Federal Immigration Research Articles

Policing Undocumented Immigrants in New York: Balancing Enforcement and Integration

Immigration policies vary significantly among U.S. states, leading to diverse law enforcement practices that uniquely affect immigrant (documented and undocumented) communities. This article explores New York’s immigration strategies within the framework of federal immigration law, pointing out the city’s misalignment with federal policing practices of immigrant populations. It emphasizes the urgent need for federal immigration reform. Additionally, the article advocates for a more integrationist, balanced and humane approach to policing undocumented immigrants. The article substantiates its claims using secondary source data, official reports, scholarly works, and Integration Theory in four key ways. First, it analyses New York’s immigration strategies within the context of federal immigration law. Second, it examines the city’s local government and non-governmental organizations’ collaborative efforts with federal immigration agencies to manage undocumented immigrants. Third, it discusses Integration Theory and delves into the policing experiences of immigrants in New York. Lastly, the article advocates for a more balanced approach to policing undocumented immigrants, highlighting the necessity of law enforcement and the importance of nurturing safe and cohesive communities.

Capitalizing on sport labor migration: The role of ethnic capitalism in the discriminatory, regulatory, and exploitative environment for international college athletes in the United States

International college athletes (ICAs) are integral to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and lie at a particular social location as they are international students and college sport laborers. However, little research examines the discriminatory regulations toward ICAs by the NCAA, its member institutions, and the US federal government. Recent court rulings that permit college athletes to monetize their name, image, and likeness (NIL) do not benefit ICAs because of outdated and exclusionary restrictions imposed by federal immigration policies, visa laws, and US tax laws, which prohibit ICAs from having equitable rights, building their personal brand and professional careers. To examine the discrimination, regulation, and exploitation of ICAs by the US federal government and the NCAA, we apply the theory of ethnic capitalism, which highlights the marginalization of groups based on their ethnicity and national origin. In this setting, ICAs are treated as bodies of athletic labor, recruited for institutional gain and athletic program reputation to benefit US higher education institutions (HEIs). To conclude, we propose the need for the NCAA and its member institutions to treat ICAs equitably and include, support, and advocate for them, specifically regarding their inclusion in NIL on US lands.

The Paradox of Sanctuary: How Punitive Exceptions Converge to Criminalize and Punish Latinos/as

Abstract Sanctuary cities define themselves as metropoles that refuse to share information, personnel, and facilities with federal immigration authorities to police immigrants. While research suggests that sanctuary cities contest the criminalization of migration, a growing literature depicts how these urban sanctuaries could, in practice, perpetuate hierarchies and exclusionary politics against noncitizens. Yet, most of these studies conceive of urban sanctuary as local policies designed to challenge federal power and, thus, fail to fully capture how sanctuary policies could actually rely on the criminalization of migration to govern cities’ political problems. Drawing upon 1,900 pages of archival materials and 100 newspaper articles, this article takes the case of Chicago to study how and why the urban sanctuary expands immigrants’ rights while reinforcing policing with punitive implications for Latino “undeserving” noncitizens. As a form of racialized governance, I argue that Chicago’s sanctuary policies activate a set of punitive exceptions that—in response to distinct political urgencies—allow law and immigration enforcement to converge and control Latino undocumented workers, “criminals,” and “gangs.” This study not only challenges the premise that sanctuary cities necessarily resist federal power but also illustrates how they could strengthen the legitimacy of the state and racialized police power.

Order Keepers or Immigration Agents? Latine Immigrant Views of Law Enforcement in Healthcare Settings.

