Criminalizing Immigration: The Latent Consequences of Punitive Policies on Migration Patterns

Carmen Gutierrez, University of Texas at Austin

Following the precedent decision to expand the power of immigration enforcement set by the Immigration and Nationality Act Section 287(g), the Department of Homeland Security developed its own partnership agreement with local police departments to increase detection and deportation efforts through its policy, Secure Communities (S-Comm). While S-Comm’s stated purpose is to enhance public safety, its implementation has been found to prioritize not areas with high concentrations of crime, but instead those with high proportions of Latino and foreign-born populations. The implications for this implementation pattern may impact the migration decisions of not only foreign-born residents who may face risks of deportation, but also Latinos in general who may also feel negatively targeted by S-Comm. Utilizing data from the American Community Survey and the Department of Homeland Security, this research performs a differences-in-differences analysis of the high- and low-priority counties where S-Comm was implemented between 2008 and 2012.