Legal Permanent Residents Research Articles

Interrelationship between Migration, Employment and Economic Growth in the United States: A Dynamic Analysis from 1990 to 2022

The study aims to explore the intricate relationships between migration flows, employment dynamics, and economic growth in the United States from 1990 to 2022. Specifically, it assesses the impact of refugee admissions and legal permanent residents on GDP and GDP per capita in both the short and long term. A comprehensive econometric approach was employed, including correlation analysis, regression modeling, and dynamic trend evaluation. The study tested three hypotheses concerning the effects of employment growth on GDP, the distinct impacts of different migration flows, and the influence of these factors on employment rates. The study utilizes data from Statista for employment and migration figures, and GDP data from the World Bank. The analysis revealed a significant negative correlation between employment rates and GDP (r = - 0.701, p < 0.001) and GDP per capita (r = - 0.686, p < 0.001), indicating that declining employment rates are associated with increased economic output. Employment growth, counterintuitively, correlates negatively with GDP, suggesting that other factors such as productivity and technological advancements offset labor market contractions. Key results highlight the differentiated economic contributions of various migrant categories and their implications for policy. The findings underscore the complex and multifaceted nature of migration’s impact on the U.S. economy. While migration generally contributes positively in the long term, short-term challenges, particularly from refugee admissions, can strain economic resources. The study highlights the need for tailored economic and integration policies to maximize the benefits of migration while mitigating its challenges.

Home Country Work Experience and Immigrant Self-Employment in the United States

Immigrant entrepreneurship in the United States has grown steadily in the last four decades. In this paper, I study the occupational choices of legal permanent residents and their associated earnings in paid and self-employment. Using a unique data set with pre- and postmigration individual-level information, I analyze the role of home country work experience of immigrants in their probability of becoming entrepreneurs and their earnings after migration. To control for endogenous sector selection in the estimation of earnings distributions, I follow a novel identification strategy based on extremal quantile regressions that does not require exclusion restrictions or a large support variable. I find that foreign work experience in paid and self-employment is an important predictor of entrepreneurship after migration. In addition, it impacts earnings in the United States but differently across sectors, controlling for human capital, assimilation, time, region of origin, U.S. destination, previous migratory status, and demographic characteristics. Overall, my results highlight the role played by immigrants’ labor market history from their home countries to better understand their outcomes in the United States.

Change in Administration, Change in Deportation Worry? Analyzing the Reduction of U.S. Latinos’ Worries About Deportation from 2019 to 2021

Extensive scholarship traces the development and impacts of the U.S. immigration and deportation system on Latino immigrants and U.S. born Latinos, alike. However, relatively little quantitative research has investigated the worries that Latinos express about deportation, explored the temporal dynamics in such concerns, or identified which factors predict shifts in deportation-related concerns over time. Using two waves of data for a national sample of U.S. Latino adults, the analyses explored changes in their deportation worry between 2019 and 2021, marking the transition from the Trump administration to the Biden administration. Descriptive results indicate that more than a third of Latinos reported reductions in deportation worry over the two year period, with even larger proportions of Latino immigrants, including naturalized citizens, legal permanent residents and undocumented immigrants, reporting declines in worry. Regression results reveal that, aside from indicators of legal vulnerability, other aspects of the current sociopolitical and racialized context meaningfully shape declines in deportation worries. Specifically, darker-skinned Latinos, and those experiencing more anti-Hispanic discrimination, expressing some co-ethnic linked fate, and who viewed the Trump administration as harmful to Latinos reported significant reductions in worry from 2019 to 2021, ceteris paribus. These results suggest a “calming effect” of some Latinos’ deportation worries as the Trump administration ended and the Biden administration began. Nevertheless, the study demonstrates how the racialized immigration and deportation system shapes deportation-related worries among a wide swath of Latinos, the consequences of which racialize them and spill over into their everyday lives.

Legal violence: the struggles of Thai women in Thai massage businesses.