Police and security presence in healthcare settings have grown. There are few studies exploring perceptions of these law enforcement agents among US Latine immigrants, who can be vulnerable to immigration enforcement actions due to past and ongoing criminalization and anti-immigrant policies. To explore Latine immigrants' perceptions of law enforcement in healthcare settings. Exploratory, semi-structured qualitative interviews asked participants about their perspectives of law enforcement in healthcare settings. English- and Spanish-speaking adult patients (n = 19) from a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) in Los Angeles, CA, serving predominantly low-income Latine immigrants. We used the framework method for analysis to establish a codebook and inform our thematic interpretation. We identified three themes: (1) perceptions of safety offered by police officers are separated from the role of immigration officers; (2) perceptions of police officers are integrated into broader perceptions of the healthcare system; and (3) lived experiences, including immigration status, influenced valence response to officer uniforms and perceptions of officers. Most participants viewed police officers positively as maintaining order and safety, separating them from federal immigration enforcement actions, and reflecting on local, state, and organizational "sanctuary" or immigrant-friendly policies. Individuals with precarious immigration status more often saw officers as intimidating. Immigration enforcement remained a key concern. Differentiating police and security roles from immigration enforcement in healthcare could improve Latine immigrant trust and access. Future studies should explore perspectives of Latine immigrants in localities without sanctuary laws or organizational immigrant-friendly policies.

The legacy of immigration policies and employment exclusion: Assessing the relationship between employment exclusions and immigrant health

Restrictive federal and state immigration policies create conditions of employment exclusion that may negatively influence the health of immigrants. In particular, these policy effects are reflected in labor market and workplace experiences that determine the types of work and employment opportunities that immigrants are able to access and pursue. This study examines the relationship between both cumulative and individual measures of employment exclusion and self-rated health and psychological distress among Asian and Latino immigrants in California, and whether this relationship is modified by legal status. We used data from the Research on Immigrant Health and State Policy (RIGHTS) study (n = 2010). We used both multivariable logistic regression and linear regression models for our analyses. For cumulative models, labor market exclusion was associated with poor health (OR = 1.21, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.46). Workplace exclusion was also associated with poor self-rated health (OR = 1.45, 95% CI: 1.15, 1.82) and increased psychological distress (β = 0.69, 95% CI: 0.31, 1.07). For individual measures of employment exclusion, settling for a job – a labor market exclusion – and working in a dangerous job and experiencing wage theft – workplace exclusions – were associated with poor health and increased psychological distress. There was no evidence that the association between employment exclusions and health varied by legal status. These findings demonstrate that the combined effect of employment exclusions is detrimental to immigrant health. To improve population health, public health researchers should continue to interrogate the policy conditions at the federal, state, and local level that exclude immigrants from employment opportunities and workplace protections.

Case Study: Urgent Medical Care for Asylum-Seeking Infant at US-Mexico Border

A 22-month-old male presented at a triage facility within an immigration shelter with wounds, inflammation, and swelling across legs and arms; bloody and pus-filled discharge; skin discoloration, scaling, and swelling; and significant pain. His family had been released from immigration detention after migrating from Central America to the U.S. southern border. The attending triage nurse-midwife immediately transferred the patient to a local hospital for emergency care, in addition to signing the patient’s family into Specialty Care Action Network (SCAN), a pediatric component of Health Network, a virtual system for medical care coordination. After transfer to another hospital for higher level care, where he received a diagnosis of Carvajal syndrome, the patient was sufficiently stable for transport to a hospital in California, his family’s final destination. The resident physician in San Antonio, a SCAN case manager, a network of clinicians, and the medical director in California arranged for his extensive and diverse subspecialty care, through nonprofit funding and charity care in the absence of case management or care for migrants provided by federal immigration and/or health systems.

Recreational cannabis legalization and immigration enforcement: a state-level analysis of arrests and deportations in the United States, 2009–2020

