Unauthorized Mexican Immigrants Research Articles

Grieving in the “Golden Cage”: How Unauthorized Immigrants Contend with Death and Mourn from Afar

Abstract In the past four decades, the United States has created a population of long-term unauthorized immigrants. As this population ages, issues of death and dying are increasingly salient. Though we know much about how families maintain close bonds despite geographic distance, death and dying remain undertheorized in transnational family scholarship. Yet the death of a family member can significantly impact family structure and functions. Based on ethnographic and interview data collected from 2017–2023 with unauthorized Mexican immigrants and their families, this study examines how unauthorized immigrants anticipate and mourn the death of family members in their community of origin and how their undocumented status creates challenges for themselves and their families after a transnational death. I find that the specter of transnational death shapes the emotional wellbeing of older unauthorized immigrants years before they experience it. Undocumented status creates and compounds transnational grief, leading to additional challenges. Individuals use a variety of strategies to grieve, including mourning by proxy, paying for funeral expenses, and participating virtually. This research advances immigration scholarship by uncovering underappreciated social and emotional penalties imposed by current immigration laws and highlighting the value of mourning as a collective ritual –– the absence of which has lasting costs.

Restrictions and Barriers Confronted by Mexican Americans with Unauthorized Immigrant Family Members

ABSTRACT This research study investigates the experience of college educated Mexican-American young adults (ages 18–29) with an unauthorized immigrant nuclear or extended family member. Of the 11 participants, eight are U.S. citizens (either naturalized or U.S. born citizens) and three currently had or were in the process of gaining protection through DACA at the time of the study. A semi-structured interview protocol was utilized for each in-depth interview. The 11 interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed through thematic analysis. Findings emphasize the structural barriers to education, health care, job opportunities, and travel that affect unauthorized Mexican immigrants and their family members.

Beyond the Fear of Deportation: Understanding Unauthorized Immigrants’ Ambivalence Toward the Police

This article draws on in-depth interviews and ethnography to examine unauthorized Mexican immigrants’ perceptions of and experiences with police in Los Angeles and Philadelphia. Most existing research focuses on immigrants’ fears of deportation as the primary determinant of negative attitudes toward the police. We add to this body of work by arguing that police interactions serve as important moments of legal socialization that also contribute to undocumented immigrants’ legal attitudes. Our findings reveal that undocumented immigrants express a great deal of ambivalence about American police, believing them to be both trustworthy and overly punitive. Ultimately, the ambivalence that undocumented immigrants feel about the police mirrors the tension between inclusion and exclusion that characterizes immigrant life in the United States.

Sanctuary Policies and City-Level Incidents of Violence, 1990 to 2010

Despite media coverage of isolated incidents of violent crime perpetuated by undocumented immigrants in cities with sanctuary policies, there is scant systematic research on the relationships between the adoption of sanctuary policies, unauthorized immigration, and crime. We compile city-level data from official sources and use fixed-effects negative binomial regression to examine whether the adoption of city-level sanctuary policies and the concentration of unauthorized Mexican immigrants are associated with homicide and robbery incidents in 107 U.S. cities, across three decades. We find evidence that the adoption of sanctuary policies is associated with a reduction in robberies but not homicide. In contrast, an increase in the relative size of a city’s unauthorized Mexican immigrant population corresponds with a reduction in homicide; however, only in sanctuary cities. Lastly, shifts in violence during our study period are consistently related to social structural characteristics of cities, which are findings consistent with social disorganization theory.

Employer Sanctions and the Wages of Mexican Immigrants

Wage differences between authorized and unauthorized Mexican immigrants can be explained by human capital factors prior to the 1986 passage of employer sanctions, which prohibited knowingly hiring unauthorized aliens. However, a significant post-1986 wage differential has been interpreted as employers “passing along” expected costs of sanctions through lower wages for unauthorized immigrants. I test this explanation using administrative data on employer sanctions enforcement, finding employer sanctions enforcement levels are related to Mexican immigrants’ wages but have no statistically significant differential effect based on legal status. Estimated savings to employers due to the pay gap are orders of magnitude larger than actual fines.

Health Literacy in Unauthorized Mexican Immigrant Mothers and Risk of Developmental Delay in their Children.

The incidence of developmental delay and early intervention (EI) service utilization is not well documented among unauthorized Mexican immigrants, a vulnerable population. Individual interviews were conducted in Spanish with Mexican born women receiving maternal health care. Children 12-60months of age were screened for developmental delay using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire. 12% (n=8) of children assessed (n=65) were at risk for developmental delay. Of those at risk 38% (n=3) participated in EI. An additional 26% of the children (n=17) qualified for further monitoring, and of those 59% (n=10) received EI. Women with low health literacy had more than four times the odds of having a child with risk of developmental delay (aOR 4.4; 95% CI 1.3-15.4). Developmental delay was associated with low maternal health literacy in unauthorized Mexican immigrants; however, rates of self-reported EI use in this population are higher than those seen nationally.

