Effects of deportation fear on Latinxs’ civic and political participation

ABSTRACT

As deportations have increased, fear of removal has risen. However, few scholars have addressed the effects of deportability on civic and political engagement. Using the Pew Hispanic Center's 2010 National Survey of Latinos (data file and codebook accessed 3 March 2014 from http://www.pewhispanic.org/category/datasets/), I explore the effects of fear of deportation (FOD), encounters with the homeland security state, and racial discrimination on Latinxs’ political participation. Findings reveal that FOD, discrimination, and encounters with the homeland security state produce distinct trajectories of political integration. These indicators catalyzed nonelectoral action around immigration reform. Experiences of discrimination positively affected Latinx citizens’ plans to vote, though FOD and encounters with the homeland security state were not significant. Notably, when accounting for FOD, encounters with the homeland security state, and discrimination, citizenship and immigration status did not have significant effects. These results bring together the literatures on crimmigration and immigrant political incorporation, revealing concrete ways that deportability and racialization of Latinx communities shape participation.

KEYWORDS:

• Immigrant incorporation
• deportability
• political participation
• civic engagement
• crimmigration
• Latina/o studies

Acknowledgements

This publication is a revised version of my master’s thesis “¿Hoy Marchamos, Mañana Votamos? Effects of Increasing Deportations on Latina/os’ Political Engagement” published in 2015 at Michigan State University (Birch 2015). I wish to thank Stephanie Nawyn, Soma Chaudhuri, Brendan Mullan, and the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful comments on the manuscript. I am also grateful for feedback on earlier drafts of the paper presented at the 2015 American Sociological Association meeting and the 2014 Migration Without Boundaries conference.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Pew Research Center bears no responsibility for the analyses or interpretations of the data presented here. The opinions expressed herein, including any implications for policy, are those of the author and not of Pew Research Center.

2 Though more recent versions of the NSL are available, the 2010 survey is the most recent iteration in which participants were asked about fear of deportation, encounters with the homeland security state, and civic and political practices.

3 FOD, knowing someone who has been deported or detained for immigration reasons, and being stopped by police and asked about one’s status are indicators of being aware of or affected by the US homeland security state (De Genova 2007). The variables are clustered and labelled as “encounters with the homeland security state” throughout the paper.

4 Proposed and enacted policies such as the Immigration Act of 1990, 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, 2002 Homeland Security Act, 2005 REAL ID Act and Sensenbrenner Bill, and Arizona’s SB 1070, as well as policies enacted after the 2016 presidential election, have affected the experiences of Latinx immigrants and their loved ones (see Golash-Boza 2012; Kanstroom 2007 for comprehensive reviews of contemporary policies and their effects).

5 Ideally FOD would be disaggregated for a more nuanced approach to the deportation threat and possible differences between those who fear for themselves compared with those who are afraid for others, such as US-born children of immigrants (see Bloemraad, Sarabia, and Fillingim 2016). Future research should address differences across these groups.

6 Gonzales argues that the homeland security state is produced not only by formal governing and enforcement institutions but also at other sites of ideological production in civil society, such as media, think tanks, entertainment, and academia (2014, 13). Encounters with these branches of the homeland security state are beyond the scope of this project but merit consideration in future studies.

7 Mexicans and Central Americans experience the highest rates of removal from the US (DHS 2016), so they are possibly at greater risk for deportation than their South American and Caribbean counterparts.

8 The 2010 NSL limits political incorporation indicators to engagement with immigration issues and plans to vote in a midterm election. Future research should incorporate indicators of political participation that surpass specific issues and address a wider variety of actions (i.e. letters written to congressional leaders and fundraising for political parties); participation in grassroots campaigns and organizations (see Mena Robles and Gomberg-Muñoz 2016; Pallares and Flores-González 2010); and civic acts such as attending parent-teacher association meetings, belonging to unions, and volunteering (see Amuedo-Dorantes and Lopez 2017; DeSipio 2011).

9 However, FOD may mask citizenship and immigration status differences, as FOD is increased for noncitizens and first- and second-generation immigrants, compared with citizens and nonmigrants.