BackgroundRecreational cannabis laws (RCL) in the United States (US) can have important implications for people who are non-citizens, including those with and without formal documentation, and those who are refugees or seeking asylum. For these groups, committing a cannabis-related infraction, even a misdemeanor, can constitute grounds for status ineligibility, including arrest and deportation under federal immigration policy—regardless of state law. Despite interconnections between immigration and drug policy, the potential impacts of increasing state cannabis legalization on immigration enforcement are unexplored.MethodsIn this repeated cross-sectional analysis, we tested the association between state-level RCL adoption and monthly, state-level prevalence of immigration arrests and deportations related to cannabis possession. Data were from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Immigration arrest information was available from Oct-2014 to May-2018 and immigration deportation information were available from Jan-2009 to Jun-2020 for. To test associations with RCLs, we fit Poisson fixed effects models that controlled for pre-existing differences between states, secular trends, and potential sociodemographic, sociopolitical, and setting-related confounders. Sensitivity analyses explored potential violations to assumptions and sensitivity to modeling specifications.ResultsOver the observation period, there were 7,739 immigration arrests and 48,015 deportations referencing cannabis possession. By 2020, 12 stated adopted recreational legalization and on average immigration enforcement was lower among RCL compared to non-RCL states. In primary adjusted models, we found no meaningful changes in arrest prevalence, either immediately following RCL adoption (Prevalence Ratio [PR]: 0.84; [95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 0.57, 1.11]), or 1-year after the law was effective (PR: 0.88 [CI: 0.56, 1.20]). For the deportation outcome, however, RCL adoption was associated with a moderate relative decrease in deportation prevalence in RCL versus non-RCL states (PR: 0.68 [CI: 0.56, 0.80]; PR 1-year lag: 0.68 [CI: 0.54, 0.82]). Additional analyses were mostly consistent by suggested some sensitivities to modeling specification.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that decreasing penalties for cannabis possession through state RCLs may reduce some aspects of immigration enforcement related to cannabis possession. Greater attention to the immigration-related consequences of current drug control policies is warranted, particularly as more states weigh the public health benefits and drawbacks of legalizing cannabis.

State-Level Immigrant Policies and Ideal Family Size in the United States.

Demographers have long been interested in how fertility ideals vary in response to perceived existential threats. Although migration scholars document the increasingly threatening nature of U.S. immigration policies, little research explores how these policies shape the fertility ideals of those most affected by them. To that end, we exploit spatiotemporal variation in states' evolving immigrant policy contexts to understand the effects of different policies on the ideal family size of Hispanics-a group who is most likely to be stereotyped as undocumented and most likely to live in mixed-status households or communities. Specifically, we combine time-varying information on state-level immigrant policies with georeferenced data from the General Social Survey (GSS). Results suggest that the gap in ideal family size between Hispanic and white respondents is significantly larger in state-years with omnibus policies-which bundle multiple restrictive laws together and thus impose sweeping restrictions- compared to state-years without these policies. On the other hand, sanctuary policies, which aim to curb federal immigration enforcement, and E-verify mandates, which aim to curb the employment of undocumented immigrants, are not associated with significant differences. Our analyses provide new insights into the complex ways in which the evolving U.S. immigrant policy landscape has far-reaching impacts on reproductive and family life.

Territory, rights, and migrant justice: Undocumented first amendment rights, or the deterritorialization of rights access

This paper analyzes the work of the powerful migrant rights organization Migrant Justice, as they exemplify ways in which migrant activists in the U.S. today are challenging the socio-political confines of bordered state territory and are pushing the landscape of rights access in new directions. This work utilizes a year-long ethnography conducted with Migrant Justice as they faced intense targeting and surveillance from immigration authorities, including the use of a covert informant, in response to their successful labor and human rights organizing in the state of Vermont. This work in particular details Migrant Justice’s First Amendment rights lawsuit against the federal government in response to this targeting. Here, Migrant Justice directly challenged the federal government in a groundbreaking lawsuit that saw federal immigration authorities forced to acknowledge constitutional rights for undocumented migrant activists. In this confluence of opposing forces, we of course see egregious abuses against migrant actors, but we also see exemplifications of new and progressively powerful forms of resistance that are posing a specific challenge to the state’s bordered and territorially based limitations on human and civil rights. This work utilizes Stuart Elden’s conception of territory—as a process and a praxis of control—to understand migrant resistance to state-sanctioned exclusion and exploitation and the ways in which these challenges to state power are creating new spaces for political belonging. An analysis in this way allows us to see the work of Migrant Justice as that which increasingly deterritorializes relationships between residents and state power—an undoing of spatial limitations on rights and belonging. Throughout this work, the concept of deterritorialization as a form of migrant resistance is unpacked and defined to understand the full potentials of migrant activism today.

