Walled off
Support for Tough Immigration Policy: Identity Defense or Concern for Law and Order?
Sahana Mukherjee, Glenn Adams & Ludwin Molina
Journal of Social Issues, December 2018, Pages 700-715
Abstract:
Across two studies, U.S. participants read a fictional transcript of a law enforcement officer who observed a speeding infraction and made a discretionary traffic stop. The car carried occupants who displayed either high or low fit with Anglocentric constructions of U.S. identity and were of presumptive Mexican (Studies 1 and 2), Canadian (Study 1), or Irish (Study 2) origin. The officer decided over the course of the traffic stop that the occupants’ behavior aroused “reasonable suspicion” about documentation status, so he asked them to produce identification documents and detained them when they failed to do so. Participants indicated their suspicion about occupants’ documentation status and rated the appropriateness of law enforcement actions. Results indicate effects of origin across both studies for all outcomes: participants considered occupants of Mexican origin (vs. Canadian or Irish) as more suspicious, and rated law enforcement actions related to traffic and immigration violations as more appropriate when the interaction involved occupants of Mexican origin (vs. Canadian or Irish). Results indicate effects of fit across both studies for all outcomes: participants considered occupants who showed low‐fit (vs. high‐fit) as more suspicious, and rated law enforcement actions related to traffic and immigration violations as more appropriate when occupants showed low‐fit (vs. high‐fit). Discussion focuses on how participant support for punitive anti‐immigration measures is less about neutral enforcement of law than about racialized exclusion to defend an Anglocentric construction of U.S. identity.
When “Scurry” vs. “Hurry” Makes the Difference: Vermin Metaphors, Disgust, and Anti‐Immigrant Attitudes
Shantal Marshall & Jenessa Shapiro
Journal of Social Issues, December 2018, Pages 774-789
Abstract:
In three studies, we demonstrate that common metaphors used to describe immigrants in news media interact with national, but not political, identity to lead to feelings of disgust as well as anti‐immigrant attitudes. The first study demonstrates that the current discourse in the U.S. surrounding unauthorized immigrants includes metaphors that readily activate thoughts of vermin (e.g., rodents). The second study shows that when these metaphors are present in a news article about immigrants, the more participants identify as American the more disgust they experience reading the article. The final study further shows that after reading a news article in which the vermin metaphors are present, the more participants identify as American the more likely they are to support stringent immigration policies. This research shows the power of metaphor to shape intergroup attitudes and support for government policies.
The new economic case for migration restrictions: An assessment
Michael Clemens & Lant Pritchett
Journal of Development Economics, May 2019, Pages 153-164
Abstract:
Migration barriers tend to reduce global production by impeding efficient spatial reallocation of labor. Recent research argues for a countervailing effect of barriers, tending to raise global production by preventing the spread of impoverishing institutions from poor to rich countries. While evidence of this mechanism is scarce, it is theoretically plausible at high migration rates. We propose and calibrate a simple model of dynamically efficient migration when migrants spread economic institutions between countries. The net effect of migration depends on three parameters: transmission, the degree to which origin-country total factor productivity is embodied in migrants; assimilation, the degree to which migrants' productivity determinants become like natives' over time in the host country; and congestion, the degree to which transmission and assimilation change at higher migrant stocks. On current evidence about the magnitudes of these parameters, dynamically efficient policy would not imply open borders but would imply relaxations on current restrictions.
On the (Racial) Border: Expressed Race, Reflected Race, and the U.S.-Mexico Border Context
Vanessa Gonlin, Nicole Jones & Mary Campbell
Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, forthcoming
Abstract:
In this era of growing immigration and debates about the U.S.-Mexico Border, the authors tackle a question that is growing in importance as the Border is at the forefront of national debate: Do people (White or Latinx) who believe that they are seen as Latinx experience more community division on the basis of proximity to the Border? The authors use data from the 2015 Texas Diversity Survey to examine the experience of racialization for people living in different social environments. The authors find that Latinxs who live closer to the U.S.-Mexico Border are more likely to believe that they are perceived by others as Latinx, demonstrating how racialization is contextual and variable across space. The authors show that these differences are consequential for a sense of community division: Latinxs feel more community division when they live closer to the Border and believe that strangers see them as Latinx, even after controlling for socioeconomic characteristics, gender, age, and characteristics of the place where respondents live. In sum, the authors find important relationships between reflected race, proximity to the Border, and the construction of community division.
