Journal article
The Impacts of Restrictive Interior Immigration Enforcement on Undocumented Immigrants’ Decisions: Self-Deportation Out of Fear?
Sociological quarterly, Vol.67(1), pp.56-80
01/02/2026
DOI: 10.1080/00380253.2025.2553541
Abstract
The Secure Communities (S-comm) program has allowed local law enforcement officers to identify deportable non-U.S. citizen arrestees in their local jails. The expansion of interior immigration enforcement is supposedly rooted in deterrence logic, aiming to encourage self-deportation or attrition through enforcement among undocumented immigrants. Using Mexican Migration Project (MMP) survey data, we examine whether the policy has achieved its stated goal of attrition through enforcement. Overall, we find that the S-comm enforcement does not encourage self-deportation among Mexican-born undocumented immigrants, the largest undocumented group in the United States. Instead, these immigrants’ personal and family situations significantly shape migrant decisions. Given the gap between the program’s public rationale and its observable effects, our findings suggest that S-comm may function less as an empirically grounded policy intervention and more as a form of symbolic politics.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- The Impacts of Restrictive Interior Immigration Enforcement on Undocumented Immigrants’ Decisions: Self-Deportation Out of Fear?
- Creators
- Jihye Park - California State University, FullertonRene R. Rocha - University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Sociological quarterly, Vol.67(1), pp.56-80
- DOI
- 10.1080/00380253.2025.2553541
- ISSN
- 0038-0253
- eISSN
- 1533-8525
- Publisher
- Taylor & Francis
- Grant note
- American Society of CriminologyDivision of People of ColorDivision of International Criminology (DIC)American Society of Criminology (ASC)
The authors appreciate financial support from the Division of People of Color and Crime (DPCC) and the Division of International Criminology (DIC), American Society of Criminology (ASC). We also thank the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) for providing deportation data under the Secure Communities (S-comm) program. Finally, we thank the editor and reviewers for their thoughtful feedback, Sarah Perry for statistical advice/support, and Karen Heimer, Stephanie DiPietro, Sara Mitchell, and Meghan Rogers for their comments on the earlier version of this paper.
- Language
- English
- Electronic publication date
- 09/30/2025
- Date published
- 01/02/2026
- Academic Unit
- African American Studies; American Studies; Political Science
- Record Identifier
- 9984969110602771
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