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Legal Attitudes Of Immigrant Detainees, Emily Ryo Feb 2017

Legal Attitudes Of Immigrant Detainees, Emily Ryo

Emily Ryo

A substantial body of research shows that people’s legal attitudes can have wide-ranging behavioral consequences.  In this paper, I use original survey data to examine long-term immigrant detainees’ legal attitudes.  I find that the majority of detainees express a felt obligation to obey the law, and do so at a significantly higher rate than other U.S. sample populations.  I also find that the detainees’ perceived obligation to obey U.S. immigration authorities is significantly related to their evaluations of procedural justice, as measured by their assessments of fair treatment while in detention.  This finding remains robust controlling for a variety of …


On Normative Effects Of Immigration Law.Pdf, Emily Ryo Dec 2016

On Normative Effects Of Immigration Law.Pdf, Emily Ryo

Emily Ryo

Can laws shape and mold our attitudes, values, and social norms, and if so, how do immigration laws affect our attitudes or views toward minority groups?  I explore these questions through a randomized laboratory experiment that examines whether and to what extent short-term exposures to anti-immigration and pro-immigration laws affect people’s implicit and explicit attitudes toward Latinos.  My analysis shows that exposure to an anti-immigration law is associated with increased perceptions among study participants that Latinos are unintelligent and law-breaking.  In contrast, I find no evidence that exposure to pro-immigration laws promoted positive attitudes toward Latinos.  Taken together, these results …


The Promise Of A Subject-Centered Approach To Understanding Immigration Noncompliance, Emily Ryo Dec 2016

The Promise Of A Subject-Centered Approach To Understanding Immigration Noncompliance, Emily Ryo

Emily Ryo

Unauthorized immigrants and immigration enforcement are once again at the center of heated public debates and reform agendas. This paper examines the importance of applying a subject-centered approach to understanding immigration noncompliance and to developing effective, ethical, and equitable immigration policies. In general, a subject-centered approach focuses on the beliefs, values, and perceptions of individuals whose behavior the law seeks to regulate. This approach has been widely used in non-immigration law contexts to produce a richer and more nuanced understanding of legal noncompliance. By contrast, the subject-centered approach has been an overlooked and underappreciated tool in the study of immigration …


Fostering Legal Cynicism Through Immigration Detention, Emily Ryo Dec 2016

Fostering Legal Cynicism Through Immigration Detention, Emily Ryo

Emily Ryo

Every year, tens of thousands of noncitizens in removal proceedings are held and processed through an expanding web of immigration detention facilities across the United States. The use of immigration detention is expected to dramatically increase under the Trump administration’s mass deportation policy. I argue that this civil confinement system may serve a critical socio-legal function that has escaped the attention of policymakers, scholars, and the public alike. Using extensive original data on long-term immigrant detainees, I explore how immigration detention might function as a site of legal socialization that helps to promote or reinforce widespread legal cynicism among immigrant …