Fear and the Safety Net: Evidence from Secure Communities

Marcella Alsan () and Crystal S. Yang
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Crystal S. Yang: Harvard Law School and NBER

The Review of Economics and Statistics, 2024, vol. 106, issue 6, 1427-1441

Abstract: We study the effects of Secure Communities, an immigration enforcement program that dramatically increased interior removals of Hispanic noncitizens from the United States, on participation in means-tested social insurance programs among co-ethnic citizens. Exploiting county-level variation in the roll-out of enforcement together with its ethnic specificity, we find that Hispanic-headed citizen households significantly reduced their participation in two large federal safety net programs. Our results are most consistent with network effects that propagate fear through minority communities rather than stigma or lack of benefit information.

Date: 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01250

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Working Paper: Fear and the Safety Net: Evidence from Secure Communities (2018)
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