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Echave Paola Dissertation.pdf (1.22 MB)

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Standing between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Role of Immigration Enforcement on the Well-Being of Latinx Communities

Echave, Paola Andrea
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2770-2195
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1637524755453791

Abstract Details

2021, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Sociology.
Recent figures indicate that in the U.S. over 3 million people were deported and over 7 million were arrested in the past 11 years (TRAC, 2021). Latinx individuals, in particular, have been heavily targeted by immigration enforcement measures, leading to a high number of arrests, detentions, and removals for this population subgroup. While political and cultural framing has positioned Latinx immigrants as threats to the safety of the U.S., we know little about the level and impact of removals under what has been called the most notorious immigration enforcement program in the U.S., the Secure Communities Program, a federal program established in 2008. The adoption of Secure Communities permitted the close collaboration of state or local police and jails with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to track and apprehend undocumented immigrants Because previous studies indicate that Latinx individuals are more likely to be perceived as undocumented, it is likely that removals under Secure Communities have had detrimental consequences on the well-being of Latinx populations. In this dissertation, I provide a detailed background about the policies and programs that preceded and contributed to the establishment of ICE and development of the Secure Communities program. Further, I present descriptive statistics of removals under Secure Communities over time, across regions, and across counties in order to identify the years and areas of the U.S. that experienced historically high levels of removals from 2008 to 2017. I use longitudinal data from the U.S. Census data (American Community Survey 5-year estimates) and ICE removal data at the county level and conduct Poisson regressions to analyze the association between removals and a set of health and socio-economic outcomes, among the Latinx population: The overall findings of this study show that the number of ICE removals under Secure Communities increased rapidly after 2010 and reached their highest levels in 2014. This pattern is observed across all regions in the U.S. Results from the regression models show a positive association between high levels of immigration enforcement and Latinx household poverty rates, Latinx unemployment rates, and deaths from cardio-vascular disease and heart disease among the Latinx population. This study supports previous evidence showing that immigration enforcement is negatively affecting the well-being of Latinx communities. States and localities must reassure Latinx and immigrant communities of their safety and issue sensible guidance on how to enforce immigration law and prevent distrust between community members and local officials. Furthermore, government officials must develop opportunities for Latinx communities to voice their concerns, explore their personal experiences with immigration, and advocate for changes in city and state policies. These opportunities will help create better tools to remove the harm from immigration enforcement on the well-being of Latinx communities.
Kammi Schmeer (Advisor)
Hui Zheng (Committee Member)
Reanne Frank (Committee Member)
132 p.
Demographics; Sociology
Immigration; health; immigration enforcement; Latinx; Hispanic; Latinx communities, Hispanic communities; Latinx threat narrative; Criminalization of Immigration

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Echave, P. A. (2021). Standing between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Role of Immigration Enforcement on the Well-Being of Latinx Communities [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1637524755453791

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Echave, Paola. Standing between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Role of Immigration Enforcement on the Well-Being of Latinx Communities. 2021. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1637524755453791.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Echave, Paola. "Standing between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Role of Immigration Enforcement on the Well-Being of Latinx Communities." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1637524755453791

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1637524755453791
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© 2021, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Standing between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Role of Immigration Enforcement on the Well-Being of Latinx Communities by Paola Andrea Echave is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.