Designing Sanctuary

In recent decades, a growing number of cities in the United States have adopted “sanctuary policies” that limit local participation in federal immigration enforcement. Existing scholarship has focused on their legality and effect, especially with respect to our nation’s immigration laws. Largely overlooked, however, is the local process through which sanctuary policies are designed and the reasons why cities choose to adopt them through city ordinances, mayoral orders, or employee handbooks. This Article argues that municipal sanctuary policies are far from uniform, and their variation reflects the different local interests and institutional actors behind their adoption and implementation. More specifically, municipal sanctuary policies can be broadly categorized into three models: administrative sanctuary, political sanctuary, and silent sanctuary. Each of these models reflects a specific approach in how cities choose to balance their political relationship with residents, their administrative relationship with employees, and their intergovernmental relations with the state and federal government. Moreover, these three models correspond with different eras in sanctuary’s development and anti-sanctuary responses at the state and federal level. This typology highlights the structural and institutional forces that have contributed to the diversity of sanctuary policies in the United States. In addition, it calls into question many of the assumptions in the sanctuary literature about the assessment of sanctuary policies, the goals of anti-sanctuary efforts, and the effect of all of this on local policymaking.

Peripheral Detention, Transfer, and Access to the Courts

In the last forty years, immigration detention in the U.S. has grown exponentially, largely concentrated in the southern states and outside of the country’s metropoles. In turn, federal immigration officials routinely transfer immigrants from their communities to remote jails and prisons hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away, often in jurisdictions where the law is more favorable to the government. These transfers are conducted without notice or process and frequently occur on weekends or in the predawn hours, when offices are closed and interested parties are lucky to access voicemail. Federal immigration officials’ use of peripheral detention and transfer significantly affects immigrants’ access to the courts and their ability to raise detention challenges. Lurking beneath these issues lies a seemingly technical Supreme Court decision relied on by the government to seek dismissal of habeas actions filed by immigrant petitioners who have been ferried to faraway jails and prisons. In Rumsfeld v. Padilla, the Supreme Court held that the “default rule” in a habeas action challenging present physical confinement is that it must be brought in a petitioner’s “district of confinement” and that a petitioner can only name a single respondent: their “immediate custodian.” However, the history and development of immigration detention and of the habeas statute offer important insights into present debates about the primacy of Padilla in the context of transfer. A mining of these histories unravels the foundational premises on which Padilla relied and encourages us to question mechanical rules that silo immigrant habeas actions in faraway fora, away from evidence, witnesses, community, counsel, and the events giving rise to the detentions themselves.

State-by-State Morality Superseding Federal Immigration Law: An Analysis of the “Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude” Distinction Through the Lens of Post-Dobbs Anti-Abortion Law

State-by-State Morality Superseding Federal Immigration Law: An Analysis of the “Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude” Distinction Through the Lens of Post-Dobbs Anti-Abortion Law

The Gendered Effects of Multilayered Immigration Enforcement: Sanctuary Policy and Police-Community Relations in New Mexico

Executive Summary This study explores the relationship between “sanctuary policies” that bar local law enforcement agencies from cooperating with federal immigration authorities and immigrant attitudes toward law enforcement agencies. It draws upon original survey data collected in New Mexico in 2019 and finds: • First, that immigrants who believe they are protected by sanctuary have more trust in their police and sheriffs than immigrants who anticipate collaboration between local law enforcement and immigration authorities; • Second, that awareness of sanctuary policies is nonetheless the exception to the rule, particularly among immigrant men. The study therefore highlights not only the limits to sanctuary policies sensu stricto but the limited scope and gendered nature of legal consciousness among immigrants in a multilayered enforcement regime. Our findings suggest that promoting sanctuary policies to immigrant communities, particularly through immigrant-serving agencies, may be nearly as critical in improved immigrant-police relations, as adopting sanctuary policies. The Department of Homeland Security and the courts should therefore adopt a uniform definition of sanctuary and disseminate it to state and local officials — especially in law enforcement — throughout the country. Furthermore, localities that adopt sanctuary policies should publicize them as widely as possible so that they have the desired effect in immigrant communities and facilitate the improvement of police-community relations in particular.

