Sanctuary city rules don't actually hurt the wages of local workers, even the ones with the least skills.
March 19, 2026
Original Paper
Sanctuary Cities and the Wages of Native Workers: A Difference-in-Difference Analysis
SSRN · 6345201
The Takeaway
Despite the common political assumption that limiting immigration enforcement creates a labor surplus that drives down local pay, empirical analysis across a decade of US data shows no wage suppression. The presence of 'sanctuary' protections for undocumented immigrants does not appear to displace or economically harm native-born employees.
From the abstract
Sanctuary cities are municipal jurisdictions that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, creating "sanctuaries" for undocumented immigrants. Despite widespread concern that such policies may depress native workers' wages by attracting a disproportionate share of likely-undocumented immigrants (LUIs), there is little empirical evidence on the question. Using a difference in-difference framework, individual-level data from the American Community Survey (2010-2019), and the residua