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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Immigration, Employment Opportunities, And Criminal Behavior, Matthew Freedman, Emily Owens, Sarah Bohn Jun 2016

Immigration, Employment Opportunities, And Criminal Behavior, Matthew Freedman, Emily Owens, Sarah Bohn

Matthew Freedman

We take advantage of provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), which granted legal resident status to long-time unauthorized residents but created new obstacles to employment for more recent immigrants, to explore how employment opportunities affect criminal behavior. Exploiting administrative data on the criminal justice involvement of individuals in San Antonio, Texas and using a triple-differences strategy, we find evidence of an increase in felony charges filed against residents most likely to be affected by IRCA’s employment regulations. Our results suggest a strong relationship between access to legal jobs and criminal behavior.

Revisions requested at American …


East Indian Families Raising Abcd Adolescents: Cultural And Generational Challenges, Shruti S. Poulsen Mar 2016

East Indian Families Raising Abcd Adolescents: Cultural And Generational Challenges, Shruti S. Poulsen

Shruti Poulsen

Immigration is a process fraught with both challenges and opportunities for families. In particular, East Indian families with U.S.-born adolescents experience the challenges of bridging cultures across generational divides; they are perceived by others as confused, identity less, and conflicted or as American-Born, Confused Desis (ABCDs). This article explores the history of East Indian immigration to the United States, the cultural values and belief systems of these parents and adolescents, and some clinical and research implications for developing a richer and more complex understanding of this group.


Immigration As A Dynamic Experience: Personal Narratives And Clinical Implications For Family Therapists, Shruti Poulsen, Nithyakala Karuppaswamy, Rajeswari Natrajan Mar 2016

Immigration As A Dynamic Experience: Personal Narratives And Clinical Implications For Family Therapists, Shruti Poulsen, Nithyakala Karuppaswamy, Rajeswari Natrajan

Shruti Poulsen

This is a reflective account of the experiences of the authors who immigrated to the United States from India at different developmental, historical, political, and social stages. Although their culture-of-origin was the same, the meaning and experience of immigration was different for each author. The narratives show a natural continuum of experiences based on their developmental stage during immigration, reasons for immigration, and the historical context of both India and the US at the time of immigration. A common theme is the ambivalence experienced by them in their process of creating a physical and psychological home in a different culture.


All Americans Not Equal: Mistrust And Discrimination Against Naturalized Citizens In The U.S., Alev Dudek Aug 2015

All Americans Not Equal: Mistrust And Discrimination Against Naturalized Citizens In The U.S., Alev Dudek

Alev Dudek

Approximately 13 percent of the U.S. population — nearly 40 million — is foreign-born, of which about 6 percent are naturalized U.S. citizens. Given the positive image associated with immigrants — the “nation of immigrants” or “the melting pot” — one would assume that all Americans in the U.S.A., natural born or naturalized, have equal worth as citizens. This, however, is not necessarily the case. Despite U.S. citizenship, naturalized Americans are seen less than equal to natural born Americans. They are often confused with “foreign nationals.” Moreover, their cultural belonging, allegiance, English-language skills, as well as other qualifications, are questioned.


Deferred Action, Supervised Enforcement Discretion, And The Rule Of Law Basis For Executive Action On Immigration, Anil Kalhan Jun 2015

Deferred Action, Supervised Enforcement Discretion, And The Rule Of Law Basis For Executive Action On Immigration, Anil Kalhan

Anil Kalhan

In November 2014, the Obama administration announced the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) initiative, which built upon a program instituted two years earlier, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative. As mechanisms to channel the government’s scarce resources toward its enforcement priorities more efficiently and effectively, both DACA and DAPA permit certain individuals falling outside those priorities to seek “deferred action,” which provides its recipients with time-limited, nonbinding, and revocable notification that officials have exercised prosecutorial discretion to deprioritize their removal. While deferred action thereby facilitates a highly tenuous form of quasi-legal recognition …


The Criminal Justice Response To Policy Interventions: Evidence From Immigration Reform, Sarah Bohn, Matthew Freedman, Emily Owens May 2015

The Criminal Justice Response To Policy Interventions: Evidence From Immigration Reform, Sarah Bohn, Matthew Freedman, Emily Owens

Matthew Freedman

Changes in the treatment of individuals by the criminal justice system following a policy intervention may bias estimates of the effects of the intervention on underlying criminal activity. We explore the importance of such changes in the context of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). Using administrative data from San Antonio, Texas, we examine variation across neighborhoods and ethnicities in police arrests and in the rate at which those arrests are prosecuted. We find that changes in police behavior around IRCA confound estimates of the effects of the policy and its restrictions on employment on criminal activity.


Global Health Inequities: A Sociological Perspective, Fernando De Maio Dec 2013

Global Health Inequities: A Sociological Perspective, Fernando De Maio

Fernando De Maio

No abstract provided.


