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For her project, Estefania transcribed interviews to document the impact of deportation on asylum seeking and migrant communities, as a result of third country asylum processing agreements. "Life Facing Deportation" was a one-year pilot inter-disciplinary research project co-designed by scholars in the UK, Guatemala, Mexico, the USA and Australia. It brought together scholars and practitioners from the fields of migration studies, law, health, education, ethics, development studies, anthropology, geography and sociology. The project adopted a rights-based and participatory approach to explore how asylum-seekers and returned migrants navigate and mitigate deficiencies in the asylum system and its inherent risks.

Why do high-skilled Canadian immigrants lag behind their US counterparts in labor-market outcomes, despite Canada’s merit-based immigration selection system and more integrative context? This article investigates a mismatch between immigrants’ education and occupations, operationalized by overeducation, as an explanation. Using comparable data and three measures of overeducation, we find that university-educated immigrant workers in Canada are consistently much more likely to be overeducated than their US peers and that the immigrant–native gap in the overeducation rate is remarkably higher in Canada than in the United States. This article further examines how the cross-national differences are related to labor-market structures and selection mechanisms for immigrants. Whereas labor-market demand reduces the likelihood of immigrant overeducation in both countries, the role of supply-side factors varies: a higher supply of university-educated immigrants is positively associated with the likelihood of overeducation in Canada, but not in the United States, pointing to an oversupply of high-skilled immigrants relative to Canada’s smaller economy. Also, in Canada the overeducation rate is significantly lower for immigrants who came through employer selection (i.e., those who worked in Canada before obtaining permanent residence) than for those admitted directly from abroad through the point system. Overall, the findings suggest that a merit-based immigration system likely works better when it takes into consideration domestic labor-market demand and the role of employer selection.

Sociopolitical and economic factors shape the lived experience of immigrants and subsequent US-born generations. Often marked by immigrant-related federal and subfederal (i.e., state, county, and city) government policies, but also inclusive of public sentiment toward immigrants, an anti-immigrant climate limits Latino immigrants’ and US-born Latinos’ access to pro-health resources and services, keeps them in a lower socioeconomic position, increases their exposure to interpersonal and structural discrimination, and directly and indirectly exposes them to acute and chronic stressors that can take a toll on their cardiovascular health. The objective of this dissertation is to examine the association between anti-immigrant climate, first defined using policies and then defined using anti-Latino immigrant sentiment, and a panel of traditional and non-traditional cardiovascular disease risk factors among immigrant and US-born Latino adults living in the United States. This dissertation is organized into five sections: 1) an introduction, 2) a systematic review and critical analysis of the literature on US federal and subfederal policies and physical and mental health outcomes among Latino adults, 3) an empirical study of subfederal immigrant-related policies enacted in 2007 and their association with a panel of cardiovascular disease risk factors among Latino adult participants in the National Health Interview Survey, 4) an empirical study of anti-Latino immigrant sentiment during the 2016 Presidential campaign and election and a panel of incident cardiovascular disease risk factors in a cohort of Latino participants of the Hispanic Community Health Survey/Study of Latinos, and 5) a discussion of findings and implications for future research. The systematic review did not identify any studies of immigrant-related policies and traditional cardiovascular disease health condition risk factors of obesity, hypertension, high cholesterol, or diabetes. Exclusionary policies were associated with poor mental health and poor self-rated health and no relationship between policies and adverse birth outcomes was observed. In the empirical study of subfederal immigrant-related policies, I did not observe a statistically significant association between exposure to exclusionary policy climates in 2007 and a greater increase in the prevalence of cardiovascular disease risk factors relative to exposure to neutral/inclusive policy climates. Although no statistically significant difference-in-differences were observed, Latinos living in exclusionary states had a statistically significant increase in the prevalence of high alcohol consumption one year after exposure, while the prevalence remained unchanged among Latinos living in neutral/inclusive states. This increase was reflective of increases among foreign-born Latinos, not US-born Latinos. In the empirical study of anti-Latino immigrant sentiment during the 2016 Presidential campaign and election, findings from models of high depressive symptoms suggested that among Latinos of Mexican and Central American background, the exposed were more likely to have incident high depressive symptoms than the unexposed. Findings also suggested an association between exposure status and incident current alcohol use, particularly among the foreign-born. An inverse association between exposure and risk of hypertension was observed, with further differences by duration of US residence. Patterns for alcohol consumption across both empirical studies suggest that future studies should continue to explore the effect of anti-immigrant climate on acute changes in alcohol consumption among Latinos in the US. Additionally, findings from the systematic review and the second empirical study also support the continued study of the relationship between anti-immigrant climate and mental health outcomes. As the sociopolitical climate of the US becomes increasingly harsh toward Latino immigrants and their families, studies should examine other health outcomes in order to understand which dimensions of health are affected by exposure to an anti-immigrant climate among one of the largest ethnic populations in the US.

