Stay awhile
Why Border Enforcement Backfired
Douglas Massey, Karen Pren & Jorge Durand
American Journal of Sociology, March 2016, Pages 1557-1600
Abstract:
In this article the authors undertake a systematic analysis of why border enforcement backfired as a strategy of immigration control in the United States. They argue theoretically that border enforcement emerged as a policy response to a moral panic about the perceived threat of Latino immigration to the United States propounded by self-interested bureaucrats, politicians, and pundits who sought to mobilize political and material resources for their own benefit. The end result was a self-perpetuating cycle of rising enforcement and increased apprehensions that resulted in the militarization of the border in a way that was disconnected from the actual size of the undocumented flow. Using an instrumental variable approach, the authors show how border militarization affected the behavior of unauthorized migrants and border outcomes to transform undocumented Mexican migration from a circular flow of male workers going to three states into an 11 million person population of settled families living in 50 states.
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The Labor Supply of Undocumented Immigrants
George Borjas
NBER Working Paper, March 2016
Abstract:
The Department of Homeland Security estimates that 11.4 million undocumented persons reside in the United States. Congress and President Obama are considering a number of proposals to regularize the status of the undocumented population and provide a "path to citizenship." Any future change in the immigration status of this group is bound to have significant effects on the labor market, on the number of persons that qualify for various government-provided benefits, on the timing of retirement, on the size of the population receiving Social Security benefits, and on the funding of almost all of these government programs. This paper provides a comprehensive empirical study of the labor supply behavior of undocumented immigrants in the United States. Using newly developed methods that attempt to identify undocumented status for foreign-born persons sampled in the Current Population Surveys, the empirical analysis documents a number of findings, including the fact that the work propensity of undocumented men is much larger than that of other groups in the population; that this gap has grown over the past two decades; and that the labor supply elasticity of undocumented men is very close to zero, suggesting that their labor supply is almost perfectly inelastic.
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On Normative Effects of Immigration Law
Emily Ryo
University of Southern California Working Paper, March 2016
Abstract:
Can laws shape and mold our attitudes, values, and social norms, and if so, how do immigration laws affect our attitudes or views toward minority groups? I explore these questions through a randomized laboratory experiment that examines whether and to what extent short-term exposures to anti-immigration and pro-immigration laws affect people's implicit and explicit attitudes toward Latinos. My analysis shows that exposure to an anti-immigration law is associated with increased perceptions among study participants that Latinos are unintelligent and law-breaking. In contrast, I find no evidence that exposure to pro-immigration laws promoted positive attitudes toward Latinos. Taken together, these results suggest that exposure to anti-immigration laws can easily trigger negative racial attitudes, but fostering positive racial attitudes through pro-immigration laws might be substantially more difficult. I argue that a fuller appreciation of the impacts of immigration laws requires an understanding of their normative effects. I conclude by discussing the directions for future research on law, racial attitudes, and intergroup relations, and the policy implications of my findings.
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The Acceleration of Immigrant Unhealthy Assimilation
Osea Giuntella & Luca Stella
Health Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
It is well known that immigrants tend to be healthier than US natives and that this advantage erodes with time spent in the USA. However, we know less about the heterogeneity of these trajectories among arrival cohorts. Recent studies have shown that later arrival cohorts of immigrants have lower entry wages and experience less economic assimilation. In this paper, we investigate whether similar cohort effects can be observed in the weight assimilation of immigrants in the USA. Focusing on obesity, we show that more recent immigrant cohorts arrive with higher obesity rates and experience a faster 'unhealthy assimilation' in terms of weight gain.
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The Welfare Impact of Global Migration in OECD Countries
Amandine Aubry, Michał Burzyński & Frédéric Docquier
Journal of International Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper quantifies the effect of global migration on the welfare of non-migrant OECD citizens. We develop an integrated, multi-country model that accounts for the interactions between the labor market, fiscal, and market size effects of migration, as well as for trade relations between countries. The model is calibrated to match the economic and demographic characteristics of the 34 OECD countries and the rest of the world, as well as trade flows between them in the year 2010. We show that recent migration flows have been beneficial for 69 percent of the non-migrant OECD population, and for 83 percent of non-migrant citizens of the 22 richest OECD countries. Winners are mainly residing in traditional immigration countries; their gains are substantial and are essentially due to the entry of immigrants from non OECD countries. Although labor market and fiscal effects are non-negligible in some countries, the greatest source of gain comes from the market size effect, i.e. the change in the variety of goods available to consumers.
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Emergency Department Use Among Hispanic Adults: The Role of Acculturation
Lindsay Allen & Janet Cummings
Medical Care, May 2016, Pages 449-456
Objectives: We provide the first known examination of differences in nonurgent and urgent emergency department (ED) usage between Hispanic and non-Hispanic white individuals, with varying levels of acculturation.
Materials and Methods: We pooled cross-sectional data for Hispanic and non-Hispanic white adults (ages 18-64) from the 2011 to 2013 National Health Interview Surveys. Using logistic regression models, we examined differences in past-year ED use, urgent ED use, and nonurgent ED use by acculturation level, which we measure by combining information on respondents' citizenship status, birthplace, and length of stay (immigrants <5, 5-10, >10 y in the United States; naturalized citizens; US born).
