Perceptions of Vulnerability in Time of Economic Downturn and Draconian Immigration Enforcement: Examination by Nativity and Age at Migration

Haruna M. Fukui, Arizona State University

The study takes advantage of a unique dataset collected from one community in Phoenix, Arizona during the worst years of economic recession and at the heart of the most heated anti-immigration legislation debates in the United States. We compare perceptions of vulnerability as observed in housing and job access and experiences of economic hardships among local residents with different migration histories. Our preliminary results suggest that diverging perceptions of vulnerability by nativity and that immigrants have an elevated perception of vulnerability attributed to immigration enforcement than native born, while economic conditions impact both natives and foreign born more or less equally. Further, we find that the immigrants who arrived at a younger age share more similar level of perceived vulnerability with the US born than those who arrived later in the life course in job access but not in housing even when the perception of financial strain is equal.