Interior Immigration Enforcement Research Articles

The Control Boom: US Interior Immigration Enforcement, 1971–2010

The Control Boom: US Interior Immigration Enforcement, 1971–2010

"I Can Never Feel Safe": Latinx Youth Voices on Psychosocial Impacts of 287(g) in Georgia.

Increasingly, immigration policies are understood as structural determinants, rooted in racism, nativism, and ethnocentrism, which raise serious public health concerns for Latinx adolescents' mental health. Our objective was to examine how immigration policy enforcement affects mental health of Latinx youth raised in a county with an aggressive interior immigration enforcement program. From 2009 to 2021, Gwinnett County, GA, led the nation in deportations under the 287(g) program as a "universal enforcement model," where local law enforcement were deputized to detain undocumented immigrants, primarily through traffic violations. From June to July 2022, we followed a participatory action research approach with two groups of Latinx youth who grew up in Gwinnett County. In total, 10 youth took photos related to the research question, and engaged in facilitated dialogue using photovoice guide SHOWED/VENCER for four, 2-hour sessions that were audio-recorded and transcribed. Transcripts were analyzed following grounded theory principles to arrive at a conceptual model codeveloped and validated by youth. Youth described how 287(g) led to policing and deportation in their communities, fueling stereotypes, and discrimination that criminalized Latinx immigrants. Youth linked immigration enforcement policies like 287(g) to exclusionary systems that contributed to fear, marginalization, and loss in their communities, bringing experiences of sadness, grief, isolation, hopelessness, and low self-worth. From youth-driven research, we identified mental health implications of the 287(g) program among Latinx youth. The cascading harms of immigration enforcement policies highlight the need to address these policies and identify immediate strategies to promote Latinx youth mental health.

"It felt like hitting rock bottom": A qualitative exploration of the mental health impacts of immigration enforcement and discrimination on US-citizen, Mexican children.

Latino immigrant families in the United States were disproportionately affected by intensified interior immigration enforcement under the Trump administration. US-citizen children are victimized by policies targeting their immigrant parents; research is sparse regarding how these polices affect children who experience parental deportation and children who are at risk for parental deportation. Additionally, anti-immigrant rhetoric can result in increased discrimination that also threatens children's psychological health. This qualitative study (N = 22) explores children's lived experiences of discrimination, parental deportation or threat of parental deportation, and perceived impacts on mental health. Interviews conducted from 2019 to 2020 revealed that children who are directly affected by or at risk for parental deportation experience detrimental impacts to their psychological well-being. Children experience discrimination as Latinos and children of immigrants, which is also detrimental to their mental/emotional health. Incorporating children's perspectives is critical to informing public health interventions. Findings demonstrate the need for family-friendly immigration reform.

Anchoring work: how Latinx mixed-status families respond to interior immigration enforcement

ABSTRACT The contemporary US immigration enforcement system has disproportionately affected Latinx mixed-status families, those whose members have different legal statuses. Scholars have documented the collateral effects, often focusing on the consequences of deportation on families. Building upon this research and the framework of family work, I investigate how families react and mobilise resources during a removal process—a unique context where immigration enforcement heightens the risk of deportation by targeting a family member. Drawing on 31 interviews from 22 Latinx mixed-status families, this study conceptualises how families engage in ‘anchoring work’ defined as strategies these families use during a removal process to respond to the state’s removal process. Anchoring work manifests in three strategies: (1) strategic secrecy, (2) attorney seeking, and (3) legal engagement. This anchoring work served to attempt to anchor the targeted family member to the United States. This research revealed that while immigration enforcement did inflict trauma and violence upon Latinx immigrant families, immediate family members mobilised to bolster one another’s wellbeing and protect their targeted family members from further harm.

Living in the Shadow of Deportation: How Immigration Enforcement Forestalls Political Assimilation

Prior research demonstrates that acculturated co-ethnics of immigrant groups adopt restrictive immigration policy preferences akin to that of host country dominant groups. However, acculturated U.S. Latinxs still maintain relatively open immigration policy preferences despite their distance from the canonical immigrant archetype (e.g., Spanish-speaking, immigrant). To answer the puzzle, I draw on sociological perspectives and theorize that the increased societal integration of undocumented immigrants in tandem with an expanding interior immigration enforcement apparatus generates rebuff against Anglo political norms among acculturated Latinxs. Using 6 national Latinx surveys, I corroborate my theory and find perceptibly threatening immigration enforcement contexts forestall the adoption of restrictive immigration policy preferences via acculturation. Absent deportation threat, acculturated Latinxs adopt immigration preferences similar to white Anglos. I also replicate these findings for attitudinal dimensions outside immigration policy preferences. This paper suggests political assimilation is not preordained among acculturated immigrant co-ethnics in light of an unreceptive host society.

