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1. "Denver Loves Immigrants”?: Latinx Health Citizenship and Immigrant Incorporation in Urban Colorado

   Duncan, Whitney L. (March 2019, Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meetings)

   While Denver has long been a prime immigrant receiving community, the city’s immigrant population has increased nearly 50% since 2000. Along with this growth, the city has emerged as a leader in the national sanctuary movement and in implementing municipal policies to protect immigrants. But can Denver and its immigrant-serving public healthcare institutions offset the “chilling” effects of exclusionary federal policies on Latinx immigrant health citizenship? In this paper, I answer this question by detailing preliminary ethnographic findings from research conducted with immigrants, health care providers, immigration advocates, and public officials in the Mile High City. 

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2. Adminigration: City-Level Governance of Immigrant Community Members

   https://doi.org/10.1017/lsi.2023.49  

   Coutin, Susan Bibler; Nicholls, Walter J. (September 2023, Law & Social Inquiry)

   The concept of adminigration provides a much-needed lens in theorizing immigration enforcement, citizenship, and urban geographies. We define adminigration as the governance of immigrant community members through city-level policies and programs, whether or not these explicitly focus on immigrants. Our focus on adminigration involves three theoretical interventions: (1) bridging literature on immigrant bureaucratic incorporation and crimmigration to situate city-level administrative practices within immigration policymaking; (2) a focus on how localized definitions of membership, as enacted by cities, produce citizenship, legality, and illegality, and (3) the argument that these practices play out in space, resulting in variegated urban landscapes that are better characterized as a network than a level. We develop these points through a review of the literature on bureaucratic incorporation, crimmigration, citizenship, and the spatialization of immigration policymaking. To illustrate the utility of this framework, we conclude with a case study of adminigration in a California city that we call “Mayville.” 

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3. Growing up Without Status: The Integration of Children in Mixed‐Status Families

   https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12695  

   Hamilton, Erin_R; Patler, Caitlin_C; Hale, Jo_Mhairi (April 2019, Sociology Compass)

   Abstract Over the past three decades, a central new challenge confronting millions of children of immigrants has emerged: growing up in a mixed‐status family in which at least one member lacks legal authorization to live and work in the United States. A body of recent research argues that unauthorized immigrant status is thefundamentaldeterminant of integration for unauthorized immigrants, with intergenerational consequences for their U.S.‐born children. We discuss the immigration and other policies that create the particular social context within which unauthorized immigration status becomes so detrimental for integration. Specifically, we focus on federal and state policies that undermine the very factors thought to protect children and support the integration of new generations of Americans: families and social networks, economic resources and opportunities, and health. We conclude with recommendations for future research. 

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4. Advocating for Transgender Immigrants in Detention Centers: Cisnormativity as a Tool for Racialized Social Control

   https://doi.org/10.1177/00027642221083531  

   Kurdyla, Victoria (May 2022, American Behavioral Scientist)

   Despite public concern over immigration enforcement, little attention has been given to transgender immigrants, who are disproportionately at risk for arrest and deportation. Organizations dedicated to protecting LGBT people’s rights and immigrant rights have been working to address this issue and shape policy decisions to better protect transgender immigrants in detention centers; however, research has not investigated how these organizations frame transgender immigrant detainees and their experience in detention to accomplish their goals. This current study uses a content analysis of public documents spanning 2009–2021 from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Transgender Law Center (TLC) to investigate how two legal advocacy organizations frame the issue of transgender immigrants within detention centers. The ACLU rarely discusses transgender immigrants and thus upholds cisnormativity. When they do discuss transgender immigrants, their transgender identity is referenced as a singular issue in isolation from other facets of their identity. The TLC, on the other hand, frames immigration detention for transgender immigrants as part of a larger web of oppression. Through a comparison of the ACLU and TLC, this study underscores the role of cisnormativity as a tool for racialized social control. Findings highlight the importance of a critical, intersectional approach to immigration advocacy and scholarship that challenges the cisnormative assumptions guiding the current immigration system. Implications for future research and service provision are discussed. 

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5. Immigrant Legal Status Disparities in Health Among First- and One-point-five-Generation Latinx Immigrants in California

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-021-09689-w  

   Hamilton, Erin R.; Patler, Caitlin; Savinar, Robin (December 2021, Population Research and Policy Review)

   Abstract Restrictive US immigration laws and law enforcement undermine immigrant health by generating fear and stress, disrupting families and communities, and eroding social and economic wellbeing. The inequality and stress created by immigration law and law enforcement may also generate disparities in health among immigrants with different legal statuses. However, existing research does not find consistent evidence of immigrant legal status disparities in health, possibly because it does not disaggregate immigrants by generation, defined by age at migration. Immigration and life course theory suggest that the health consequences of non-citizen status may be greater among 1.5-generation immigrants, who grew up in the same society that denies them formal membership, than among the 1st generation, who immigrated as adolescents or adults. In this study, we examine whether there are legal status disparities in health within and between the 1st generation and the 1.5 generation of 23,288 Latinx immigrant adults interviewed in the 2005–2017 waves of the California Health Interview Survey. We find evidence of legal status disparities in heart disease within the 1st generation and for high blood pressure and diabetes within the 1.5 generation. Non-citizens have higher rates of poor self-rated health and distress within both generations. Socioeconomic disadvantage and limited access to care largely account for the worse health of legally disadvantaged 1st- and 1.5-generation Latinx adults in California. 

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