Results: Overall, 17.8% of Hispanic individuals and 18.5% of non-Hispanic white individuals use the ED annually. Compared with US-born non-Hispanic white individuals, the least acculturated Hispanic individuals are 14.4% points (P<0.001) less likely to use the ED for any reason, 9.8% points (P<0.001) less likely to use it for a nonurgent reason, and 5.3% points (P<0.01) less likely to use it for an urgent reason.
Conclusions: Contrary to popular perception, the least acculturated Hispanic individuals are the least likely to use the ED. As acculturation level rises, so does one's likelihood of using the ED, particularly for nonurgent visits.
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Advancing Executive Branch Immigration Policy Through the Attorney General's Review Authority
Alberto Gonzales & Patrick Glen
Iowa Law Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Prospects for comprehensive immigration reform look dim in light of past failures to enact legislation, such as the DREAM Act, and a continued period of divided government placing a skeptical Republican Congress in opposition to a sympathetic Democratic President. With legislative fixes for the United States' immigration system unlikely in the near future, the Obama Administration will continue to press its immigration agenda via executive order and enforcement memorandum. Such initiatives do provide real short-term benefits, but they are by nature temporary and lack the ability to provide any permanent status to their beneficiaries. Importantly, however, they are not the only tools that the executive branch wields if it is intent on implementing certain reforms even in the face of a divided Congress. This Article focuses on a little used mechanism, Attorney General referral and review, which could play an efficacious role in the executive branch's development and implementation of its immigration policy. This procedure permits the Attorney General to adjudicate individual immigration cases and thereby provide a definitive interpretation of law or institute new policy-based prescriptions to guide immigration officials in the future. Although used only four times by the Obama Administration, and sparingly in prior administrations, the history of its invocation establishes it as a powerful tool through which the executive branch can assert its prerogatives in the immigration field. Structurally, this Article presents both a historical overview of the referral authority and a doctrinal assessment of its prior use by modern Attorneys General. It also refutes common, but fundamentally misplaced, criticisms of the authority, including the purported lack of due process attendant upon referral. Finally, it concludes by considering certain proposals for reform that could make the authority a more robust avenue for executive branch immigration policy.
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The Neighborhood Context of Latino Threat
Matthew Hall & Maria Krysan
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, forthcoming
Abstract:
In recent years, the size of the Latino immigrant population has swelled in communities throughout the United States. For decades, social scientists have studied how social context, particularly a minority group's relative size, affects the sentiments of the dominant group. Using a random sample survey of five communities in suburban Chicago, the authors examine the impact of Latino population concentration on native-born white residents' subjective perceptions of threat from Latino immigrants at two micro-level geographies: the immediate block and the surrounding blocks. After controlling for Latino population size in surrounding blocks, percentage Latino in the immediate block does not influence perceptions of threat from Latino immigrants. The effect of surrounding blocks' population size is consistent with group threat theories for white residents: the larger the Latino population, the greater the perceived threat.
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William Lopez et al.
Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, forthcoming
Abstract:
Immigration raids exemplify the reach of immigration law enforcement into the lives of Latino community members, yet little research characterizes the health effects of these raids. We examined the health implications of an immigration raid that resulted in multiple arrests and deportations and occurred midway through a community survey of a Latino population. We used linear regression following principal axis factoring to examine the influence of raid timing on immigration enforcement stress and self-rated health. We controlled for age, sex, relationship status, years in the county in which the raid occurred, children in the home, and nativity. 325 participants completed the survey before the raid and 151 after. Completing the survey after the raid was associated with higher levels of immigration enforcement stress and lower self-rated health scores. Findings indicate the negative impact of immigration raids on Latino communities. Immigration discussions should include holistic assessments of health.
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The International Consequences of American National Origins Quotas: The Australian Case
David Atkinson
Journal of American Studies, May 2016, Pages 377-396
Abstract:
This article examines Australian responses to the imposition of stringent national origins quotas in the United States during the 1920s. Following the introduction of the American quota system, many Australians worried that large numbers of undesirable southern and eastern European migrants would make their way toward Australian ports. Widespread calls for preemptive restrictions forced the Australian government to finally implement a range of measures designed to limit immigration from Italy, Greece, Albania, Yugoslavia, and Malta. More broadly, this article argues that American quotas often inadvertently engendered a wide range of indirect and unintentional consequences around the world that scholars of migration and American foreign relations might explore in greater depth. It concludes by suggesting some opportunities for individual and collaborative research into the international effects of the United States' notorious national origins quota system.
