Who Thinks What? Native-born Houstonians’ Attitudes toward Undocumented Immigrants and the Sources of Negativity

• In Event: 190 - Section on Latino/a Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 05. Labor, Immigration and Negotiation

Abstract

Scholars are increasingly applying group threat and contact theory to the relations between the native-born and foreign-born groups. In this paper, I test these two competing hypotheses in terms of how native-born residents of Houston perceive undocumented immigrants. Using data from the 2010 and 2012 KHAS, I show that neighborhood context exerts little significant influence on native-born attitudes of undocumented immigrants. Instead, other demographic and attitudinal measures are more important in predicting attitudes toward undocumented immigrants. This research extends others by investigating the source of these negative attitudes. In those tests, results indicate a possible perceived labor market competition between native-born Blacks and undocumented immigrants. It also suggests that neighborhood affluence is a significant indicator of how Houstonians with negative attitudes cite the source of that negativity, increasing the odds that they believe that undocumented immigrants take from public resources and decreasing the odds that they increase crime.

Author

• Ethan Raker, Harvard University