Membership has its Privileges
The Role of Identity Prioritization: Why Some Latinx Support Restrictionist Immigration Policies and Candidates
Flavio Hickel et al.
Public Opinion Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Social Identity Theory suggests that individuals are motivated to support/oppose policies and politicians that benefit/harm members of their ingroup as a means of protecting their social status. Since the Republican Party's rhetoric against immigrants in recent decades has often been viewed as an assault upon those of Latinx descent, it is not surprising that strong majorities oppose restrictionist immigration policies and support the Democratic Party. However, the existing literature has overlooked why a sizeable minority of Latinx voters express support for restrictionist immigration policies and the politicians who espouse them. Our analysis of Latinx voters with the 2012 and 2016 American National Election Studies (ANES) demonstrates that the degree to which individuals prioritize their US American identity over their Latinx identity has a significant influence over support for conservative immigration policies and GOP candidates. This relationship emerges above and beyond partisanship, ideology, and other key explanatory factors. Such attitudes likely represent an individual social mobility strategy in which members of a social group attempt to "pass" as a member of a higher-status group. Prioritizing a US American identity, supporting the Republican Party, and expressing hostility toward the interests of undocumented immigrants are a means of distinguishing themselves from a social group that has become increasingly associated with negative stereotypes. In contrast, those who are unwilling or unable to make this transition are likely pursuing a collective social mobility strategy (e.g., linked fate) whereby they attempt to enhance their individual status by elevating that of the entire social group.
Diversity in Schools: Immigrants and the Educational Performance of U.S. Born Students
David Figlio et al.
NBER Working Paper, March 2021
Abstract:
We study the effect of exposure to immigrants on the educational outcomes of US-born students, using a unique dataset combining population-level birth and school records from Florida. This research question is complicated by substantial school selection of US-born students, especially among White and comparatively affluent students, in response to the presence of immigrant students in the school. We propose a new identification strategy to partial out the unobserved non-random selection into schools, and find that the presence of immigrant students has a positive effect on the academic achievement of US-born students, especially for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Moreover, the presence of immigrants does not affect negatively the performance of affluent US-born students, who typically show a higher academic achievement compared to immigrant students. We provide suggestive evidence on potential channels.
DACA's Association With Birth Outcomes Among Mexican-Origin Mothers in the United States
Erin Hamilton, Paola Langer & Caitlin Patler
Demography, forthcoming
Abstract:
The 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program granted work authorization and protection from deportation to more than 800,000 young undocumented immigrants who arrived to the United States as minors. We estimate the association between this expansion of legal rights and birth outcomes among 72,613 singleton births to high school-educated Mexican immigrant women in the United States from June 2010 to May 2014, using birth records data from the National Center for Health Statistics. Exploiting the arbitrariness of the upper age cutoff for DACA eligibility and using a difference-in-differences design, we find that DACA was associated with improvements in the rates of low birth weight and very low birth weight, birth weight in grams, and gestational age among Mexican immigrant mothers.
The Effect of Mass Legalization on US State-Level Institutions: Evidence from the Immigration Reform and Control Act
Lili Yao, Brandon Bolen & Claudia Williamson
Public Choice, forthcoming
Abstract:
A new case for immigration restrictions argues that migrants may transmit low productivity to their destination countries by importing low-quality economic institutions. Using the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) as a natural experiment, we test whether the legalization of undocumented immigrants affects the quality of state-level economic institutions in the United States. Using synthetic control models, we find that, in the short run, legalization may increase the burden of government spending. However, in the long run, we find statistically insignificant effects of legalization on economic institutions.
The Socioeconomic Attainments of Second-Generation Nigerian and Other Black Americans: Evidence from the Current Population Survey, 2009 to 2019
Arthur Sakamoto et al.
Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, March 2021
Abstract:
Second-generation black Americans have been inadequately studied in prior quantitative research. The authors seek to ameliorate this research gap by using the Current Population Survey to investigate education and wages among second-generation black Americans with a focus on Nigerian Americans. The latter group has been identified in some qualitative studies as having particularly notable socioeconomic attainments. The results indicate that the educational attainment of second-generation Nigerian Americans exceeds other second-generation black Americans, third- and higher generation African Americans, third- and higher generation whites, second-generation whites, and second-generation Asian Americans. Controlling for age, education, and disability, the wages of second-generation Nigerian Americans have reached parity with those of third- and higher generation whites. The educational attainment of other second-generation black Americans exceeds that of third- and higher generation African Americans but has reached parity with that of third- and higher generation whites only among women. These results indicate significant socioeconomic variation within the African American/black category by gender, ethnicity, and generational status that merits further research.
