Refugee Status,Settlement Assistance,and the Educational Integration of Migrants’ Children in the United States

Abstract

Initial relations between the host society and migrants are likely to influence whether and to what degree migrants receive tangible and intangible settlement support that might affect their children's educational integration. As part of the 1980 Refugee Act, the United States officially began to provide settlement support to one group of migrants - refugees, thus institutionalizing more favorable host-society relations for refugees compared to non-refugee migrants. This article assesses the general idea that post-1980 US refugees will show higher levels of integration than non-refugees by testing the specific hypothesis that refugees’ foreign-born children will attain (by adulthood) higher levels of educational attainment than their non-refugee counterparts. As expected, we find that more schooling is completed among refugees’ children than among non-refugees’ children, all else being equal. We also observe that the level of governmental support at arrival is positively associated with educational attainment among refugees’ children. As expected, schooling differentials also drop in accordance with arrival-period declines in support due to drops in refugee children's schooling. The results highlight the pivotal roles that initial host-society/migrant relations play in fostering refugee integration and underscore the potential societal benefits from adopting and maintaining settlement policies for migrants.

Keywords

immigrant integration contexts of reception educational attainment refugees resettlement assistance

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bean

F. D.

Leach

M. A.

Brown

S. K.

Bachmeier

J. D.

Hipp

J. R.

. 2011. “The Educational Legacy of Unauthorized Migration: Comparisons Across U.S.-Immigrant Groups in how Parents’ Status Affects Their Children.” International Migration Review 45(2): 348–85. doi:10.1111/j.1747-7379.2011.00851.x.

Beck

Corak

Tienda

. 2012. “Age at Immigration and the Adult Attainments of Child Migrants to the United States.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 643(1): 134–59. doi:10.1177/0002716212442665.

Bloemraad

2006. Becoming A Citizen: Incorporating Immigrants and Refugees in the United States and Canada. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Breen

Muller

. 2020. Educational and Integration Social Mobility in Europe and the United States. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Brown

S. K.

Bean

F. D.

. 2006. “Assimilation Models, Old and New: Explaining A Long-Term Process.” Migration Information Source, 3–41. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/assimilation-models-old-and-new-explaining-long-term-process.

Brown

Scribner

. 2014. “Unfulfilled Promises, Future Possibilities: The Refugee Resettlement System in the United States.” Journal on Migration and Human Security 2(2): 101–20. doi:10.1177/233150241400200203.

Bruno

2011. U.S. Refugee Resettlement Assistance. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service.

Bruno

2016. Refugee Admissions and Resettlement Policy. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service.

Capps

Newland

Fratzke

Groves

Auclair

Fix

McHugh

. 2015. The Integration Outcomes of U.S. Refugees. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.

10.

Esbenshade

2011. “Discrimination, DNA Testing, and Dispossession: Consequences of U.S. Policy for African Refugees.” Souls 13(2): 175–96. doi:10.1080/10999949.2011.574571.

11.

Evans

Fitzgerald

. 2017. The Economic and Social Outcomes of Refugees in the United States: Evidence From the ACS. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.

12.

Fee

2019. “Paper Integration: The Structural Constraints and Consequences of the US Refugee Resettlement Program.” Migration Studies 7(4): 477–95. doi:10.1093/migration/mny016.

13.

Feliciano

Rumbaut

R. G.

. 2005. “Gendered Paths: Educational and Occupational Expectations and Outcomes Among Adult Children of Immigrants.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 28(6): 1087–118. doi:10.1080/01419870500224406.

14.

Fitzgerald

Arar

. 2018. “The Sociology of Refugee Migration.” Annual Review of Sociology 44: 387–406. doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-073117-041204.

15.

Fix

Hooper

Zong

. 2017. How are Refugees Faring? Integration at U.S. and State Levels. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.

16.

Fussell

2014. “Warmth of the Welcome: Attitudes Toward Immigrants and Immigration Policy in the United States.” Annual Review of Sociology 40: 479–98. doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-071913-043325.

17.

GAO . 1990. US Governmental Accountability Office. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-11-369.

18.

GAO (US Governmental Accountability Office).

1990. “Refugee Resettlement: Federal Support to the States has Declined.” Report to the Honorable Peter Wilson, US Senate, GAO/HRD-91–51. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-11-369.

19.

GAO (US Governmental Accountability Office).

2011. “Refugee Assistance: Little is Known About the Effectiveness of Different Approaches for Improving Refugees’ Employment Outcomes.” Report to Congressional Committees, GAO-11–369. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-11-369.

20.

Haas

H. D.

Castles

Miller

. 2020. The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World. 6th ed. New York: The Guilford Press.

21.

Haines

D. H.

2007. “Refugees.” In The New Americans: A Guide to Immigration Since 1965, edited by Waters

M. C.

Ueda

, 56–69. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

22.

Higham

1955. Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860–1925. New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press.

23.

Hirschman

Kasinitz

DeWind

. 1999. The Handbook of International Migration: The American Experience. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

24.

Hooper

Zong

Capps

Fix

. 2016. Young Children of Refugees in the United States: Integration Successes and Challenges. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.

25.

INS (US Immigration and Naturalization Service). 1980–1995. Statistical Yearbook of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.

26.

Jiménez

T. R.

2011. Immigration in the United States: How Well Are They Integrating Into Society. Washington, DC: The Migration Policy Institute.

27.

Jiménez

T. R.

2017. The Other Side of Assimilation: How Immigrants are Changing American Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

28.