Immigration Policy and Hispanic Representation in National Elections

AbstractFor the first time in U.S. history, after decades of unprecedented growth in interior immigration enforcement disproportionately impacting Latinos, ten percent of the U.S. House of Representatives is Hispanic. Using congressional district‐level data on all candidates participating in general elections to the U.S. House of Representatives between 2008 and 2018, we show that intensified immigration enforcement suppressed Hispanics’ representation in congressional elections. The effect—nonexistent for other minorities, such as non‐Hispanic Black candidates, as well as in primary elections—is driven by local police‐based measures and diminished electoral support. Furthermore, it appears more harmful during midterm elections and in localities without a sanctuary policy.

Immigration Enforcement and Infant Health

The past two decades were characterized by an unprecedented increase in interior immigration enforcement and heightened stress due to fears of family separation and loss of income among undocumented immigrants. Using vital statistics on infant births from the National Center for Health Statistics for the 2003 through 2016 period and a difference-in-differences design, we compare the health outcomes of infants with likely undocumented mothers before and after the intensification of immigration enforcement within US counties. We find that intensified enforcement, especially during the third trimester, increases the likelihood of low birth weight (<2,500 grams). We also present suggestive evidence that the effect could be driven by heightened stress and fears associated with police-based enforcement during pregnancy. The findings underscore the importance of current immigration policies in shaping the birth outcomes of many American children.

Immigration policy, immigrant detention, and the U.S. jail system

AbstractResearch SummaryThe increase in immigration enforcement during the past two decades has led to a larger number of immigrants being detained in the U.S. criminal justice system. Using data from the 2006–2018 Annual Survey of Jails, we examine the impact of immigrants being held for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on the conditions in U.S. jails. We find that increases in the number of detainees held for ICE are related to higher noncitizen jailed populations that are not offset by reductions in their citizen counterparts, likely contributing to worse confinement conditions. This is reflected in the higher levels of overcrowding and understaffing, as well as in the longer stays in jail and more physical assaults associated with a larger number of ICE detainees. These findings prove robust to using data on two local interior immigration enforcement programs responsible for the growing number of immigrant detainees in local jails—287(g) agreements and Secure Communities—as instruments to address the endogeneity of the number of ICE detainees with respect to jail conditions. The results are driven by slightly over half of U.S. counties located either along the United States–Mexico border or in states with a large or fast‐growing immigrant population.Policy ImplicationsAs immigrant detention becomes more entrenched in the U.S. criminal justice system, understanding the connection between intensified immigration enforcement, immigrant detention, and the conditions of U.S. jails is well warranted. Our findings suggest that for jails already operating at or above capacity, immigrant detention may pose significant concerns for the safety and well‐being of all incarcerated individuals. Furthermore, our results have implications for the criminalization of unauthorized entry into the United States. Making immigration violations a criminal offense has resulted in the development of an inhumane immigration detention system motivated by profit.

Political Detentions, Political Deportations: Repressive Immigration Enforcement in Times of Trump

During the presidency of Donald Trump, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) targeted migrant justice activists, journalists, and advocates with deportation proceedings. The recent political repression has a revanchist character that appears to be a new pattern introduced by Trump but is part of a longer project of securing the smooth functioning of economic and racial social control in the US. I read the recent political repression of activists in relation to texts produced by radical intellectuals who endured political repression in two prior historical moments: the detention and deportation of radicals in the McCarthy era through the words of C.L.R. James; the policing and imprisonment of Black radicals in the early 1970s through the words of Angela Davis. In a third moment, I situate the recent pattern of Trump-era political repression in a context of ongoing contestation over interior immigration enforcement. The struggle over immigration enforcement is not only about legality, but also about the politics of race and class marginalization in the US.

Excluding Criminals or Mothers? How Vicarious Experiences Shape Legal Attitudes on Immigration Enforcement

Abstract Literature provides insights as to how interior immigration enforcement can foment legal cynicism among those it targets. Yet scholars know little about individuals’ evaluative judgments after a secondhand experience, such as when a relative is apprehended, detained, or deported by immigration enforcement. Drawing on data from 26 interviews with individuals who had a family member apprehended by immigration enforcement, I examine how people evaluate a relative’s immigration case and immigration law more broadly. I argue that a gendered legal attitude formation process occurs as family members make and express their evaluative judgments. Respondents often had limited information about the case, and they turned to available gendered discourses to express their legal attitudes. As a result, with a male relative, individuals invoked criminalization discourses, whereas with a female relative, they invoked motherhood discourses. Thus, family members of males who delegitimized immigration enforcement did so via a limited challenging of criminalization discourses, whereas the family members of females tended to delegitimize immigration enforcement via motherhood discourses. Other family members of males also drew from criminalization discourses to legitimize some aspects of immigration enforcement. I argue that this process of gendered legal attitude formation demonstrates the far-reaching consequences of a men’s criminalization.

