Legal Exclusion, Civic Exclusion: How Legal Status Stratifies Latino Immigrants’ Civic Engagement

• In Event: 3251 - Section on International Migration Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 14. Legality and Irregular Migration

Abstract

Unlike many other sociopolitical activities in the United States, civic engagement is not restricted by legal status and is often the initial and primary form of political action available to immigrants. Few studies have disaggregated the impact of legal status on immigrants’ civic participation despite growing evidence of the stratifying effects of legal categories. Using Wave 1 of the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey, I find that legal status matters for Latino immigrants’ civic participation, but that the effects of legal status differ by type of civic activity. Undocumented immigrants are significantly less likely to participate in general civic organizations, such as community and ethnic pride organizations relative to documented immigrants, but this effect is mediated by education in the United States. Likewise, undocumented parents with undocumented children are less likely to volunteer in schools and participate in parent-teacher associations compared to both documented parents and undocumented parents with documented children. By contrast, legal status does not stratify membership in religious institutions. These results point to the importance of disaggregating both legal categories and types of civic activities when examining immigrant civic participation.

Author

• Tianjian Lai