and try to fetch it.

Let's fetch the American Affairs Journal article to understand this "Initial Assessment" of the employment effects of immigration enforcement. This paper by Steven A. Camarota and Jason Richwine from May 2026 is highly relevant to our natural experiment and enforcement/labor market impacts.

Ah, the scrape timed out or had an issue. Let's try searching for a summary or details of the study, or search for other articles discussing Steven Camarota and Jason Richwine's paper on "The Employment Effects of Immigration Enforcement". Let's do a search.

Let's fetch the page from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), which has an excerpt of this paper: `https://cis.org/Camarota/Excerpt-Employment-Effects-Immigration-Enforcement-Initial-Assessment`. This might load faster and give us the core data and arguments.

This is a useful perspective that highlights the dramatic decline in the immigrant population in 2025 and argues that this decline is starting to draw more low-skill natives back into the labor force, though a sustained policy is necessary. Let's search for George Borjas's 2026 paper in the Journal of Labor Economics (JOLE): "Gender, Selection into Employment, and the Wage Impact of..." to see what the methodological contribution of this paper is. We can search for the title of Borjas's paper.

Let's fetch the PDF of the paper from George Borjas's Harvard Scholars page: `https://gborjas.scholars.harvard.edu/resource/jole2026`. This is a major 2026 Journal of Labor Economics publication by Borjas and Anthony Edo that addresses selection bias and gender in the wage impact of immigration. Let's see if we can fetch it or find a summary.

This is an extraordinary finding. George Borjas and Anthony Edo's paper, published in the *Journal of Labor Economics* (JOLE) in April 2026, provides a direct methodological reconciliation of the selection bias puzzle: 1. It explains why some empirical studies find a negative impact of immigration on native employment but little to no impact on native wages (specifically for women, who have a more elastic labor supply). 2. It demonstrates that native women who left the labor force in response to immigration were disproportionately low-wage workers. This selective exit artificially inflated the average wages of the remaining female native workforce, creating a false "zero wage elasticity" correlation in uncorrected cross-sectional data. 3. Once corrected for selection bias (using both Heckman's two-step procedure and an "identification-at-infinity" subsample analysis of highly attached workers like young single women without children), the wage elasticity for native women becomes negative (between -0.7 and -0.9), highly similar to the -0.7 to -0.8 elasticity found for native men. This directly refines our existing findings on selection bias, specifically updating `selection-bias-native-employment-wage-impacts`. Let's review the notes we have so we can update them. I'll call `read_notes` to see the exact structure.

I will now write updates to the relevant findings. First, I will update `selection-bias-native-employment-wage-impacts` to incorporate George Borjas and Anthony Edo's April 2026 paper in the *Journal of Labor Economics* (JOLE), which directly reconciles the gender-asymmetric wage/employment impacts of immigration as an artifact of selection bias. Second, I will update `unauthorized-immigration-local-labor-and-housing-markets` with the fresh February 2026 San Francisco Fed Economic Letter by Daniel Wilson and Xiaoqing Zhou, which uses court data to show a "one-for-one" causal relationship between unauthorized immigrant worker flows (UIWF) and local employment growth, and highlights the construction and manufacturing sectors as particularly vulnerable to the ongoing net immigration slowdown. This also directly relates to the Brookings report by Wendy Edelberg, Stan Veuger, and Tara Watson (January 2026), which reveals that net migration shifted into negative territory in 2025 (between -10,000 and -295,000) for the first time in at least half a century. Let's write the updated note for `selection-bias-native-employment-wage-impacts`. I will construct a comprehensive, evidence-grounded note that integrates the newly retrieved JOLE 2026 paper.

Now, let's write the updated note for `unauthorized-immigration-local-labor-and-housing-markets`. I will incorporate the February 2026 San Francisco Fed Economic Letter by Daniel Wilson and Xiaoqing Zhou, and the January 2026 Brookings report by Wendy Edelberg, Stan Veuger, and Tara Watson, which details the historic shift to negative net migration in 2025/2026. This is highly fresh, empirical, and sector-specific evidence. Let's write the note.

I have successfully updated the two relevant findings with top-tier, highly detailed empirical evidence from 2026. Now, let's look at the active watch. The watch is: - **ID:** `019eca51-dd39-7e01-b94d-142c0b0a0599` - **Title:** CBO and DHS Annual Net Immigration Estimates - **Trigger:** Track updated annual estimates of net unauthorized immigration and legal permanent resident (LPR) flows from the CBO and DHS. - **Cardinality:** ongoing Since this is an ongoing watch and we have just reviewed the updated net migration estimates for 2025 and 2026 (including CBO baselines and Brookings updates), we should record an event to document the updated numbers, but keep the watch open (`resolves: false`). Let's do that.

This is recorded successfully. Now, let's call `finish_cycle` to complete this research cycle. Since we have updated two key findings with major, credible 2026 empirical studies and recorded the event for our active watch, we are ready to finish.

I have completed this research cycle on the labor-market impacts of immigration. ### Key Accomplishments in this Cycle: 1. **Selection Bias & Reconciling Wage/Employment Impacts:** - Updated the research finding `selection-bias-native-employment-wage-impacts` using a landmark study published by George J. Borjas and Anthony Edo in the *Journal of Labor Economics* (April 2026). - This study provides a rigorous methodological reconciliation of why immigration studies often find negative employment impacts but zero wage impacts for native women. It demonstrates that the native women who exit the labor force in response to immigration are disproportionately low-wage workers. This selective exit artificially inflates the average wages of the remaining workforce, masking the downward pressure on wages. - Once corrected for selection bias (using Heckman corrections and identification-at-infinity subsample analysis), the wage elasticity for women matches that of men (between **-0.7 and -0.9**). 2. **Negative Net Migration & Local Labor Impacts (2025–2026):** - Updated `unauthorized-immigration-local-labor-and-housing-markets` using a January 2026 Brookings Institution update (by Wendy Edelberg, Stan Veuger, and Tara Watson) and a February 2026 San Francisco Fed Economic Letter (by Daniel Wilson and Xiaoqing Zhou). - **Demographic Shift:** Net migration turned **negative in 2025** (ranging from **–10,000 to –295,000**) for the first time in at least half a century. This is a massive reversal from the peak of 2.8 million in 2024. Projections for 2026 suggest net migration will remain negative. - **Employment Causal Effects:** The SF Fed study establishes a nearly **one-for-one causal relationship** between unauthorized immigrant worker flows (UIWF) and local employment growth. - **Sector-Specific Slowdowns:** While the rapid immigration rise boosted hospitality and professional services, the current steep decline in immigration is disproportionately harming **construction and manufacturing** employment, which has downstream negative effects on residential housing supply. 3. **Active Watch Update:** - Recorded a highly salient event under the ongoing watch `CBO and DHS Annual Net Immigration Estimates` to register the official transition to negative net migration in 2025/2026.