Lives in Limbo? Legal Status and Life Course Transitions among 1.5 Generation Mexican Immigrant Young Adults

• In Event: 242 - Section on International Migration Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. Legal Status

Abstract

The foreign-born population consisting of childhood immigrants coming of age in the United States as undocumented young adults has attracted considerable research and policy attention in recent years. This extended abstract describes an on-going working paper that will present new empirical evidence of the ways in which undocumented status affects key life-course transitions among childhood immigrants from Mexico using newly developed statistical methods for identifying undocumented immigrants in large-scale Census surveys. Analyses of the 2011 American Community Survey (ACS) indicate young adult Mexican immigrants of the so called “1.5 generation” who lack legal status are significantly more likely to drop out of high school, and among those completing high school, are significantly less likely to enroll in college, relative to their legally resident and naturalized Mexican 1.5 generation counterparts. However, despite ending their academic careers earlier than their legally resident coethnic peers, undocumented childhood arrivals from Mexico are significantly less likely to have formed families during young adulthood, all else equal. These findings lend strong statistical support to previously reported ethnographic research suggesting that undocumented status operates as an especially disruptive force among childhood immigrants facing crucial life-course transitions that are likely to shape their social and economic prospects into adulthood.

Authors

• James Dean Bachmeier, Pennsylvania State University

• Claire E. Altman, Rice University

• Jennifer Van Hook, Pennsylvania State University