Kotzur

P. F.

Tropp

L. R.

Wagner

. 2018. “Welcoming the Unwelcome: How Contact Shapes Contexts of Reception for New Immigrants in Germany and the United States.” Journal of Social Issues 74(4): 812–32. doi:10.1111/josi.12300.

29.

Kyriakides

McLuhan

Anderson

Bajjali

. 2019. “Status Eligibilities: The Eligibility to Exist and Authority to Act in Refugee–Host Relations.” Social Forces 1(23): 1–22. doi:10.1093/sf/soy109.

30.

Lee

S. M.

Edmonston

. 2011. “Age-at-Arrival's Effects on Asian Immigrants’ Socioeconomic Outcomes in Canada and the U.S.” International Migration Review 45(3): 527–61. doi:10.1111/j.1747-7379.2011.00857.x.

31.

Lennox

1993. “Refugee, Racism, and Reparations: A Critique of the United States’ Haitian Immigration Policy.” Stanford Law Review 45(3): 687–724. doi:10.2307/1229010.

32.

Leszczensky

Pink

. 2019. “What Drives Ethnic Homophily? A Relational Approach on How Ethnic Identification Moderates Preferences for Same-Ethnic Friends.” American Sociological Review 84(3): 394–419. doi:10.1177/0003122419846849.

33.

Martin

S. F.

2011. A Nation of Immigrants. New York: Cambridge University Press.

34.

Menjívar

2006. “Liminal Legality: Salvadoran and Guatemalan Immigrants’ Lives in the United States.” American Journal of Sociology 111(4): 999–1037. doi:10.1086/499509.

35.

Motomura

2006. Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.

36.

Motomura

2020. “The New Migration Law: Migrants, Refugees, and Citizens in an Anxious Age.” Cornell Law Review 105: 457–548.

37.

Motomura

2021. “Afterword: Immigrant Integration and the Law.” In Immigrant California: Understanding the Past, Present, and Future of U.S. Policy, edited by Fitzgerald

D. S.

Skrentny

J. D.

, 207–22. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

38.

Myers

Gao

Emeka

. 2009. “The Gradient of Immigrant Age-at-Arrival Effects on Socioeconomic Outcomes in the U.S.” International Migration Review 43(1): 205–29. doi:10.1111/j.1747-7379.2008.01153.x.

39.

Ngai

M. M.

2021. The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company.

40.

ORR (US Office of Refugee Resettlement). 1980–1995. Annual Report to Congress. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.

41.

Poros

2010. Modern Migrations: Gujarati Indian Networks in New York and London. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

42.

Portes

MacLeod

. 1999. “Educating the Second Generation: Determinants of Academic Achievement among Children of Immigrants in the United States.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 25(3): 373–96. doi:10.1080/1369183X.1999.9976693.

43.

Portes

Rumbaut

R. G.

. 2001. Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation. Berkeley: University of California Press.

44.

Portes

Rumbaut

R. G.

. 2014. Immigrant America: A Portrait. 4th edition. Berkeley: University of California Press.

45.

Reitz

J. G.

2003. Host Societies and the Reception of Immigrants. San Diego: UC Center for Comparative Immigration Studies.

46.

Rhemtulla

Brosseau-Liard

PÉ

Savalei

. 2012. “When Can Categorical Variables Be Treated as Continuous? A Comparison of Robust Continuous and Categorical SEM Estimation Methods Under Suboptimal Conditions.” Psychological Methods 17(3): 354–73. doi:10.1037/a0029315.

47.

Ruggles

Flood

Goeken

Grover

Meyer

Pacas

Sobek

. 2020. IPUMS USA: Version 10.0: American Community Survey. Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS.

48.

Sana

2020. “Public Opinion on Refugee Policy in the United States, 1938–2019: Increasing Support for Refugees and the Sympathy Effect.” International Migration Review 55(2): 574–604. doi:10.1177/0197918320954129.

49.

Snyder

T. D.

1993. 120 Years of American Education: A Statistical Portrait. Washington, DC: US Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, National Center for Education Statistics.

50.

Tichenor

D. J.

2002. Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

51.

Tran

V. C.

Lara-García

. 2020. “A New Beginning: Early Refugee Integration in the United States.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 6(3): 117–49. doi:10.7758/RSF.2020.6.3.06.

52.

Tropp

L. R.

Okamoto

D. G.

Marrow

H. B.

Jones-Correa

. 2018. “How Contact Experiences Shape Welcoming: Perspectives From US-Born and Immigrant Groups.” Social Psychology Quarterly 81(1): 23–47. doi:10.1177/0190272517747265.

53.

US Commission on Immigration Reform. 1997. Becoming an American: U.S. Immigration and Immigrant Policy. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.

54.

US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. 2010. Abandoned Upon Arrival: Implications for Refugees and Local Communities Burdened by A US Resettlement System That is not Working. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.

55.

Waters

M. C.

Pineau

M. G.

. 2015. The Integration of Immigrants Into American Society (Panel on the Integration of Immigrants Into American Society). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

56.

Weiner

1997. “Bad Neighbors, Bad Neighborhoods: An Inquiry Into the Cases of Refugee Flows, 1969–1992.” In Migrants, Refugees, and Foreign Policy, edited by Munz

Weiner

, 183–230. Oxford: Berghahn Books.

57.

Zolberg

A. R.

1988. “The Root of American Refugee Policy.” Social Research 55(4): 649–78.

58.

Zolberg

A. R.

2006. A Nation by Design: Immigration Policy in the Fashioning of America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.05 MB