Who stays, who goes? Perceptions of the deportation and legalization of undocumented immigrants

Undocumented immigrants in the United States are at-risk for deportation, which carries tremendous costs to immigrants, their families, and their communities. In the past year, new deportation guidelines enacted by the Biden administration allow for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to evaluate immigrants’ deportability on the basis on their criminal history, community contributions, and social embeddedness. The discretion with which ICE officers can determine who to deport based on immigrants’ characteristics makes it critical to understand how perceptions of immigrants’ deportability and deservingness of legalization are constructed in the United States. This study will use a single-profile conjoint survey experiment to understand how the characteristics of undocumented immigrants play independent and intersecting roles in shaping public perceptions of their deportability or deservingness of legalization. My study will disentangle sources of prejudice towards immigrants and uncover hierarchies of exclusion and inclusion in the United States through understanding how public biases surrounding immigrants’ sociodemographic characteristics (race, gender), perceived moral worth (reason for migration, civic activity, criminal history and age at migration), and social embeddedness (family presence in the United States, work status, English proficiency) shape opinion surrounding their deportation and legalization.