Denying Citizenship: Immigration Enforcement and Citizenship Rights in the United States

Ryo, Emily; Peacock, Ian

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3463902

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 46 publications

(29 reference statements)

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“…And yet, this article has unearthed growing fears among U.S. citizens. Multiple mechanisms may underlie this result (19). Among naturalized citizens, who experienced a sharp decline in fears in 2013, their greater social proximity to Latino noncitizens vulnerable to deportation may matter.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…† Ethnographies of these mixed-citizenship families reveal that U.S. citizens internalize fears their family members may be deported (16,17). Even in households where all Latino members are U.S. citizens, worries of being misrecognized as deportable in an U.S. immigration regime racialized in its enforcement may contribute to deportation fears (13,18,19). High-profile news reports of Latino U.S. citizens temporarily detained or investigated for their suspected deportability further validate these fears (20).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Latinos’ deportation fears by citizenship and legal status, 2007 to 2018

Asad

2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Deportation has become more commonplace in the United States since the mid-2000s. Latin American noncitizens—encompassing undocumented and documented immigrants—are targeted for deportation. Deportation’s threat also reaches naturalized and US-born citizens of Latino descent who are largely immune to deportation but whose loved ones or communities are deportable. Drawing on 6 y of data from the National Survey of Latinos, this article examines whether and how Latinos’ deportation fears vary by citizenship and legal status and over time. Compared with Latino noncitizens, Latino US citizens report lower average deportation fears. However, a more complex story emerges when examining this divide over time: Deportation fears are high but stable among Latino noncitizens, whereas deportation fears have increased substantially among Latino US citizens. These trends reflect a growing national awareness of—rather than observable changes to—deportation policy and practice since the 2016 US presidential election. The article highlights how deportation or its consequences affects a racial group that the US immigration regime targets disproportionately.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Latinos’ deportation fears by citizenship and legal status, 2007 to 2018

Asad

2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Beyond US citizen children with undocumented parents, recent years have witnessed numerous arrests, deportations, and detention of US citizen children who cannot prove their citizenship and who look and sound "different" to DHS officials (Ford 2019;Ryo and Peacock 2019). A total of 6.1 million US citizen children younger than age 18 live in mixed-status homes.…”

Section: Creating Two Tiers Of Us Citizenship and Devaluing The Citizmentioning

confidence: 99%

Putting Americans First: A Statistical Case for Encouraging Rather than Impeding and Devaluing US Citizenship

Kerwin

Warren

2019

Journal on Migration and Human Security

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Executive Summary This article examines the ability of immigrants to integrate and to become full Americans. Naturalization has long been recognized as a fundamental step in that process and one that contributes to the nation’s strength, cohesion, and well-being. To illustrate the continued salience of citizenship, the article compares selected characteristics of native-born citizens, naturalized citizens, legal noncitizens (most of them lawful permanent residents [LPRs]), and undocumented residents. It finds that the integration, success, and contributions of immigrants increase as they advance toward naturalization, and that naturalized citizens match or exceed the native-born by metrics such as a college education, self-employment, average personal income, and homeownership. It finds that: Naturalized citizens enjoy the same or higher levels of education, employment, work in skilled occupations, personal income, and percentage above the poverty level compared to the native-born population. At least 5.2 million current US citizens — 4.5 million children and 730,000 adults — who are living with at least one undocumented parent 1 obtained US citizenship by birth; eliminating birthright citizenship would create a permanent underclass of US-born denizens in the future. Requiring medical insurance would negatively affect immigrants seeking admission and undocumented residents who ultimately qualify for a visa. About 51 percent of US undocumented residents older than age 18 lack health insurance. In 2017, about 1.2 million undocumented residents lived with 1.1 million eligible-to-naturalize relatives. If all the members of the latter group naturalized, they could petition for or expedite the adjustment or immigration (as LPRs) of their undocumented family members, including 890,000 “immediate relatives.” Their naturalization could put 11 percent of the US undocumented population on a path to permanent residency. The article also explores a contradiction: that the administration’s “America first” ideology obscures a set of policies that impede the naturalization process, devalue US citizenship, and prioritize denaturalization. The article documents many of the ways that the Trump administration has sought to revoke legal status, block access to permanent residence and naturalization, and deny the rights, entitlements, and benefits of citizenship to certain groups, particularly US citizen children with undocumented parents. It also offers estimates and profiles of the persons affected by these measures, and it rebuts myths that have buttressed the administration’s policies. For example, the Trump administration and restrictionist legislators have criticized the US immigration system’s emphasis on family reunification for its supposed failure to produce skilled workers. Yet the article finds that: The current immigration system, which prioritizes the admission of the nuclear family members of US citizens and LPRs, yields a legal foreign-born population that has occupational skills equal to those of the native-born population. The legal foreign-born population living in 24 US states and Washington, DC, and those from 94 source countries 2 have higher percentages of skilled workers than the overall population of native-born workers.