Prior studies of legal violence concerning minority groups in the United States are often linked to Immigration Law. Drawing primarily from 30 interviews with Thai massage business owners in Los Angeles, this article reveals how the implementation of local and federal regulations and laws regarding massage businesses constitutes legal violence. Using Crenshaw's structural, political, and representational intersectionality, this article demonstrates how Thai women's race, ethnicity, and gender affect their experiences in countering the state regulations. The analysis focuses on two interrelated areas of Thai massage business owners' and Thai massage therapists' lives-the strict government surveillance of Thai massage business operations and the enforcement of professional certification. This legal violence toward Thai massage owners and massage therapists is rooted in a legal system that aims to protect consumers. Nevertheless, the effect of legal violence is not limited to undocumented Thai immigrants but also affects Thai American citizens and legal permanent residents.

Immigrants are not Felons: A Legal Analysis of Immigrants’ Civil Rights Chilling Effect Issues Caused by Ice’s SmartLINK App Surveillance

ABSTRACT This article discusses the chilling effect impact on immigrants’ freedom of speech resulting from recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) surveillance processes utilizing the SmartLINK app and Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program. Further, this article brings privacy abuses of immigrants to U.S. lawmakers’ attention, as well as possible violations of Fourth Amendment rights related to personal networks that apply to U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents alike. Finally, this manuscript provides legal recommendations that might be used as a panacea to solve the problem of ICE surveillance of immigrants.

Sweet dreams are made of this: The need for narrowly tailored statutory protection for documented dreamers

AbstractThe growing backlog of immigrant visa petitions and legal permanent resident adjustment applications is a harsh reality of the American dream. Dependent children of immigrants can wait decades for their parents' visas to become current, only to age out of dependent status before stepping foot on American soil. Dependent children of nonimmigrants seeking to become legal permanent residents age out before their parents' adjustment application is approved – leaving them at risk of removal. This Note proposes a temporary visa status for these dependents, allowing them to maintain legal status in America and remain with their parents.

Divergent Immigrant Health Trajectories: Disparities in Physical Health Using a Multidimensional Conceptualization of Legal Status

Immigrant health research demonstrates that foreign-born individuals generally experience lower morbidity rates relative to native-born individuals. However, this research often overlooks structural factors that influence the immigrant experience, such as legal status. The present study examines legal status as a multidimensional and dynamic characteristic that shapes immigrant health over time. I use two waves of the New Immigrant Survey (n = 3550) to assess if three dimensions of legal status — initial documentation classification, legal permanent residence (LPR) admission category, and US citizenship — predict likelihoods of reporting a chronic condition among a sample of immigrants who attained LPR. Results indicate that each of the three dimensions of legal status predicted health. Immigrants who obtained US citizenship improved their relative health over time, while immigrants with previous temporarily documented, undocumented, legalization, or refugee experience exhibited persistent disadvantage in the hierarchy of immigrant health. Findings demonstrate that the sociopolitical context continually shapes the physical health of immigrants, and a dynamic and multidimensional conceptualization of legal status can expose previously obscured disparities in the overarching pattern of an immigrant health advantage.

On the basis of visa type: Insights into incorporation and health among foreign-born people in the United States

Foreign-born people have different patterns of health, and several psychosocial and contextual factors may contribute to these differences. Type of visa with which one resettles is an important consideration because it is linked both with the reason for initially migrating and with experiences after arriving in the U.S. This study examines the association between visa type and health in terms of self-rated health and diagnosed chronic conditions. Using the New Immigrant Survey (NIS), a nationally representative study of foreign-born people at the time of receiving legal permanent residence in the U.S., we used logistic regression models to estimate the odds of having chronic conditions and the odds of reporting fair or poor health. People who had refugee, asylum, parole and post-arrival legalization visa types had the highest prevalence of any chronic condition; they were also most likely to report being in fair or poor self-rated health, even after controlling for other characteristics. Conversely, people who had diversity visas had the highest self-rated health and the fewest chronic conditions. Overall, the type of visa a person holds is associated with health and chronic disease even years after resettlement.