Immigration Policy and the Rise of Self-Employment among Mexican Immigrants

The recent dramatic growth in self-employment among Mexican immigrants in the United States in the past two decades is a puzzling trend, in stark contrast to the stagnant growth or even decline among other demographic groups. The authors propose that the expansion of interior immigration enforcement, a characteristic of the US immigration policy during that time span, contributed to this unique trend by pushing Mexican immigrants into self-employment as an alternative livelihood. Exploiting temporal and geographic variation in immigration enforcement measures from 2005 to 2017, the authors show that tougher enforcement has been responsible for approximately 15% of the rise in Mexican self-employment in the United States.

Immigration policy and fertility: Evidence from undocumented migrants in the U.S.

Using the 2005–2014 waves of the American Community Survey –a period characterized by the rapid expansion of interior immigration enforcement initiatives across the United States, we evaluate the impact of a tougher policy environment on undocumented immigrants’ fertility. We find that a one standard deviation increases in enforcement lowers childbearing among likely undocumented women by 5%. The effect stems from police-based measures linked to increased deportations, which may raise uncertainty about the future of the family unit and its resources.

The Effect of Intergovernmental Policy Conflict on Immigrants’ Behavior: Insights from a Survey Experiment in California

AbstractAs Congress remains gridlocked on the issue of comprehensive immigration reform, immigration policy debates, particularly with respect to interior immigration enforcement, are increasingly taking place at state and local levels. Scholarship on immigration federalism has focused on federal and local governments, while states are passing laws that tighten or delimit cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (i.e., “sanctuary policies”). Simultaneously, cities are passing laws contradictory to state policy. We examine how these state and local enforcement ambiguities affect undocumented immigrants’ trust in the efficacy of sanctuary policies. Using California as a case, we embedded an experiment in a survey of undocumented immigrants and find trust in sanctuary policies decreases when cities seek to opt out of statewide sanctuary laws. Further, “opting out” has negative implications for the daily behavior of undocumented immigrants, like the chilling effects resulting from local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

Immigration Enforcement and the Hiring of Low-Skilled Labor

We examine how firms adjust their labor demand to immigration policy changes resulting from intensified interior immigration enforcement. Using the temporal and geographic variation in the adoption of such policies as a source of identification, we find that firms boost their demand for low-skilled foreign-born labor under the H-2B visa program as enforcement intensifies. Furthermore, firms' increased demand for guest workers is inversely related to natives' employment in occupations where most H-2B workers are hired; however, it does not seem to alter natives' wages or work hours, nor does it seem to redistribute native labor away from those occupations.

Police trust and domestic violence among immigrants: evidence from VAWA self-petitions

AbstractDomestic violence is a serious under-reported crime in the United States, especially among immigrant women. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was an attempt to partially address this problem by allowing battered immigrants to petition for legal status without relying on the sponsorship of an abusive U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident spouse. The tougher immigration policy climate may have made immigrant women more vulnerable to domestic violence, as well as more reluctant to report domestic violence to law enforcement. Sanctuary policies, which limit local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities, may counteract these effects. After exploiting the temporal and geographic variation in the adoption of interior immigration enforcement and sanctuary policies, we can successfully identify the impact of sanctuary policies, which help boost the rate of VAWA self-petitions. Additionally, we provide suggestive evidence of the channel through which this impact is likely taking place—namely through victims’ increased willingness to report cases and leave their abusers. Understanding survivors’ responses to immigration policy is crucial given growing police mistrust and immigrants’ vulnerability to crime.

Out of the Class and Into the Shadows: Immigration Enforcement and Education Among U.S.-Citizen and Foreign-Born Hispanics

With the recent escalation in interior immigration enforcement across the United States, immigrant and U.S.-born children are increasingly exposed to coercive measures that have been shown to disrupt their development. This study examines the relationship between immigration-related arrests and the educational outcomes of Hispanics—a group that is overwhelmingly targeted by immigration authorities. Using data on the number of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests at the Metropolitan Statistical Area level, we estimate the impact of immigration enforcement on Hispanics’ school enrollment. We find that increases in the arrest rate are accompanied by substantial declines in enrollment among Hispanic youth, including U.S.-born, foreign-born, and individuals in mixed-status families. Additionally, we do not find evidence of this relationship among other racial/ethnic groups, suggesting that the impact is concentrated among Hispanic individuals. Our results advance our understanding of the unintended consequences of immigration enforcement on educational outcomes and show that ethnicity is a crucial factor in this process.

