This research compares several national-origin groups in terms of how parents’ entry, legalization and naturalization (i.e., membership) statuses relate to their children’s educational attainment. In the case of Asian groups, the members of which predominantly come to the United States as permanent legal migrants, we hypothesize (1) that father’s and mother’s statuses will be relatively homogenous and few in number and (2) that these will exert minimal net effects on second-generation attainment. For Mexicans, many of whom initially come as temporary unauthorized migrants, we hypothesize (1) that parental status combinations will be heterogeneous and greater in number and (2) that marginal membership statuses will exert negative net effects on education in the second generation. To assess these ideas, we analyze unique intergenerational data from Los Angeles on the young adult members of second-generation national-origin groups and their parents. The findings show that Asian immigrant groups almost universally exhibit similar father–mother migration statuses and high educational attainment among children. By contrast, Mexicans manifest more numerous discrepant father–mother combinations, with those in which the mother remains unauthorized carrying negative implications for children’s schooling. The paper discusses the theoretical and policy implications of the delays in incorporation that result from Mexican Americans needing extra time and resources compared to the members of other groups to overcome their handicap of marginal membership status (i.e., being more likely to enter and remain unauthorized).

Governments at various levels of administration increasingly try to exclude unauthorised migrants from labour markets and public provisions, and apprehend and deport unauthorised migrants who have settled in the territory. This article demonstrates that such policies and practices of 'internal border control' can be approximated empirically; it is shown that, since 2005 in particular, internal border control has become more prevalent in the United States, especially in Southern states. Furthermore, evidence is presented for a negative bivariate relationship between the degree of internal border control and the estimated rate of growth of unauthorised residence; states with the highest degree of interior control tended to experience the largest decreases in the size of the unauthorised population. We introduce four plausible interpretations of this bivariate relationship, and suggest various avenues for further research. The results are based on a primary analysis of three indicators of internal control (employer participation in E-Verify, restrictive state laws, county and city involvement in the 287g Program) and a secondary analysis of unauthorised population estimates.

The U.S. workforce heavily depends on immigrants. To address the role and position of non-White immigrant groups in the United States, the authors examine employment and industry patterns in the labor force, disaggregated by nativity and gender, in 1990 and 2000. The authors then look at job quality and mobility, with job quality defined by occupation, industry, and relative earnings, using 1990 and 2000 census data. Disaggregating results by race and ethnicity, nativity, and gender reveals that immigrants do not appear entirely to be stuck in low-end jobs, and arrival cohort data suggest substantial immigrant upward mobility, mainly from lower to middle but also to higher range jobs. Immigrants may experience more upward mobility than analysts sometimes conclude based on consideration of immigrants’ race and ethnicity alone and on assumptions that the experiences of new immigrants are likely to mirror those of the African American population.

The children of Mexican immigrants face formidable barriers to achieving socioeconomic mobility due to their parents' precarious economic position and high rates of unauthorized status. In the short term, Mexican immigrants often coreside in extended household living arrangements with extended kin and unrelated friends and associates to shelter themselves from economic deprivation and insecurity of unauthorized status. Using individual-level Census data, the present study examines how family economic resources relate to household living arrangements. The results are consistent with various theories of immigrant household formation, especially those that explain household structure in terms of economic need and processes of immigration. Families residing in extended arrangements are unique, however, in terms of how often they include a householder and how much they contribute to total household resources, indicators that families may hold more supportive roles within extended households. The implications of the findings for the well-being of immigration children are discussed.

Governments increasingly exclude unauthorized migrants from labor markets and public provisions and apprehend those who have settled in the territory. In the U.S., recent increases in interior control coincided with a reduction in (the growth of) the estimated unauthorized population. This study describes the mechanisms through which interior control may impact migration patterns and analyzes whether interior control has been responsible for the changing settlement patterns. We find that when the effects of labor markets and internal dynamics of migration processes are controlled, policy has a (moderate) negative effect on estimated levels of unauthorized residence, both in individual states and the U.S. as a whole.