Immigration Enforcement, Police Trust and Domestic Violence
Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes & Esther Arenas-Arroyo
San Diego State University Working Paper, December 2018
Abstract:
Domestic violence is a serious under-reported crime in the United States, especially among undocumented women given their reluctance to seek assistance for fear of deportation. While the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) allows battered immigrants to petition for legal status without relying on abusive U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident spouses, we find that intensified interior immigration enforcement has curbed the VAWA self-petition rate. In contrast, sanctuary policies limiting the cooperation of law enforcement with Immigration Customs Enforcement partially counteract that impact. Understanding survivors’ responses to immigration policy is crucial given growing police mistrust and vulnerability to crime among immigrants.
Does Exposure to the Refugee Crisis Make Natives More Hostile?
Dominik Hangartner et al.
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although Europe has experienced unprecedented numbers of refugee arrivals in recent years, there exists almost no causal evidence regarding the impact of the refugee crisis on natives’ attitudes, policy preferences, and political engagement. We exploit a natural experiment in the Aegean Sea, where Greek islands close to the Turkish coast experienced a sudden and massive increase in refugee arrivals, while similar islands slightly farther away did not. Leveraging a targeted survey of 2,070 island residents and distance to Turkey as an instrument, we find that direct exposure to refugee arrivals induces sizable and lasting increases in natives’ hostility toward refugees, immigrants, and Muslim minorities; support for restrictive asylum and immigration policies; and political engagement to effect such exclusionary policies. Since refugees only passed through these islands, our findings challenge both standard economic and cultural explanations of anti-immigrant sentiment and show that mere exposure suffices in generating lasting increases in hostility.
A Sometimes Hidden Economic Dimension to Individual Immigration Preferences: Cross-National Evidence in Support of the Labor Competition Hypothesis
David Bearce & Megan Roosevelt
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper seeks to restore labor competition as an explanation for anti-immigration attitudes, recognizing that education may proxy both individual-level skill and cultural socialization. We thus need new tests to distinguish the effect of education based on skill from that due to socialization. If the education effect is consistent with these relationships, then we can have greater confidence that it is capturing the former and not simply the latter. This paper thus develops and conducts a new test, using data from the International Social Survey Program’s National Identity Survey fielded in 2013 across thirty-two countries. From a factoral framework, our test identifies three national-level factors that should influence how much labor market pressure lower skilled citizens feel from immigration: the quantity of immigrants, the direction of capital/investment flows, and the amount of trade protection. These national-level factors are interacted with individual-level education, showing that the attitudinal differences based on education increase with more immigrants but decrease with greater investment inflows and increased trade protection. These results demonstrate why this economic dimension may sometimes be hidden: in national contexts where there are few immigrants, capital follows labor, and/or there is trade protection, labor competition as a driver of anti-immigration preferences should lessen.
Colorism Against Legal Immigrants to the United States
Joni Hersch
American Behavioral Scientist, December 2018, Pages 2117-2132
Abstract:
Data from the 2003 wave of the New Immigrant Survey established that immigrants to the United States with darker skin color experienced a substantial pay penalty that is not explained by extensive individual and job characteristics. These same immigrants were re-interviewed approximately 4 years later. With additional time to assimilate to the U.S. labor market, the disadvantage of darker skin color may have declined or even disappeared. The current analysis shows that the penalty for darker color instead increased over this period from a 16% lightest-to-darkest penalty to a 25% disparity.