White and minority demographic shifts, intergroup threat, and right-wing extremism
Hui Bai & Christopher Federico
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
We present four studies (one correlational and three experimental) of American Whites that examine relationships between White and minority demographic shifts, intergroup threat, and support for extreme-right groups and actions. We focus in particular on the role of collective existential threat (i.e., a perception that the ingroup will cease to exist), along with three alternative/competing intergroup threats: status threat, symbolic threat, and prototypicality threat. Though no zero-order relationship was found between perceived White population decline and far-right variables, we find evidence that (1) perceived White population decline leads to collective existential threat net of other perceived demographic shifts, (2) collective existential threat is related to far-right support net of other threats, and (3) perceived White decline has a robust indirect relationship with measures of far-right support via collective existential threat.
Does Halting Refugee Resettlement Reduce Crime? Evidence from the US Refugee Ban
Daniel Masterson & Vasil Yasenov
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many countries have reduced refugee admissions in recent years, in part due to fears that refugees and asylum seekers increase crime rates and pose a national security risk. Existing research presents ambiguous expectations about the consequences of refugee resettlement on crime. We leverage a natural experiment in the United States, where an Executive Order by the president in January 2017 halted refugee resettlement. This policy change was sudden and significant -- it resulted in the lowest number of refugees resettled on US soil since 1977 and a 66% drop in resettlement from 2016 to 2017. In this article, we find that there is no discernible effect on county-level property or violent crime rates.
When Labor Enforcement and Immigration Enforcement Collide: Deterring Worker Complaints Worsens Workplace Safety
Matthew Johnson & Amanda Grittner
Duke University Working Paper, December 2020
Abstract:
Regulatory agencies overseeing the labor market often rely on worker complaints to target their enforcement resources. This system might be counterproductive if the workers at risk of poor working conditions also face high barriers to complain. We examine the implications of complaint-based enforcement in the context of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). We provide descriptive evidence that Hispanic workers face higher barriers to complain: workplaces with large shares of Hispanic workers have higher injury rates but issue fewer complaints to OSHA. We show that workers' willingness to complain causally affects the job hazards they face. At workplaces with large shares of Hispanic workers, counties' participation in an immigration enforcement program reduced complaints to OSHA, but increased injuries. Our results highlight that using complaints to direct regulatory enforcement can exacerbate existing inequalities when workers face differential barriers to complain.
Who Votes among Asian American Ethnic Subgroups?
Haifan Xiao & Loretta Bass
Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, March 2021
Abstract:
The authors address the gap in what is known about voting among Asian American ethnic subgroups using National Asian American Survey 2016 Post-Election Survey data to investigate the propensity to vote in the 2016 presidential election across two samples: registered Asian Americans and registered naturalized Asian Americans. The authors use logistic regressions to examine voting behavior across 10 Asian ethnic subgroups for the first time. Across both samples of Asian Americans and naturalized Asian Americans, Chinese Americans demonstrate a lower propensity to vote than most other Asian ethnic subgroups, while Asian Indian and Bangladeshi Americans demonstrate a higher propensity to vote. Among all Asian Americans, being female, being older, and having more education all pattern higher rates of reported voting in the 2016 presidential election, while for naturalized Asians, time in the United States and higher levels of education are associated with a higher likelihood of voting in the 2016 presidential election.
The Young America Movement, the Koszta Affair of 1853, and the Construction of Nationalism before the Civil War
Mark Power Smith
Journal of the Early Republic, Spring 2021, Pages 87-114
Abstract:
By examining a hugely significant, yet overlooked, diplomatic incident, known as the Martin Koszta Affair (1853), this article offers a new interpretation of nationalism in the antebellum United States. Martin Koszta was a Hungarian refugee who had declared his intention of becoming an American citizen after the failed revolutions of 1848. But, before the process of naturalization was complete, Koszta returned to Europe, where he was captured by Austrian authorities off the coast of Turkey. After an American naval captain rescued Koszta, the Democratic administration negotiated the Hungarian's safe return to the United States, arguing his "natural right" to expatriation trumped Austria's doctrine of perpetual allegiance, and that Koszta was entitled to U.S. protection because of his "domiciled" status. This article shows that a faction within the Democratic Party, known as the Young America movement, advocated an even more radical justification for Ingraham's actions, claiming the incident had set a precedent for protecting "inchoate" citizens beyond the borders of the Union. In doing so, they championed a form of nationalism that collapsed the boundary between natural and citizenship rights, and expanded the remit of American foreign policy. This response complicates the emphasis on sectional divisions that dominates the scholarship in this period. In fact, there was an intra-sectional conflict about the basis of nationality that hinged on the tension between a legalistic definition of citizenship and a natural rights definition, with significant implications for the way Americans perceived the Union's role in the world.