P086Documentation status and contraceptive use among women in california

<h3>Objectives</h3> Studies indicate that contraceptive use is low among immigrant women. Few studies examine the intersection of race and documentation status. This study assesses if contraceptive use and contraceptive type is linked to documentation status. <h3>Methods</h3> We analyzed data from a racially diverse sample of reproductive-aged women (n=6,417) from the 2017–2020 waves of the California Health Interview Survey, which is the largest state-level health survey. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to assess the relationships between documentation status, current contraceptive use, and type of method used (highly to moderately effective method use vs. less-effective method use). <h3>Results</h3> Contraceptive use was highest among US-born citizens (74%) and lowest among legal permanent residents (LPRs) (59%). Adjusted regression models indicated that LPRs had lower odds of contraceptive use compared to non-citizens without a green card (p<0.05). US-born and naturalized citizens also had greater odds of using a highly to moderately effective method of contraception over a less effective method compared to non-citizens without a green card (p<0.01). Documentation status and race had significant interaction effects on type of contraceptive method use, evidenced in lower odds of highly to moderately effective method use for Latina and non-Latina White US-born and naturalized citizens compared with Asian non-citizens without a green card. <h3>Conclusions</h3> Documentation status is associated with contraceptive care, but patterns differ for Latina, and non-Latina Asian and White women. Further research should examine mechanisms that underlie links between documentation status and contraceptive use.

Skin Tone, Race/Ethnicity, and Gender Differences in BMI among New US Immigrants.

Scholars have been interested in the relationship between skin tone and health since at least the 1970s; however, no study, to our knowledge, has analyzed a diverse immigrant sample. In this study, we use the New Immigrant Survey and interactions to examine how skin tone and race/ethnicity - alongside gender - jointly pattern BMI among Legal Permanent Residents. Our approach allows for the analysis of BMI among multiple racial/ethnic immigrant groups, while considering skin tone. Our results document that darker skin shades are associated with higher BMI, but only for women. Further, we also tease out the relationship between gender and race/ethnicity for BMI, which allows us to better understand this critical connection for new immigrants' health in the United States. Together, our results highlight that BMI jointly varies by skin tone and race/ethnicity, which emphasizes the importance of an intersectional approach, especially for new immigrant women of color.

Providing Prenatal Care for Patients with Limited Medical Insurance Coverage.

Newer immigrants to the United States, whether undocumented, recent legal immigrants, those here on temporary visas, or migrant workers, are far less likely than native-born residents of the United States to have reliable health insurance. This entire group of patients is then at risk for delayed or absent medical care. Our study focused on what effects a free, quality prenatal care program had upon prenatal care and delivery outcomes for an underinsured population, primarily of immigrant women. With a recent change in Iowa's eligibility criteria for Presumptive Medicaid (referred to as Temporary Medicaid), pregnant patients who have less than a 5-year legal permanent residency status, undocumented status, or out-of-country resident status can receive up to two months of covered antepartum care, whereas previously eligible for coverage for the entirety of their pregnancy. With that reality, several faculty members from the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Iowa started a weekly prenatal care clinic in collaboration with the longstanding Iowa City Free Medical Clinic. This study sought to compare outcomes for patients who utilized only Temporary Medicaid to those who also had access to this prenatal free medical clinic (FMC), as well as to compare outcomes for the FMC program to typical Medicaid patients who had access to full prenatal care. Compared to the Temporary Medicaid-only group, our FMC patients had a significantly greater number of prenatal visits. This increased access of continuity prenatal care led to increased screening for gestational diabetes, receipt of recommended vaccinations, and screening for group B streptococcus. Our effort has shown that expanding prenatal healthcare coverage to this underinsured population can greatly increase the quality of maternity care and reduce the potential for high-risk pregnancies, bettering the care for these pregnant women and their newborns.

The New System of Mexican Migration: The Role of Entry Mode-Specific Human and Social Capital.