The Bureaucratic Waiting Tolls: Social Consequences of Uncertain and Prolonged Waiting in U.S. Lawful Permanent Residence Processing

This study expands existing sociological and immigration scholarship on waiting, governmentality, and U.S. immigration bureaucracies by introducing the concept of the bureaucratic waiting tolls. Research has identified costs of uncertainty and waiting within the enforcement, judicial, and legislative arms of federal immigration bureaucracies, particularly for vulnerable migrant groups. The consequences of prolonged waiting in U.S. federal immigration bureaucracies’ service branches are less well understood. I examine the consequences of waiting for an adjustment of legal status to lawful permanent residence (LPR) within the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) bureaucracy among temporary nonimmigrants in the United States on visas. While the outcome of waiting for an adjustment of status—receiving a green card—is typically framed as success, I question whether the process of waiting is also one that primes migrants for success. Drawing on qualitative textual analysis of posts on an online immigration forum between 2007 and 2021, I identify multifaceted tolls of waiting in the USCIS bureaucracy. Updates from USCIS toll unexpectedly and disrupt everyday lives, financial tolls and opportunity costs—particularly in employment—directly impact life trajectories, and waiting introduces every day and longer-term damage that marginalizes this immigrant group. Exacerbated by uncertain and prolonged bureaucratic waiting, these tolls are consequential for migrant well-being. I conclude with policy suggestions to reform existing immigration caps to reduce long wait times and thereby alleviate the consequences of waiting and strengthen integration pathways throughout and following the LPR process.

Contexts of Contestation: How Competing Logics of the State Enable and Constrain Immigrant Civic and Political Participation

Abstract Immigrants face substantial barriers to civic and political participation, but many nonetheless remain highly engaged. This study examines this tension by developing and applying a framework for analyzing how state policies both integrate immigrants and enforce immigration to shape participation. I find that states (1) differ in their adoption and implementation of federal immigration policy and (2) pass inclusive and exclusive legislation in cross-cutting ways, which together (3) shape group differences in immigrant engagement along race-ethnicity and citizenship. Immigrant participation is examined using multilevel data that combine individual-level characteristics with state policy and implementation measures. Models show that inclusionary public benefits policy bolsters participation and exclusionary law enforcement policy reduces participation. However, these policy effects are shown to attenuate each other in asymmetric ways. The bolstering effect of inclusionary policy is sensitive to and rendered statistically nonsignificant by exclusionary policy, but the reverse is not true. I conclude with a discussion on the implications of these results for research on civic inequality along race-ethnicity and citizenship.

Going Local: Public Attitudes toward Municipal Offices of Immigration Affairs

Local governments have been increasingly active in immigration policy by cooperating with federal immigration enforcement or creating local offices of immigrant affairs (OIA) charged with integrating immigrants. How do these policies shape perceptions of locales following these policy routes? Using a set of pre-registered survey experiments, we find that compared to local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, creating an OIA produces more favorable public attitudes, with minimal differences when undocumented immigrants also receive access to services. Democrats, especially white Democrats, have the most favorable views of cities with an OIA. While Republicans prefer cooperation with ICE, their attitudes toward cities with OIAs remain positive. Our findings suggest that despite partisan polarizing immigration policy debates, establishing OIAs does not attract the negative political attention common in an era of hyperpolarization. OIAs could be a rare immigration policy that may be effective and supported.

