Settlement Duration Matters: Deportation Threat and Safety Net Participation Among Mixed-Status Families

Studies link intensified immigration enforcement to reduced safety net participation among mixed-status families, but less is known about how this varies by settlement duration. Bridging research on immigrant settlement and system avoidance, we theorize that the impacts are strongest among immigrants with shorter US residency. To test this, we analyze whether exposure to deportation threat, measured as removals under Secure Communities per one thousand noncitizens, is associated with safety net use among citizen children of likely undocumented Latinas in California, using a two-way fixed effects regression. We find that increased removal rates are negatively related to the child's participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children; Medicaid; and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families among mothers with less than five years of residency, but not among those with longer durations, relative to US-born mothers. These findings suggest that deportation threat may be especially burdensome for recent arrivals.