Immigration Policing And Federalism Through The Lens Of Technology, Surveillance, And Privacy, Anil Kalhan Nov 2013

Immigration Policing And Federalism Through The Lens Of Technology, Surveillance, And Privacy, Anil Kalhan

Anil Kalhan

With the deployment of technology, federal programs to enlist state and local police assistance with immigration enforcement are undergoing a sea change. For example, even as it forcefully has urged invalidation of Arizona’s S.B. 1070 and similar state laws, the Obama administration has presided over the largest expansion of state and local immigration policing in U.S. history with its implementation of the “Secure Communities” program, which integrates immigration and criminal history database systems in order to automatically ascertain the immigration status of every individual who is arrested and booked by state and local police nationwide. By 2012, over one fifth …


Living Among Guatemalan Mayans Is Fascinating Experience, Irene Scharf Nov 2013

Living Among Guatemalan Mayans Is Fascinating Experience, Irene Scharf

Irene Scharf

I have just lived a dream. Five years ago I learned of a school where students of all ages could study Spanish intensively while living among the Guatemalan Mayans. Peace Accords had been signed in 1996, the government was encouraging tourism, and it was, finally, safe to visit.

Why a dream? Because, 25 years ago, when I traveled through Central and South America, I promised my family I would avoid Guatemala because of the perceived was dangers. During that trip, as I met my Europeans and other who had visited, remained safe, and found it a fascinating country, I vowed …


The Effect Of Immigrant Composition On Student Achievement: Evidence From New York City, Ryan Yeung Aug 2012

The Effect Of Immigrant Composition On Student Achievement: Evidence From New York City, Ryan Yeung

Ryan Yeung

There has been a large body of recent literature focused on the effects of school composition on student outcomes. These studies have focused on peer group characteristics such as achievement, gender composition, ethnic and racial composition, and socioeconomic composition. This area of research has been commonly called "peer effects." A relatively unexplored area of peer effects research involves the effect of immigrant children on their schoolmates. Because of the heterogeneity between immigrant groups, this study focuses on East Asian and Dominican immigrant children. As these two groups are on opposite sides of the socioeconomic spectrum, comparing results of the two …


La Vida Online: The Parallel Public Sphere Of Facebook As Used By Colombian Immigrant Women In Atlanta, Michaelanne Dye Oct 2011

La Vida Online: The Parallel Public Sphere Of Facebook As Used By Colombian Immigrant Women In Atlanta, Michaelanne Dye

Michaelanne M Dye

This thesis examines how Colombian women within the city of Atlanta utilize Facebook as a parallel public sphere, a cultural phenomenon through which the silenced use mediums of popular culture to discuss private and public dilemmas (Dewey 2009). Through ethnographic research in Atlanta, I analyze how these young women use Facebook as they negotiate their identity through the multiple contexts of their everyday lives. Drawing from feminist critiques, I explore whether Facebook provides an alternative to the traditional public sphere, while also investigating how power structures influence freedom of expression online. Through an international network of friends, these women tackle …


The Effect Of Place Of Origin On The Relative Earnings Of Immigrant Women, Michael C. Seeborg, Mahi Garg Jan 2010

The Effect Of Place Of Origin On The Relative Earnings Of Immigrant Women, Michael C. Seeborg, Mahi Garg

Michael Seeborg

This paper explores the earnings differentials between female immigrants from 14 places of origin when compared to each other and a number of other groups. The very large differences in average earnings between female immigrant groups are found to be largely due to human capital and family characteristic differences. The study employs OLS regression to make earnings comparisons between immigrant women from each of the 14 places of origin to three reference groups. We find that although female immigrants from most countries are doing well relative to female natives, they fall significantly behind native males and male immigrants, even after …


Success Attained, Deterred, And Denied: Divergent Pathways To Social Mobility In Los Angeles's New Second Generation, Min Zhou, Jennifer Lee, Jody Vallejo, Rosaura Tafoya-Estrada, Yang Xiong Oct 2008

Success Attained, Deterred, And Denied: Divergent Pathways To Social Mobility In Los Angeles's New Second Generation, Min Zhou, Jennifer Lee, Jody Vallejo, Rosaura Tafoya-Estrada, Yang Xiong

Rosaura Conley-Estrada

This article highlights divergent pathways to mobility among members of the new second generation, identifies key mechanisms affecting the choices they make in their pursuit of success, and explains how specific choices were pivotal in determining outcomes of segmented assimilation. First, the authors evaluate definitions of success and pathways to social mobility, advancing a subject-centered approach to study second-generation mobility. Second, the article turns to the results from the authors' ongoing qualitative study of the new second generation in Los Angeles to examine cases that exemplify predictable and anomalous outcomes. Third, the authors zoom in on patterns that emerge from …