State Immigration Enforcement Policies and Infant Health

Kate W. Strully, University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY)
Robert Bozick, RAND Corporation
Ying Huang, University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY)

In the absence of comprehensive federal directives regulating immigration enforcement, states have become the central arenas for the construction and enforcement of immigration laws. As many state immigration laws are relatively new, their consequences for the health and wellbeing of undocumented immigrants and their children are poorly understood. Using a quasi-experimental research design and 2000-2011 U.S. birth certificate data, this project investigates how two centerpieces of state immigration policy—E-Verify mandates and driver’s license restrictions—impact maternal and infant health as measured through infants’ birth weights. We first test whether the enactments of these policies in a given state negatively impact the birth weights of babies born to Mexican immigrant mothers. We then test whether associations between these policies and the birth weights of babies born to Mexican immigrant mothers are moderated by the size of the Mexican immigrant population in the counties where mothers reside.