Citizen Rights and Integration: The Case of Unauthorized Immigrants to the US

• In Event: Stigma and Constrained Political Agency

Abstract

Do policies granting legal status to minority immigrants change their incentives to integrate? Previous studies suggest that the process of acquiring citizen rights strengthens immigrants' identification with the host society, leading to assimilation. However, this literature does not consider that in their decision of whether to integrate, minority immigrants face a trade-off: behaviors that promote relationships with the dominant society are behaviors that induce a disconnection with their ethnic identity. This paper develops a simple theoretical decision model that microfounds immigrants' trade-off in their decision to integrate and identifies the effect of legalizing unauthorized immigrants on this decision. I focus on the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), which is among the most extensive policies directed toward unauthorized immigrants in recent decades in the United States and assess the effect of the program on the integration patterns of Mexicans who represent roughly 80% of the DACA population, using a measure of ethnic distinctiveness of first names given to children as an indicator of cultural assimilation. I employ data about every child born in Florida and a regression discontinuity design that exploits the DACA eligibility criterion establishing that recipients must have been under age 31 as of 15 June 2012, to compare the Mexicaness of names given by Mexican DACA-eligible mothers to the Mexicaness of names given by Mexican non-DACA-eligible mothers. The estimated results indicate that the legalization of immigrants allows them to reinforce their ethnic identity: first names given by barely DACA-eligible mothers are more distinctively Mexican than first names given by barely non-DACA-eligible mothers.

Author

• Stephanie Zonszein, New York University