Over the last five years, Venezuelans have left their home country in historic numbers in order to escape economic and political crises at home. Although scattering across the globe, most Venezuelans are re-locating to other countries in Latin America. Argentina has received over 125,000 Venezuelan migrants since 2012, most of whom reside in the capital city of Buenos Aires. The core of this thesis examines how well these migrants are integrating economically into the Argentine workforce and to what extent underemployment is a problem. To accomplish this objective, 278 Venezuelan adult migrants residing in Argentina were surveyed about their experiences navigating the labor market in Argentina. Interviews were also conducted with a variety of individuals from different backgrounds and levels of association with the Venezuelan migrant community in Argentina. These included, among others, interviews with leaders of Venezuelan professional associations in medicine and engineering, the head of a prominent Venezuelan community outreach organization, an academic from Argentina’s National Research Council (CONICET), and a representative from Argentina’s Dirección Nacional de Migraciones (DNM). Findings show that underemployment is perceived as a serious problem among Venezuelan migrants with over 50% of survey respondents claiming to be underemployed. Causes of underemployment were found to result from different factors that often vary based on profession. These primarily include difficulties with obtaining degree accreditation, the poor state of the current Argentine economy, a mismatch between the skills of Venezuelan workers and the demands of the Argentine economy, high costs of living in regions where suitable jobs are available, and in some cases, discrimination. The underemployment of Venezuelan engineers and medical doctors, two of the largest professional groups among Venezuelans, was examined more closely and in both cases underemployment was found to be a problem, but for different reasons. The Argentine government has already taken important actions towards reducing underemployment among Venezuelan migrants and facilitating their economic integration that are already showing signs of success. Recommendations for additional action that can be taken are offered and encouraged since reducing underemployment will be beneficial not only for migrants but also for the economic health of Argentina in the long run. These include subsidizing the cost of housing in areas of the country that are currently prohibitively expensive for migrants to live and work, offering programs of micro-credit for migrant entrepreneurs or independent contractors, fining employers who refuse to hire migrants that have only provisional residency, and allowing migrants to begin the degree accreditation process earlier with only provisional residency. However, the current poor state of the Argentine economy and the need to address the economic concerns of natives will likely limit the attention and resources given towards further improving the welfare of Venezuelan migrants.

This paper looks at major policy changes from 1960 to 2008 in order to investigate to what extent they have impacted the cities of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. These two cities offer an interesting urban juxtaposition as they reside on either side of the U.S./Mexico border yet only 20 miles separate their respective city centers. By conducting a longitudinal land cover analysis over these four decades, this study attempts to understand how the macro level of organization (policies delegated at the federal government level) influence organization at the micro level (local policy). Understanding the relationship between certain categories of immigration policy and organizational space could comment on the role of planning in border conditions.

This thesis explores deportation in modern America. With an initial examination of the immigration laws passed in the 1980 and 90s which resulted in the advent of mass deportation, this paper then explore regional responses to a lack of congressional immigration reform and the subsequent federal response. Focusing on the Obama administration and the first year of the Trump Presidency this paper explores the actions and impact that these men have on some of the country’s most vulnerable residents.

Given the growing population of undocumented Latina/o/x immigrants who came to the United States as children, there is a need for research that explores the risk and protective factors of their experiences growing up in the United States. As they transition through adolescence, they emerge as adults in a very different world. No longer protected from deportation, they must take more serious risks with employment. Without access to federal financial aid, they face the reality that they may never be able to utilize their college education in the United States. Against these odds, and with the temporary protection of DACA, an increasing number of undocumented childhood arrivals are civically engaged in the immigrant rights movement. Employing a qualitative method based on constructivist and feminist frameworks called Consensual Qualitative Research, this study sought to explore the impact of activism in Latina/o/x DACAmented immigrants’ thwarted transition to adulthood, highlighting the ways in which Latina/o/x cultural values mitigate the impact of activism. The sample consisted of 12 Latina/o/x DACAmented activists, eight women and four men, ages 18-32, from Mexico (n = 10), Guatemala (n = 1), and Dominican Republic (n = 1). The findings in this study not only suggested that protective migration factors, DACA-related privileges, and strong coping skills contributed to Latina/o/x DACAmented immigrants’ decision to become activists, but they also noted that activism has been a protective factor in and of itself. The results also showed the ways in which Latina/o/x cultural values helped them make sense of their unique experiences and were consistent with the values within their activist communities. Existing clinical recommendations, resources, and research methods were highlighted as ways in which mental health providers can apply these findings in their clinical, training, and research practice.

