Making noncitizens' rights real: Evidence from immigration scam complaints

• Published date: 01 January 2022
• Author: Juan Manuel Pedroza
• Date: 01 January 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lapo.12180

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Making noncitizens’rights real: Evidence from

immigration scam complaints

Juan Manuel Pedroza

Sociology Department, Rachel Carson

College, University of California, Santa Cruz,

Santa Cruz, California, USA

Correspondence

Juan Manuel Pedroza, Sociology Department,

Rachel Carson College, University of

California, Santa Cruz, Room 305, 1156 High

St, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.

Email: j.pedroza@ucsc.edu

Funding information

Immigration Policy Lab, Stanford University;

Institute for Research on Poverty (The JPB

Foundation); Stanford University’s Center for

Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity;

Ford Foundation

Abstract

Noncitizens seeking to make sense of US immigration

systems encounter a labyrinth of information and

deception. This paper is the first national study of

scams targeting noncitizens seeking immigration legal

services. I construct a county-year database (N=3135

over a four-year time period, 2011–2014) across sec-

ondary data sources to analyze the correlates of immi-

gration scam complaints submitted to the Federal

Trade Commission (FTC). I find that welcoming

counties have more immigration scam complaints,

while counties with exclusionary contexts tend to have

fewer complaints. The results do not suggest that scams

are more prevalent in welcoming contexts, because the

actual number of scams is unknown. Instead, we can

conclude that noncitizens tend to come forward to

report immigration scams in welcoming contexts of

reception, even after accounting for exclusionary poli-

cies. A robust safety net proved the most reliable pre-

dictor of immigration scams reported to the FTC. The

concentration of immigration attorneys, legal aid ser-

vices, and language access was also positively associ-

ated with the number of FTC scam reports. Taken

together, these results suggest that immigrant-serving

capacity and access to key services support noncitizens

who report immigration scams, while hostility toward

immigrants may deter them from exercising those same

rights.

1|INTRODUCTION

As localities have increasingly addressed immigration-related challenges via a patchwork of policies

(Varsanyi et al., 2012; Walker & Leitner, 2011), local contexts throughout the United States have

DOI: 10.1111/lapo.12180

©2022 University of Denver and Wiley Periodicals LLC.

44 Law & Policy. 2022;44:44–69.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/lapo

implemented initiatives that are either more welcoming toward immigrants or less so (García, 2019;

Prieto, 2018; Steil & Vasi, 2014; Valdivia, 2019). Past research has documented the role that local

contexts of reception—whether welcoming or not—can have on immigrant reports of employment-

related crime and discrimination (Fussell, 2011; Gleeson, 2009, 2015) and domestic violence

(Amuedo-Dorantes & Arenas-Arroyo, 2021; Muchow & Amuedo-Dorantes, 2020). In this study, I

investigate where noncitizens

i

are willing to denounce immigration scams by examining all county

contexts across the United States. When noncitizens make claims to justice by reporting immigra-

tion scams, are immigration scams reported to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) positively

associated with welcoming contexts of reception, even after accounting for immigration

restrictionism?

To answer this question, I focus on immigration scam reports submitted to the FTC. To be

clear, no data capture the actual number of scams. Absent such a prevalence measure, I exam-

ine where noncitizens willingly denounce scams. I am interested in whether restrictionism offsets

an expected positive association between FTC scam reports and welcoming contexts of recep-

tion. On the welcoming end of the spectrum, noncitizens’claims to justice should coincide with

local webs of support—namely meaningful access to the publicly funded safety net as well as

access to justice facilitated by social helpers. By contrast, scam reports should be less common

in restrictionist counties (i.e., counties with high deportation rates under the Secure Communi-

ties immigration enforcement program and counties in states with policies criminalizing

immigrants).

Contributing to existing research on the relationship between contextual factors and where

vulnerable groups denounce under-reported crimes (Gleeson, 2015; McVeigh et al., 2003), I find

that reports of immigration scams are more common in welcoming contexts. In addition , mea-

sures of welcoming contexts remain reliable predictors of scam reporting to the FTC, net of

restrictionism and other factors. Counties that deliver safety net services to poor Hispanics

ii

most consistently account for the difference between (a) higher-than-expected reports of

immigration scams in more welcoming counties and (b) the scant reporting of such crimes in

otherwise comparable but less welcoming counties. The positive relationship between the safety

net and FTC scam reports remains consistent across a series of regression models (both

cross-sectional and fixed effects) and robustness checks.

I also discuss the implications of these results for research on immigrant rights-claiming and

civic inequality (Bloemraad, 2018; Bloemraad et al., 2020; Leitner & Strunk, 2014a, 2014b).

With respect to the question of where noncitizens make claims to justice, welcoming contexts of

reception provide clues as to where immigrants choose to exercise their rights. Denouncing

scams amounts to civic action and reveals where noncitizens have spoken up to “stretch the

boundaries of liberal democratic citizenship”by enacting a form of insurgent citizenship

(Leitner & Strunk, 2014b, p. 354). Far from being evenly distributed across the country, these

actions are most common wherever welcoming webs of support abound. For instance, when

street-level bureaucrats deliver safety net services, they reach immigrant communities

(Marrow, 2009), and such access to mainstream institutions may translate into knowledge

about and trust in public institutions (Cook, 2001) like the FTC. Given the mismatch between

the current location of the nation’s noncitizen population and the uneven concentration of wel-

coming organizations (de Graauw et al., 2013)—as well as experienced lawyers (Sandefur,

2008; Sandefur & Smyth, 2011) and efforts to reduce language barriers in law enforcement con-

texts (Williams, 2015)—the publicly funded safety net may represent the lone reliable source of

support for immigrants living outside established immigrant destinations. Absent these webs of

support, we observe fewer people willing to file reports with the FTC. When noncitizens seek

protections as consumers in welcoming contexts, doing so can help bring people into the fold of

mainstream institutions. Currently, if noncitizens’rights hinge on where they live, then uneven

contexts of reception could create relative winners and losers among noncitizens and exacerbate

civic inequality.

PEDROZA 45