immigration

How Religious Organizations Fail to Support Unaccompanied Indigenous Latinx Youth

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Restrictionist policies and anti-immigrant and anti-Latinx hostility in the United States undermine access to refugee resettlement, increasing immigrants’ political, economic, social, and health vulnerabilities. The assumption that other organizations, like churches, will step in where governments fail urges scholars and policy makers to focus on how these organizations shape unaccompanied minors’ integration. Churches are pillars of solidarity and support within immigrant communities serving as major sources of social and economic assistance for those in need. They also provide a recreational space for youth and spiritual uplift through religious activities. Yet, unaccompanied, undocumented Central American youth describe organizational practices that unwittingly perpetuate inequality within the Latinx community, and in turn, contribute to their incorporation “retraso” or setback. To address this, federal- and state-level governments should lift refugee bars and prioritize unaccompanied minor integration; thereby alleviating the burden on local level organizations. Local organizations should be attentive to organizational practices that do not promote the well-being of today’s newcomers.

Educator and School-based Personnel’s Advocacy for Undocumented Youth in K-12 Settings

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Undocumented youth face significant barriers to academic and social mobility along with significant isolation within the school context. Yet, educators are potentially critical advocates for undocumented youth and their families. Drawing on three longitudinal mixed-methods research projects and interviews with over 100 students and educators, the author describes the factors that inhibit school-based personnel’s advocacy for undocumented youth in K-12 settings. This research suggests that state and local policy should be aimed at increasing SBP’s policy knowledge and providing SBPs with the resources and professional discretion needed to effectively advocate for undocumented youth and their families.

Deportation Discretion: Where are County Jails Most Likely to Cooperate with Federal Immigration Officials?

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In 2008, the Secure Communities enforcement program extended deportation capacity throughout the nation by creating greater cooperation between federal, state, and local law enforcement. However, despite claims that the program would help enforce immigration law in a neutral manner, evidence from the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) own data reveal that deportations were much more common in some locations than in others. Examining program data between 2008 and 2013 across 2,669 counties, I found that counties with the smallest (less than 20 percent) and largest (over 40 percent) concentrations of Hispanic and Latinx residents would routinely turn noncitizens over for deportations. By contrast, counties with 20-40 percent Hispanic and Latinx residents were least likely to cooperate with DHS. Notably, ‘sanctuary’ designation did not necessarily translate into tangible protections for noncitizen arrestees. This disparity in enforcement has profound implications for the supposed impartiality of U.S. immigration policy.

The Case for Open Borders

Like most nations, the United States imposes substantial restrictions on immigration. If you want to move to the United States, you have to obtain visas and other travel documents, pay various fees, and wait possibly years before you are allowed to immigrate. Although such immigration restrictions are nearly universal, there is another option. In this brief, I argue that nations should adopt a policy of “open borders,” where movement between countries is easy and regulations are light. An open borders policy has a number of benefits. First, the lives of migrants are improved by immigration. An open borders regime would allow people to immigrate in search of better jobs, higher wages, and safety from violence. Second, migration improves the destination country. Migrants tend to have low crime rates, they often perform low status jobs that native workers do not want, and they increase the productivity of the destination country. Finally, contrary to popular myth, studies show that migrants do not displace native workers. Given the benefits of migration and relatively low cost, migration should be made “safe, legal, and common.”

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Criminal and Immigration Laws Shape Health Outcomes of Racial and Ethnic Minorities

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Over the last several decades, criminal and immigration laws in the United States have disproportionately burdened marginalized racial and ethnic minorities such as African Americans and Latinos. This policy brief reviews the sociological and public health research on the health effects of various criminal and immigration laws, policies, and practices. We argue that scholars and policy makers should understand the law as a fundamental cause of health disparities operating through two broad mechanisms: (1) primary effects on those who hold a stigmatized legal status; and (2) spillover effects on racial and ethnic in-group members, regardless of their own legal status.  We conclude that the massive expansion of punitive legal control should be treated as a public health crisis. To address this, policy should reduce the material and stigmatic burdens of criminal and immigration statuses on those directly impacted, as well as their legally-unmarked families and communities.