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Public or Private? The Influence of Immigration on Native Schooling Choices in the United States
Thomas Murray
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examines whether rising enrollments of foreign-born students in U.S. public schools caused a movement among native children from public schools to private schools, something the literature has labeled native flight to private school. Using data from the National Center of Educational Statistics School District Demographic System, estimates of native flight are constructed using enrollment data on native and foreign-born, school-age children from 1990, 2000, and 2010. Concern regarding omitted variables bias necessitates the use of an instrumental variables technique. An instrument for the foreign-born enrollment is created using information about the ethnic composition of school districts in 1980 to predict the enrollment patterns of foreign-born students in later years. Two-stage least squares estimates confirm the presence of native flight. Flight to private school among white native students is occurring in smaller school districts in non-traditional immigrant receiving states, while flight among native minorities and Hispanics is located in school districts that reside in traditional immigrant receiving states.
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Locus of Control and Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom
Allison Harell, Stuart Soroka & Shanto Iyengar
Political Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using data collected in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, this article examines the determinants of attitudes toward immigrants. In particular, we draw on the literature in social psychology to explore the role of locus of control in promoting more ethnocentric and restrictive attitudes towards immigration. We conceptualize control at three levels: (1) perceptions of individual locus of control (i.e., feeling that one can control one's own circumstances), (2) perceptions of societal control (i.e., feeling that one's country has control over immigration), and (3) perceptions of an outgroup's locus of control (i.e., feeling that an outgroup's social circumstances are attributable to dispositional rather than external factors). Results show that all three measures of control are important predictors of negative attitudes toward immigrants: Those who feel in control (personally or as a society) are less hostile towards immigrants, while those who attribute negative outcomes to immigrants' predispositions are also more hostile. Results also suggest that measures of control are related to, but distinct from, both partisanship and racial prejudice.
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Ben Feldmeyer, Casey Harris & Daniel Lai
Sociological Forum, forthcoming
Abstract:
Scholars have produced a sizable body of research assessing the macrolevel links between immigration and crime. However, researchers have given far less attention to related questions about the effects of language use on aggregate levels of violence. The current study addresses this gap in research by exploring the ways that patterns of language use - specifically, language heterogeneity and Spanish-language concentration - are related to year 2010 serious violent crime rates for nearly 2,900 census places across the United States. Results of our analysis reveal that linguistic heterogeneity is associated with increased violence and that this relationship is stronger in disadvantaged contexts. In contrast, Spanish-language concentration appears to be protective against violence and mitigates the violence-generating effects of structural disadvantage, net of immigration and other macrostructural characteristics. Implications of these findings for research on immigration, communities and crime, and related theoretical perspectives on immigrant revitalization and macrostructural theories of crime are discussed.
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It is Hard to Swim Upstream: Dietary Acculturation Among Mexican-Origin Children
Jennifer Van Hook et al.
Population Research and Policy Review, April 2016, Pages 177-196
Abstract:
Health and immigration researchers often implicate dietary acculturation in explanations of Mexican children of immigrants' weight gain after moving to the U.S., but rarely explore how diet is shaped by immigrants' structural incorporation. We used data from the 1999/00-2009/10 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to assess how indicators of Mexican-origin children's acculturation and structural incorporation influence two outcomes: how healthy and how "Americanized" children's diets are. Indicators of acculturation were strongly associated with more Americanized and less healthy diets. However, structural incorporation indicators were mostly unrelated to diet outcomes net of acculturation. An exception was that parental education was positively associated with consuming a healthy diet. Finally, children of natives consumed more Americanized, unhealthy diets than children of immigrants and these differences were largely explained by differences in the acculturation. Children of natives would have consumed an even less healthy diet were it not for their higher levels of parental education. Overall, the results suggest that the process of adapting to the U.S. life style is associated with the loss of cultural culinary preferences and less healthy eating behaviors despite improvements in socioeconomic status.
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Accent, Gender, and Perceived Competence
Larry Nelson, Margaret Signorella & Karin Botti
Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, May 2016, Pages 166-185
Abstract:
Those who use non-indigenous accented speech often experience prejudice and discrimination, and in the United States, those speaking with Spanish accents are likely to be impacted. In research on speaker perceptions by type of accent, however, the gender of the speaker or of the perceiver has received less attention. In the present study, the impact of accent (North American- vs. Spanish-accented English), gender of speaker, and gender of rater on perceptions of competence were investigated in a sample of U.S. undergraduates. Participants heard a recording by either a male or female speaker who spoke in English with either a North American or Spanish accent. As hypothesized, Spanish-accented speakers were more likely to be judged negatively, female speakers were more likely to receive negative assessments, and male participants were more likely to show bias related to accent. The neglect of gender in the study of accent bias is discussed.
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News Translators: Latino Immigrant Youth, Social Media, and Citizenship Training
Regina Marchi
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article discusses how low-income Latino immigrant youth use the Internet for newsgathering. Contrary to previous assumptions about the digital divide, the youth almost universally owned cell phones and got most of their news online, although poverty affected the quality of their connectivity. However, a generational digital divide was evident, in which Internet-savvy youth had access to timelier and more diverse news than their parents. In a reversal of typical parent-child roles, the youth were "news translators" for their parents, explaining U.S. news stories and their implications. Moreover, in seeking, critiquing, creating, and posting content online, the youth gained participatory and deliberative skills useful for civic engagement in a democracy.