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Tax Equality for Immigrants: The Indispensable Ingredient for Remedying Child Poverty in the United States

Suro

Findling

2021

Journal on Migration and Human Security

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Both at the federal and state levels, tax credits have proved effective policy instruments to combat poverty, and they are at the heart of President Biden's massive initiative on childhood poverty. However, about one of every five children suffering poverty in the United States has an unauthorized immigrant parent and thus little or no access to tax credits. That is nearly two million children, and 85 percent of them are US citizens. Achieving historic reductions in childhood poverty thus will be impossible without remedying the eligibility exclusions and bureaucratic impediments that unauthorized immigrants face in the US tax system. All individuals who make money and reside in the United States are obliged to pay federal income taxes via a return filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). For unauthorized immigrants and others who do not qualify for a Social Security Number (SSN) that requires an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). In this two-tier system, ITIN filers have the same income tax due as Social Security filers, but they do not receive the same credits. ITIN filers have never been eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and some of their children were excluded from the Child Tax Credit (CTC) in the Trump administration's 2017 tax bill. Both credits are highly effective anti-poverty programs, providing immediate relief while also incentivizing work and earnings. The tax credits are the critical policy tool in Biden's American Plan for reducing child poverty, and they would be funded through the budget reconicilation legislation devised by Congressional Democrats in the summer of 2021. As summer drew to a close, ITIN inclusion was beginning to enter the discussion among advocates and legislators about the bill's detailed provisions. But eligibility is not the only barrier. Internal government monitors have repeatedly criticized the IRS for heavy-handed and inefficient practices that have placed undue burdens on ITIN taxpayers and that have hindered compliance with the law. The use of ITINs has plummeted in recent years from a high of 4.6 million returns in 2014 to 2.5 million in 2020. Prompted by the economic losses and the medical toll suffered by unauthorized immigrants during the pandemic and by their newly valued roles as “essential workers,” the federal government and several state governments have taken important steps to lessen the exclusion of ITIN taxpayers. The first federal stimulus package excluded not only ITIN holders but also their family members with SSNs. Congress extended eligibility to members of ITIN households with SSNs for the second and third stimulus checks. Meanwhile, California, Colorado, Maryland, New Mexico, Washington, Maine, and Oregon broke with the federal government and made ITIN filers fully eligible for their state EITCs, and as of July 2021 similar measures were under consideration in four other states. Early evidence from California and Colorado suggests that ITIN inclusion could prove a highly effective means of reaching poor children with the benefits of a state EITC. Child poverty can only be attacked successfully if ITIN households receive equal access to federal and state tax credit programs. This can be accomplished if: Congress and state legislatures permit full eligibility for all EITC and CTC programs. Congress mandates reforms to the procedures for getting and keeping an ITIN that have been proposed in multiple reports to Congress by the Taxpayer Advocate Service, an internal monitor at the IRS. Immigrants’ rights advocates and other civil society organizations, with government support, undertake a multi-year campaign to encourage ITIN application and use. The IRS receives funding to support a greatly expanded ITIN program.

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Denying Citizenship: Immigration Enforcement and Citizenship Rights in the United States

Cited by 5 publications

References 46 publications

Latinos’ deportation fears by citizenship and legal status, 2007 to 2018

Latinos’ deportation fears by citizenship and legal status, 2007 to 2018

Putting Americans First: A Statistical Case for Encouraging Rather than Impeding and Devaluing US Citizenship

Tax Equality for Immigrants: The Indispensable Ingredient for Remedying Child Poverty in the United States

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