A Policy Approach to Overcome Pre-Immigration Barriers to Participation in the Latinx Immigrant Community

Abstract

Policies to encourage socio-political participation of Latinx immigrants in the United States heavily rely on the primacy of assimilation processes resulting from immigrants’ exposure to the American political system alone. However, this approach overlooks the potential layers of complexity fostered by pre-immigration factors and how these interact with immigrants’ experiences in the U.S. We conduct a multinomial logit analysis using data from the 2006 Latino National Survey and emergent research on the impact of pre-immigration experiences to determine what factors can both activate participation and be influenced by institutions and policy makers in the U.S. Though we find that low levels of socio-political participation among Latinx immigrants strongly correlate with low levels of pre-immigration participation, for the outlier cases we analyze what factors contribute to increase participation once in the U.S. Results demonstrate the need for political parties and organizations to increase the long-term investment in young Latinx immigrants.