Disentangling Immigration Policy From Tort Claims for Future Lost Wages

Abstract While largely unknown, the Indiana Supreme Court’s 2017 opinion Escamilla v. Shiel Sexton Co. deserves to be canonized for closely examining – and, ultimately, rejecting – the incursion of federal immigration law and policy into state tort law. For over two decades, state and federal courts have relied on the United States Supreme Court’s 2002 ruling in Hoffman Plastic Compounds v. NLRB, to deny future lost wages awards to successful tort claimants who lack documentation. Escamilla reveals the faulty logic underlying this caselaw and provides a clear and straightforward framework for future courts to employ when faced with this issue. Ultimately, Escamilla demonstrates why plaintiffs’ undocumented status, alone, is insufficient to allow tortfeasors to escape paying tort victims what often amounts to substantial damages. In doing so, Escamilla fortifies the compensation and deterrence functions of tort law.

Caught Between a Well-Intentioned State and a Hostile Federal System: Local Implementation of Inclusive Immigrant Policies.

In the United States, inclusive state-level policies can advance immigrant health and health care access by extending noncitizens' access to public benefits, workplace rights, and protections from immigration enforcement. Although state policies carry promise as structural population health interventions, there has been little examination of their implementation at the local level. Local jurisdictions play multiple roles in state policy implementation and possess distinct immigration climates. Examining the local implementation of state immigrant policy can address challenges and opportunities to ensure the health benefits of inclusive policies are realized equitably across states' regions. To examine the local implementation of state immigrant policies, we selected a purposive sample of California counties with large immigrant populations and distinct social and political dynamics and conducted and analyzed in-depth interviews with 20 community-based organizations that provided health, safety net, and other services. We found that there were tensions between the inclusionary goals of state immigrant policies and local anti-immigrant climates and federal policy changes. First, there were tensions between state policy goals and resistance from local law enforcement agencies and policymakers (e.g., Board of Supervisors). Second, because of the ongoing threats from federal immigration policies, there was a mismatch between the services and resources provided by state policies and local community needs. Finally, organizations that served immigrants were responsible for contributing to policy implementation but lacked resources to meet community needs while countering local resistance and federal policy threats. This study contributes knowledge regarding the challenges that emerge after state immigrant policies are enacted. The tensions among state immigrant policies, local immigration climates, and federal policy changes indicate that state immigrant policies are not implemented equally across state communities, resulting in challenges and limited benefits from policies for many immigrant communities.

Perspectives on doctoral education in the United States: Challenges and paths forward

ABSTRACT Despite its lengthy history and relatively stable structure, evidence shows that the US system of doctoral education has been in a continual state of change. This change is reflected in disciplinary contexts, student demographics, professional outcomes, and the investment of external stakeholders. While the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted issues of concern and weakness in the system, change elements have existed for some time. First, the cost that some individual students pay for their doctoral degree, resulting in high debt and low salary, requires attention. Second, the importance of international students to the system has not been met by corresponding federal immigration policies and support mechanisms. Third, many doctoral programmes are still designed as if students will secure a permanent faculty role after graduation. The change in the academic labour market has not been matched by a change in the doctoral curriculum. This article considers the issues and related influences.

Administrative Discretion Through Changing Presidencies and Political Polarization: Reflection on the Rise, Fall, and Rise of Federal-Local Immigration Partnerships in the U.S.

ABSTRACT Created by Congress in 1996, the immigration enforcement program 287(g) has experienced several cycles of rapid expansion and contraction during different stages in the policy’s relatively brief lifetime. It is an intergovernmental program where state and local agencies sign onto agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), effectively deputizing law enforcement agents to implement federal immigration policy. Using logit models and the lens of bureaucratic discretion, we find that agencies in politically conservative jurisdictions and counties with proportionally large Hispanic populations were most likely to sign these agreements and maintain them during the program’s lean years. Conservative counties were even more likely to have them when they have larger Hispanic populations and during times of Republican presidential administrations. This paper puts these findings in comparative perspective and links them to the worldwide trend of democratic decline and the rise of right-wing populism in Europe and elsewhere.