No Justice, No Peace: Political Science Perspectives on the American Carceral State

AbstractThis essay explores four key dimensions of political science literature on the U.S. criminal legal system, by way of introducing articles in the special issue on criminal justice featured in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Politics. We situate police as an institution of social control, rather than providing safety for people vulnerable to crime. The vast array of policy tools to surveil, track, and detain citizens, which lack commensurate restraints on their application, amount to a finely tuned carceral machine that can be deployed against groups newly identified as deviant. We therefore turn attention to this dynamic with our second theme: the criminalization of immigrants, the expansion of interior immigration enforcement, and the consequent targeting of Latinx people. We likewise discuss lessons for reform that can be drawn from research on representation and the political socialization that occurs as a consequence of involuntary contact with the system. We conclude with a brief discussion of directions for future research. The criminal legal system is a key force for persistent racial and class inequality. By turning attention to the politics of the criminal legal system, we forward a critical and understudied facet of American political life that intersects with all corners of the discipline.

Recent changes in immigration policy and U.S. naturalization patterns

Naturalization bestows economic benefits to immigrants, their families, and communities through greater access to employment opportunities, higher earnings, and homeownership. It is the cornerstone of immigrant assimilation in the United States. Yet, less than 720,000 of the estimated 8.5 million legal permanent residents (LPRs) eligible to naturalize do so on a yearly basis. Using data from the 2008–2018 American Community Survey, we analyze how the expansion of interior immigration enforcement impacts the decision to naturalize. We find that the adoption over an entire year of one enforcement initiative, or of two enforcement initiatives for half a year, raises the naturalization hazard by 2 percent. The effect is more pronounced among LPRs who are Mexican, women, or reside in non-mixed status households. Finally, the impact is driven by police-based, as opposed to employment-based, interior immigration enforcement. In sum, immigrants who naturalize in response to intensified enforcement may be doing so out of fear or uncertainty about their ability to secure their citizenship status and rights in a rapidly changing immigration policy environment increasingly hostile towards immigrants.

They just took him: Impacts of immigration enforcement on U.S. citizen Latino adolsecents’ well-being

Abstract Background Escalating interior immigration enforcement by the Trump administration threatens U.S. Latino immigrant families, yet systematic evidence is limited regarding the impacts of immigration enforcement in this community. Our study explored lived experiences of U.S.-citizen adolescents affected by various levels of immigration enforcement, including parental deportation. Methods In-depth interviews were conducted with adolescents (13-17 years old, N = 7) who experienced-or were at risk of-parental deportation as part of a larger, on-going longitudinal study. Interviews queried after their health, family life, perceived discrimination, conceptualization of today's anti-immigrant climate and, if applicable, the circumstances and impact of their parent's deportation. A preliminary qualitative analysis of the interviews was conducted. Interview summaries were created and reviewed systematically. Major themes and qualitative assertions were derived and discussed by the analytical team. Results Parental detainment/deportation was inherently violent and traumatic and had profound mental/emotional, physical, socio-cultural and economic consequences for separated adolescents as they assumed adult roles and responsibilities. The threat of deportation negatively affected the well-being of adolescents with deportable parents, resulting in increased vigilance and stress. Participants were ambivalent regarding their desire to talk about the risk of deportation or their experiences with it, as well as their own identities as Latinx citizens. They also reported feelings of isolation, discrimination and victimization related to immigration enforcement. Conclusions Anticipated and experienced parental deportation negatively affects health and well-being among U.S.-citizen adolescents. Family-friendly immigration policies, community-based interventions, and family counseling are critical to protect this vulnerable population. Key messages Following deportation, the deportee’s family—especially their U.S.-citizen adolescents—are profoundly and negatively affected. Even the threat of deportation stresses adolescents and their families and results in negative psychosocial outcomes.

Is immigration enforcement shaping immigrant marriage patterns?

This paper identifies intermarriage (between non-citizens and citizens) as an important response mechanism to intensified immigration enforcement, particularly among Mexican non-citizens. Exploiting the temporal and geographic variation in the implementation of interior immigration enforcement from 2005 to 2017, we find that a one standard deviation increase in enforcement raises Mexican non-citizens' likelihood of marrying a U.S. citizen by 3 to 7%. Both police-based and employment-based enforcement contribute to this impact. The analysis adds to a growing literature examining how immigrants respond to tightened enforcement and, importantly, sheds light on the recent growth of intermarriage among Mexican immigrants.