Spillover Effects: Immigrant Policing and Government Skepticism in Matters of Health for Latinos

• Date: 01 May 2018
• Author: Alana M. W. LeBrón,Francisco I. Pedraza,Vanessa Cruz Nichols
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12916
• Published date: 01 May 2018

432 Public Administration Review • May | J une 2 018

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 78, Iss. 3, pp. 432–443. © 2018 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12916.

Research Article

Vanessa Cruz Nichols

Indiana University

Alana M. W. LeBrón

University of California, Irvine

Francisco I. Pedraza

University of California, Riverside

Spillover Effects: Immigrant Policing and Government

Skepticism in Matters of Health for Latinos

Abstract: To what extent do people become less trusting of the government under threatening policy contexts?

The authors find evidence that Secure Communities, a bureaucratic program that enhances immigrant policing

through collaboration between local law and immigration enforcement agencies, spurs mistrust among Latinos but

not non-Latinos. This article focuses on the politics of immigration and health, two issue areas marked by large-

scale bureaucratic developments over the last 50 years. The authors argue that a major consequence of expanding

immigrant policing is its trickle-down effect on how individuals view public institutions charged with the provision

of public goods, such as health information. The results indicate that Latinos in locales where immigrant policing is

most intense express lower levels of trust in government as a source of health information. Through a policy feedback

lens, the findings suggest that the state’s deployment of immigrant policing conveys more widespread lessons about the

trustworthiness of government.

Evidence for Practice

• Policy feedback theory suggests that public policy in one domain can impact policy and implementation in

another domain; this has implications for the costs and quality of service and delivery for various facets of

democratic governance.

• Racialized immigrant policing under the Secure Communities program implicates a broader social group

than undocumented Latino immigrants (the policy targets), spilling over to affect U.S.-born and immigrant

Latinos’ perceptions of trust in health information from the government.

• Just as racialized immigrant policing undermines the efficiency of community policing—by corroding

trust in police and deterring the community from reporting information that is critical for solving

crimes—so, too, does the spillover to health issues introduce inefficiencies in health communication by the

government.

• If some immigration enforcement practices convey messages that enhance mistrust of the government and

governmental authorities, then we should consider ways for policy makers and health care professionals to

craft countermessages and practices to ensure that government agencies and health care providers are not

seen as collaborating with immigration enforcement authorities (e.g., deploy public service announcements

tailored for successful outreach by race/ethnicity and nativity, work with actors such as community health

workers who are more trusted by communities to deliver health information and provide assurances regarding

information gathered through intake protocols, application forms, and website information).

• Immigration enforcement policies, and policing practices more broadly, need to be developed and

implemented in ways that do not violate community trust (e.g., through authentic discussion with

community stakeholders, implemented in a fashion that does not go beyond the written policy, and

allowing room for due process) so that social, political, civic, and health care resources remain accessible and

approachable in a democratic society.

• Immigration enforcement deployed in the interior of the country (as with Secure Communities) introduces

uncertainty into the day-to-day lives of Latinos. Currently, news accounts indicate immigrant policing occurs

at places of employment, outside of court buildings, at public schools, in airports, on highway checkpoints,

and at personal homes, practices that undermine the credibility of government as a service provider.

Working more closely with community stakeholders would better inform more humane and cost-efficient

implementations of immigration enforcement.

Francisco I. Pedraza is assistant

professor in the Department of Political

Science and the School of Public Policy

at the University of California, Riverside.

His research centers on political attitude

formation and political behavior, with a

special emphasis on attitudes and behaviors

of racial and ethnic minority groups in the

United States. A Robert Wood Johnson

Foundation Scholar (2012–14), Dr. Pedraza

is co–principal investigator of the 2015

Latino National Health and Immigration

Survey.

E-mail: fpedraza@ucr.edu

Alana M. W. LeBrón is assistant

professor in the Department of Chicano/

Latino Studies and the Department of

Population Health and Disease Prevention

at the University of California, Irvine.

Dr. LeBrón’s research focuses on the

(re)production of social inequalities that

shape inequities in health and opportunities

for intervention to promote health equity,

with a focus on the health of Latina/o

communities. Dr. LeBrón was a co–student

investigator of the 2015 Latino National

Health and Immigration Survey.

E-mail: alebron@uci.edu

Vanessa Cruz Nichols is visiting

assistant professor in the Department of

Political Science and postdoctoral fellow

in the Center for Research on Race and

Ethnicity in Society at Indiana University.

Her research interests focus on identity

politics, political behavior, immigration

policy, and race/ethnicity politics. Dr. Cruz

Nichols is a Ford Fellow and a recipient of

the National Science Foundation’s Doctoral

Dissertation Improvement Grant. She was a

co–student investigator of the 2015 Latino

National Health and Immigration Survey.

E-mail: vcruznic@indiana.edu