Academic and Public Writing

"The aim of this study was to examine the impact of legal status on the emotional well-being of 37 undocumented Latinx college students living in two states where in-state tuition and financial aid are not afforded to undocumented college students. Our work showed that for undocumented students academic perseverance did not always translate into emotional resilience. This underscores how legal violence and ineligibility for personhood increase the risk for poor mental health in undocumented students during what Arnett (2007) called the age of possibilities."

"This study used semi-structured interviews to examine daily stressors and coping resources as experienced by 21 racially and/or ethnically diverse, undocumented college students residing in Massachusetts (USA). A legal violence framework and stress process theory were used to analyze the stress and coping experiences of undocumented college students. The findings reveal
the presence of financial burdens, fears of deportation, blocked opportunities, and legal status concealment as daily stressors, as well as needed peer and informational supports as coping resources for undocumented students. Furthermore, for undocumented students, fear of deportation and stigma hindered their ability to identify and capitalize on needed peer and institutional support. The authors argue that not recognizing the structural and symbolic ways that immigration laws serve as legitimizing sources for afflicting social, psychological, material
harm places students with precarious legal status at risk for poor mental health. This chapter concludes by offering practice implications to help improve the ability of institutional agents within higher education to meet the needs of undocumented college students."

"In this week’s blog MSW candidate, Olivia Schleyer joins Dr. Alessandra Bazo Vienrich, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rhode Island College, to discuss how Massachusetts’ systematic legal violence and educational exclusion is detrimental to the mental health of undocumented students. By reflecting on how the state’s immigration enforcement and higher education tuition policies create chronic stressors for undocumented students, Schleyer and Dr. Bazo Vienrich emphasize the importance of place as a factor that can impact the educational trajectories of these youth. They argue that a more robust literature on the intersection of place, mental health, higher education, and legal status could help create place-based mechanisms that safe-guard the mental health of undocumented students."

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Introduction by: Lisa Lopez-Escobar and Sophia Rodriguez, University of Maryland, College Park

"What I find in my research is that incorporating flexible practices can give participants the opportunity to bring their struggles and temporal realities to the interview. In this way, the interview has the potential to benefit participants by allowing them to safely talk about things that they may not have opportunities to discuss in other spaces. This approach can also be successful in yielding rich data that, instead of avoiding subjectivities, acknowledges their presence. The undocumented researcher methodology I outline in this article shows the unique opportunities for undocumented researchers to embrace the so-called subjectivities and sources of bias that sharing an identity with participants introduces into the research space, while fostering a rigorous research process that places humanity and compassion at the center of the study."

"As a college professor, immigration scholar, and former DACA recipient, I have dedicated my professional career to interrogating the lived experiences of undocumented youth and young adults in educational institutions.

Throughout the years, my research has taken me into their lives as I listened to their reflections on the intersecting and complex impacts of DACA on their lives. For many, the simple reality that they could exist without fear of being “found out” was in itself humanizing."

"We conclude that a shared group identity between non-immigrant Hispanics and immigrants results in the highest levels of opposition to a closed border. In addition, there is no group pressure to mask underlying restrictionist sentiment. It is evident from the results that Hispanics do not mask their views on immigration. The absence of social desirability bias is unique to Hispanics as Whites and Blacks both show significant underreporting of

opposition to a closed border. We suggest future work to assess the nature of the relationship between the social identity of Hispanics and the development of this ethnic identity. This work would consider (1) Hispanics’ perception of how others associate Hispanic identity and immigration, (2) the extent to which this association is considered a threat and (3) how Hispanic ethnicity becomes a central identity in the development of social identity."

"Does Donald Trump actually believe half the things he says in public?  One can’t help but feel that you’re being suckered into the Trump media spectacle by analyzing his statements as if they are intended as serious policy.  Nevertheless, it’s hard to avoid commenting on his proposal to “bring back” Operation Wetback; the infamous mass deportation program carried out under the Eisenhower administration; and one that is known for violating human rights."

"Recently, higher education has seen both sides of a very ugly coin. In 2019, the Varsity Blues admissions scandal, in which 33 parents of college applicants paid over $25 million to inflate test scores and bribe officials for their children to gain admission to 11 elite colleges and universities, was exposed. Meanwhile, these same institutions are becoming too expensive for first-generation and low-income students. In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled race-based affirmative action in college admissions unconstitutional. These cases help to contextualize what emerged on September 9th when The Brown and White, Lehigh University’s newspaper, reported that four international students from Ghana were charged with submitting fraudulent high school transcripts when they applied to Lehigh in 2021 and 2022. While the Department of State has corroborated the discrepancies in the transcripts, questions about why Lehigh officials reported the students to law enforcement and the nature of the evidence remain unanswered."