Between 2000 and 2020, undocumented migration declined, temporary labor migration rose, and legal permanent residents arrived at a steady pace-together creating a new system of Mexico-U.S. migration based on the circulation of legal temporary workers and permanent residents. Drawing on data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Mexican Migration Project, we specify multinomial event-history models to predict the likelihood of departure on first and later trips via four entry categories: no documents, noncompliant tourist visas, temporary work visas, and legal residence visas. The models reveal how the accumulation of entry mode-specific social and human capital powered a system of undocumented migration that emerged between 1965 and 1985, and how that system deteriorated from 1985 to 2000. After 2000, employers took advantage of new visa categories to recruit legal temporary workers, leading to the accumulation of migration-related human and social capital specific to that mode of entry and the emergence of a new system of Mexico-U.S. migration.

Seemingly inclusive liminal legality: the fragility and illegality production of Colombia’s legalization programmes for Venezuelan migrants

ABSTRACT Venezuelans constitute the second largest displaced population globally. Most Venezuelans move to Colombia, where the government incorporates them through administrative legalisation programmes. While the international community has praised Colombia’s governmental response, this article demonstrates that these programmes provide Venezuelans with liminal legality. Existing liminal legality research indicates that recipients are highly aware of the fragility of their legal status because they live in hostile political contexts with complicated legalisation procedures. However, the present article argues that liminal legality in inclusive political contexts such as Colombia—with straightforward application procedures, pro-immigrant political discourse, and weak immigration enforcement—hide this legal status’ fragility and illegality production features. Empirically, the study draws on in-depth interviews with Venezuelan migrants in Bogotá, D.C. Findings show that most liminal legality recipients want to reside legally in Colombia and experience their legal status with a sense of state protection. Though, their sense of security inhibits their efforts to acquire legal permanent residency. Conversely, undocumented Venezuelans tend to have the fewest resources before emigrating, cannot meet the liminal legality requirements, and experience all forms of legality as unattainable. Broadly, governments who seek to legalise migrants need to include direct pathways to citizenship and lower the legal residency requirements.

Uncertainty About the Size of the Unauthorized Foreign-Born Population in the United States.

One of the most common methods for estimating the U.S. unauthorized foreign-born population is the residual method. Over the last decade, residual estimates have typically fallen within a narrow range of 10.5 to 12 million. Yet it remains unclear how sensitive residual estimates are to their underlying assumptions. We examine the extent to which estimates may plausibly vary owing to uncertainties in their underlying assumptions about coverage error, emigration, and mortality. Findings show that most of the range in residual estimates derives from uncertainty about emigration rates among legal permanent residents, naturalized citizens, and humanitarian entrants (LNH); estimates are less sensitive to assumptions about mortality among the LNH foreign-born and coverage error for the unauthorized and LNH populations in U.S. Census Bureau surveys. Nevertheless, uncertainty in all three assumptions contributes to a range of estimates, whereby there is a 50% chance that the unauthorized foreign-born population falls between 9.1 and 12.2 million and a 95% chance that it falls between 7.0 and 15.7 million.

Putting out the ‘unwelcome mat:’ The Announced Public Charge Rule reduced safety net enrollment among exempt noncitizens

Government action shapes the perceived and actual costs of citizens’ interactions with the state. By manipulating these costs, policymakers can affect citizens’ willingness to engage with the state, strongly impacting short- and long-term wellbeing. In September 2018, the Trump administration announced its intention to change how an immigrant’s likelihood of becoming a “public charge” would be evaluated. Once adopted, the rule would penalize certain classes of noncitizens for using safety net programs, potentially jeopardizing their application for permanent residence. We hypothesize that this proposed change increased psychological and learning burdens for low-income immigrants well beyond those directly impacted by the rule. Specifically, we used difference-in-differences models to analyze whether the announcement reduced safety net use among two groups exempt from the rule’s provisions: any WIC enrollee and noncitizen SNAP enrollees that are already legal permanent residents, refugees, or asylees. Even though the WIC program was excluded from the proposed rule, we find reductions in overall WIC use after the announcement. In addition, we show that SNAP enrollment decreased differentially after the announcement for noncitizens, nearly all of whom were likely exempt from the rule.