Throughout its history, Egypt’s governments were concerned at its northeastern border both to keep would-be fugitives in and to keep would-be migrants and invaders out. Adopting a system of structural violence that bears similarity to America’s policy of Prevention Through Deterrence on its southern border, the government fortified and policed the easiest points of entry across its official borders. Beyond that, however, it guarded water sources and relied upon the North Sinai desert to kill or grievously injure any intruders that ventured to cross it. This article considers the parallels between policies of border control in ancient Egypt and those currently practiced by the United States government with respect to Mexico. Moreover, it argues that the Sinai desert served as a shatter zone for the Pharaonic state and that local residents thus had the power either to sabotage or to bolster the efforts of a regime to secure its border.

This research seeks to understand the landscape of local immigration policies in the United States and asks, what role do municipalities have in immigration policy? To what extent can municipalities be involved in the cooperation or noncooperation with national immigration laws? Specifically, what kind of municipal actions or inactions are associated with the classification of certain immigration policy responses and is this generalizable? The aim of this thesis is to establish a typology of municipal responses culminating in the production of a static four quadrant – matrix model within which cities can be located. In order to test this model, case studies will be systematically examined for internal validity across samples, and for external validity in the replicability of the exercise. Four US cities will serve as case studies: Detroit (Michigan), San Francisco (California), Hialeah (Florida), and Mesa (Arizona). These municipalities were selected because they have not been previously studied in this regard and because they represent the multi-dimensional nature of factors affecting local immigration policies. This thesis proceeds by (1) exploring the context of immigration policy and settlement in the United States, (2), reviewing the literature on local immigration policies in the US, and (3) examining the characteristics and policies of the case studies. The output consists of a typology of municipal responsiveness on the subject of inclusionary and exclusionary immigration policies and a generalizable model within which other cities can be situated. It is the intention of this work, that a more comprehensive and multi-dimensional approach to municipal policy analysis can create the circumstances for a new evaluation of immigration policy localism in a global governance perspective.

Both legal and undocumented immigrant woman are facing are facing swaths social injustice in the immigration system to the United States. These injustices begin in a very drastic manner on their respective journey to the United States, and persist throughout their stay. These Social injustices put a strain on the woman's life that makes it hard to succeed in the United States.

Middle Eastern Americans and Asian Americans suffer from ethnoracial stereotypes (e.g., Islamophobia, the model minority myth) in popular discourse and policy making, especially pertaining to civil liberties and immigration. Discussions on civil liberties and immigration should focus on unpacking the realities of minority experiences and demographics in order to create more inclusive public policies.

This dissertation investigated the impacts of regulatory policies on well-being of immigrant families and low-income families, which offers evidence for policymakers to evaluate the necessity of employing harsh measures. In the first paper, I used the nationally representative National Health Interview Survey (2000-2012) to study the health and mental health impacts of local immigration enforcement policies, under Section 287(g) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act and the Secure Communities Program. I found some evidence of local immigration enforcement policies negatively impacting the mental health and self-rated health of Latino immigrants. In the second paper, I explored relationships between participation in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program and parental investments in children, and how stringencies in state TANF policy requirements impacted the relationships. I used the 2004 and 2008 panels of Survey on Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and found that TANF participation was associated with increased family meal times and decreased incidences of family outings and reading time. TANF participation was not associated with other areas of parenting (e.g., extracurricular activity participation, family rules on watching TV, positive parenting, parenting stress, and parental expectation). Also, stringent state TANF policy characteristics were not associated with negative parenting behaviors. In the last paper, I investigated how the stringencies of state TANF policy were associated with single mothers’ long-term trajectories of welfare use, labor supply, and earned income. I used the 1996, 2001, and 2004 panels of SIPP data (1996-2007), covering the decade following TANF implementation. Findings indicated that stringent state TANF policies were strongly related to single mothers’ lower likelihood to participate in TANF; however, single mothers used other welfare programs (e.g., SNAP and SSI) to the same extent as single mothers living in states with less stringent TANF policies. Also, stringent policies did not lead to higher levels of labor supply or earned income.

Latino immigration has been on the rise primarily because of an influx of Mexican Americans entering the United States. Despite the increase in population and the majority status acquired by Latinos, many immigrants remain illegal and have found it very difficult to gain citizenship or resident status. The DREAM Act, introduced in 2001, aims to alleviate that problem, but has not been passed in Congress.