Undocumented migration and the residential segregation of Mexicans in new destinations

This study uses data from the 2000 Census and 2005–2009 American Community Survey to examine the impact of undocumented Mexican migration to new destinations on residential segregation between Mexican immigrants and native-born whites and native-born blacks. We find that Mexican-white and Mexican-black segregation is higher in new Mexican gateways than in established areas and that, for Mexican-immigrant segregation from whites, this heightened level of residential segregation in new destinations can be explained by the high presence of unauthorized Mexican immigrants living there which tends to bolster segregation between the two groups. By contrast, Mexican-immigrant segregation from native-born blacks tends to be lower in areas with larger undocumented populations, a pattern that is especially true in new destinations. Neither of these opposing effects of legal status on Mexican-immigrant segregation can be explained by compositional differences in assimilation (English ability and earnings) between documented and undocumented immigrants nor by structural variation in metropolitan areas, suggesting a unique association between legal status and segregation.

“In the Hood and on the Job”: Social Capital Accumulation among Legal and Unauthorized Mexican Immigrants

Social capital research rarely separates interpersonal networks of reciprocity from trust (a characteristic of some relationships) or civic group participation and has generally ignored Portes's call to investigate determinants, rather than effects, of social capital. Employing data from a survey of randomly selected households of Mexican immigrants, the authors estimate how individual characteristics (including legal status and participation in civic groups) and various neighborhood-level socioeconomic factors influenced the probability of having had social capital—defined parsimoniously as having helped (or having been helped by) someone within one's family or friendship network when in need. Results suggest that higher educated, employed males residing in more densely populated neighborhoods with higher levels of homeownership were more likely to have engaged in such reciprocal exchange. Surprisingly, those who attended at least one labor union meeting during the previous year were less likely. Participation in other civic groups and unauthorized residency status appear to have had no effect.

Does border enforcement deter unauthorized immigration? The case of Mexican migration to the United States of America

AbstractThis paper asks whether the migration decisions of unauthorized Mexican immigrants to the USA have been influenced by stronger US border enforcement efforts since 1993 that have sharply increased the physical risk and financial cost of illegal immigration. These measures were supposed to have decreased the probability of successful entry, thereby lowering the expected benefits of migration. We carried out a logistic regression analysis of data from a recent survey of 603 returned migrants and potential first‐time migrants in rural Mexico. Our findings indicate that tougher border controls have had remarkably little influence on the propensity to migrate illegally to the USA. Political restrictions on immigration are far outweighed by economic and family‐related incentives to migrate. An alternative, labor‐market approach to immigration control with higher probability of effectiveness is outlined.

Transnational Twist: Pecuniary Remittances and the Socioeconomic Integration of Authorized and Unauthorized Mexican Immigrants in Los Angeles County

Annual U.S.-Mexico pecuniary remittances are estimated to have more than doubled recently to at least $10 billion – augmenting interest among policymakers, financial institutions, and transnational migrant communities concerning how relatively poor expatriate Mexicans sustain such large transfers and the impact on immigrant integration in the United States. We employ the 2001 Los Angeles County Mexican Immigrant Residency Status Survey (LAC-MIRSS) to investigate how individual characteristics and social capital traditionally associated with integration, neighborhood context, and various investments in the United States influenced remitting in 2000. Remitting is estimated to have been inversely related to conventional integration metrics and influenced by community context in both sending and receiving areas. Contrary to straight-line assimilation theories and more consistent with a transnational or nonlinear perspective, however, remittances are also estimated to have been positively related to immigrant homeownership in Los Angeles County and negatively associated with having had public health insurance such as Medicaid.

The Unauthorized Mexican Immigrant Population and Welfare in Los Angeles County: A Comparative Statistical Analysis

"Using a unique 1994 Los Angeles County Household Survey of foreign-born Mexicans and the March 1994 and 1995 Current Population Surveys, we estimate the number of unauthorized Mexican immigrants (UMIs) residing in Los Angeles County, and compare their use of seven welfare programs with that of other non-U.S. citizens and U.S. citizens. Non-U.S. citizens were found to be no more likely than U.S. citizens to have used welfare, and UMIs were 11% (14%) less likely than other non-citizens (U.S.-born citizens).... We demonstrate how results differ depending on the unit of analysis employed, and on which programs constitute ¿welfare'."