Precarity for the global talent: The impact of visa policies on high‐skilled immigrants’ work in the United States

AbstractThe current historical context of growing diversification of legal statuses for high‐skilled immigrants since the 1990s has made immigration to the United States a multi‐step process: first immigrants have temporary legal statuses, or no legal status, and only in a subsequent stage acquire legal permanent residency. I analyse the constraints this multi‐step legal trajectory puts on highly skilled immigrants’ work in the United States. Specifically, what consequences it has for high‐skilled immigrants’ incorporation into the labour market the restrictions attached to temporary legal statuses and the visa backlogs and waiting lists immigrants experience in the transition from temporary to permanent residency. Based on 30 semi‐structured interviews with high‐skilled immigrants, I explain why legal status constraints their work due to three main reasons: immigrants’ attachment to one employer; difficulties finding a job that sponsors work temporary or permanent visas; and retaining the same job under different legal statuses.

Standing on Their Own Two Feet: How the New Public Charge Rules Could Impact Non-European LPR Applicants

In February 2020, the U.S. government began to implement a new Public Charge rule that greatly expands the definition of “public charge” when determining admissibility for legal permanent residency (LPR). The rule seeks to determine not only whether applicants used public benefits in the past, but also whether they are likely to use them in the future. However, predicting future use based on characteristics measured at the time of application, such as English language proficiency and income, is difficult. We evaluate the risk of being deemed inadmissible as well as the likelihood of using public assistance by regional group. Using a sample of recently arrived LPRs in the 2013–2017 American Community Survey, we find that Mexicans/Central Americans face disproportionate risk of being deemed a public charge despite their relatively low public assistance use. This increased risk would likely alter the composition of newly admitted LPRs with relatively fewer Mexican/Central American LPRs.

Healthy Communities: Shifting Toward Inclusive Immigration Policy.

In this issue of Pediatrics , Cholera et a1 used a controlled interrupted time series design to examine differences in health care use of Latinx children as it relates to federal immigration policy enacted in 2017. Electronic medical record data from four major health care systems in North Carolina were analyzed before and after restrictive immigration policy was enacted after the 2016 election. Among Latinx children in the outpatient setting, they found a sustained increase in visit cancellation for the uninsured subgroup, a proxy for undocumented immigrant children in North Carolina.1 One aim of the study was to explore whether restrictive immigration policy resulted in a “chilling effect” for all Latino children. A chilling effect is defined as a deterring effect on the behavior of an individual or group through fear of legal action.2 Widely used during the 1996 welfare reform, today, like then, it refers to immigrant families’ decision not to participate in the use of public benefits and services out of fear, confusion, or perceived threat. This phenomenon is of particular concern for the public charge rule changes that were enacted in 2019 (but leaked to the public … Address correspondence to J. Raul Gutierrez, MD, Children’s Health Center, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, 1001 Potrero Ave, Floor 06, Room 6E07, San Francisco, CA 94110. E-mail: juan.gutierrez{at}ucsf.edu

The Central U.S.–Mexico Borderlands during the 2020 Pandemic

This essay begins by setting the scene of the 2020 novel coronavirus virus (COVID- 19) pandemic in the central U.S.–Mexico borderlands. The essay then outlines the pre-pandemic situation, from 2016-2019, one characterized by larger numbers of migrant arrivals from Central America, harsh U.S. anti-refugee and anti-Mexican practices, and hardened border controls. The article then discusses pandemic-linked deaths and closures of the border to all but U.S. citizens and Legal Permanent Residents and to slightly diminished cargo traffic, rising again by July and numbers of COVID-19 deaths declining thereafter. Official U.S. border rhetoric has broadened to strengthen nationalist security rationales around health, while activists push back against harsh policy practices, creating an ongoing, dynamic tension in the borderlands.

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.