Using large-scale census data and adjusting for sending-country fixed effect to account for changing composition of immigrants, we study relative immigrant selection to Canada and the U.S. during 1990–2006, a period characterized by diverging immigration policies in the two countries. Results show a gradual change in selection patterns in educational attainment and host-country language proficiency in favor of Canada as its post-1990 immigration policy allocated more points to the human capital of new entrants. Specifically, in 1990, new immigrants in Canada were less likely to have a B.A. degree than those in the U.S.; they were also less likely to have a highschool or lower education. By 2006, Canada surpassed the U.S. in drawing highly educated immigrants, while continuing to attract fewer low-educated immigrants. Canada also improved its edge over the U.S. in terms of host-country language proficiency of new immigrants. Entry-level earnings, however, do not reflect the same trend: Recent immigrants to Canada have experienced a wage disadvantage compared to recent immigrants to the U.S., as well as Canadian natives. One plausible explanation is that while the Canadian points system has successfully attracted more educated immigrants, it may not be effective in capturing productivity-related traits that are not easily measurable.

"Family unity" is often upheld as the principle of U.S. immigration policy, central to the making and self-understanding of the U.S. as a "nation of immigrants." However, family-based immigration system was only born of struggles of immigrant families against the regime of restriction. As the era of open immigration ended in the U.S. in 1921, there emerged a fundamental tension between claims of immigrant families and the regime of immigration restriction. Much of what current immigration law recognizes as family, or how it matters, originated in the post-1921 era, born out of struggles by immigrant families. This dissertation examines the period between 1921 and 1978 from two perspectives. One is as an era of the three-tiered regulatory system created in the 1920s that lasted until the 1960s to the 1970s: 1) quotas restriction applied to European immigrants 2) exclusion of Asian immigrants, and 3) administrative regulation of immigration from Mexico without a firm ceiling. Another is as the formative years of contemporary immigration control that lasts today. The three-tiered system marked by explicit ethno-racial hierarchization closed first in 1965 by abolition of the quotas system in the Eastern Hemisphere, and finally in 1978 when Congress placed all countries including the Western Hemisphere under a worldwide ceiling. But the end of the quotas era was not a return to an era of open immigration, but an onset of alternative form of immigration restriction and regulation. With particular attention to linkage between ideas about family and ethno-racial composition of the U.S., the dissertation will discuss how claims of family, selective admission and restriction of family immigration, created, reinforced, and unmade the three-tiered immigration restriction regime. To date there has been no comprehensive historical study of the concept of the "family" in immigration law -- how it is defined, who is eligible as a family member and who is not, under what conditions families may be united or separated, and how family-based policies varied according to ethno-racial origin. This lack has resulted in a static and naturalized view of the family rather than a dynamic and contested concept in immigration law and policy. This dissertation explains the changes in definitions of family in immigration, deportation, and nationality law during the quotas era, shows how they are the product of challenges raised by immigrant families, and how they were inherited to the era of formally neutral and at the same time global immigration restriction.

The American immigration adjudication system has witnessed profound change in recent years. Starting in the 1980s, a series of legislative and administrative shifts has produced an immigration adjudication system that increasingly mirrors the criminal justice system. This phenomenon, termed the "criminalization of immigration,” reflects a paradigm shift in the discourse on immigration law and policy. Historically focused on the exclusion and removal of the undocumented, immigration law and policy now increasingly prioritize removal of non-citizens with any criminal history. These developments have both revealed and exacerbated internal tensions in the Supreme Court’s treatment of immigration law, leading to a moment of unparalleled dissonance between the Supreme Court’s doctrine on immigration and the reality of the American immigration enforcement and adjudication systems.

Motivated by the dramatic increase in autism diagnoses in recent years, research into risk factors has uncovered substantial variation in autism prevalence by race/ethnicity, SES, and geography. Less studied is the connection between autism diagnosis rates and the social and political context. In this article, we link the temporal pattern of autism diagnosis for Hispanic children in California to state and federal anti‐immigrant policy, particularly ballot initiative Proposition 187, limiting access to public services for undocumented immigrants and their families. Using a population‐level data set of 1992–2003 California births linked to 1992–2006 autism case records, we show that the effects of state and federal policies toward immigrants are visible in the rise and fall of autism risk over time. The common epidemiological practice of estimating risk on pooled samples is thereby shown to obscure patterns and mis‐estimate effect sizes. Finally, we illustrate how spatial variation in Hispanic autism rates reflects differential vulnerability to these policies. This study reveals not only the spillover effects of immigration policy on children’s health, but also the hazards of treating individual attributes like ethnicity as risk factors without regard to the social and political environments that give them salience.