Support for Resettling Refugees: The Role of Fixed Versus Growth Mind-Sets
Shilpa Madan et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
In six studies (N = 2,340), we identified one source of people’s differential support for resettling refugees in their country - their beliefs about whether the kind of person someone is can be changed (i.e., a growth mind-set) or is fixed (i.e., a fixed mind-set). U.S. and UK citizens who believed that the kind of person someone is can be changed were more likely to support resettling refugees in their country (Studies 1 and 2). Study 3 identified a causal relationship between the type of mind-set people hold and their support for resettling refugees. Importantly, people with a growth mind-set were more likely to believe that refugees can assimilate in the host society but not that they should assimilate, and the belief that refugees can assimilate mediated the relationship between people’s mind-sets and their support for resettling refugees (Studies 4-6). The findings identify an important antecedent of people’s support for resettling refugees and provide novel insights into the science of mind-sets.
Your Name Is Your Lifesaver: Anglicization of Names and Moral Dilemmas in a Trilogy of Transportation Accidents
Xian Zhao & Monica Biernat
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Can immigrants’ names determine whether they receive help or not? Drawing on a partial in-group membership framework, we adapted intergroup versions of moral dilemmas (a trilogy of transportation accidents) to test how Anglicizing ethnic names affects intergroup decision-making in hypothetical life-and-death situations. Study 1 showed that White American participants were equally likely to help White and Asian immigrants with Anglicized names but were less likely to help Asian immigrants with original ethnic names. The same effect emerged in Study 2 but only among male White American participants. In Study 3, White pro-assimilationists were more likely to help White than Arab immigrants (with either Anglicized or original ethnic names), but White pro-multiculturalists were more likely to help Arab immigrants with Anglicized names than White targets. The results suggest that name Anglicization as a cultural assimilation practice may reduce intergroup bias, but the precise pattern of effects is context-dependent.
The long-term impact of international migration on economic decision-making: Evidence from a migration lottery and lab-in-the-field experiments
John Gibson et al.
Journal of Development Economics, May 2019, Pages 99-115
Abstract:
We study how migrating from a poor country to a rich country affects economic beliefs, preference parameters, and household decision-making efficiency. In a ten-year follow-up survey of applicants to a migration lottery program we elicit risk and time preferences and pro-market beliefs for the migrants and the unsuccessful applicants. The successful and the unsuccessful applicants are each linked to closest relative households, who would stay in the home country if the applicant moved, to play lab-in-the-field games that measure intra-family trust and the efficiency of intra-family decision-making. Despite the large permanent income shock from migrating, there are no significant impacts on risk and time preferences, pro-market beliefs, or decision-making efficiency of transnational households. This stability in the face of such a large and life-changing event lend credence to economic models of migration that treat these determinants of decision-making as time-invariant.
Early patterns of skill acquisition and immigrants’ specialization in STEM careers
Marcos Rangel & Ying Shi
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 8 January 2019, Pages 484-489
Abstract:
We provide empirical evidence of immigrants’ specialization in skill acquisition well before entering the US labor market. Nationally representative datasets enable studying the academic trajectories of immigrant children, with a focus on high-school course-taking patterns and college major choice. Immigrant children accumulate skills in ways that reinforce comparative advantages in nonlanguage intensive skills such as mathematics and science, and this contributes to their growing numbers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers. These results are compatible with well-established models of skill formation that emphasize dynamic complementarities of investments in learning.
Sustained Organizational Influence: American Legislative Exchange Council and the Diffusion of Anti‐Sanctuary Policy
Loren Collingwood, Stephen Omar El‐Khatib & Benjamin Gonzalez O’Brien
Policy Studies Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
Building upon existing literature, we offer a particular model of network policy diffusion - which we call sustained organizational influence. Sustained organizational influence necessitates an institutional focus across a broad range of issues and across a long period of time. Sustaining organizations are well‐financed, and exert their influence on legislators through benefits, shared ideological interests, and time‐saving opportunities. Sustaining organizations’ centralized nature makes legislators’ jobs easier by providing legislators with ready‐made model legislation. We argue that sustaining organizations uniquely contribute to policy diffusion in the U.S. states. We evaluate this model with a case study of state‐level immigration sanctuary policy making and the role that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) played in disseminating model legislation. Through quantitative text analysis and several negative binomial state‐level regression models, we demonstrate that ALEC has exerted an overwhelming influence on the introduction of anti‐sanctuary legislative proposals in the U.S. states over the past 7 years consistent with our particular model of network policy diffusion. Implications are discussed.