Becoming illegal : modeling rationality and morality of unauthorized migrants
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Why do millions of otherwise law-abiding people violate immigration laws? Past research on legal noncompliance shows that people's views about the law and legal authority are important determinants of their willingness to comply with the law, above and beyond economic considerations. A more comprehensive understanding of unauthorized migration thus requires a serious consideration of normative factors such as people's moral values and beliefs about the legitimacy of legal authority. This dissertation takes up that task through three papers that investigate the ways in which current and prospective unauthorized migrants view the U.S. immigration system and their acts of legal noncompliance. The first paper draws upon a unique set of focus group data with current and prospective unauthorized migrants from Latin America to analyze how they make sense of their noncompliance with U.S. immigration law. The second paper uses data obtained from a survey that was designed specifically for this study, to examine three important dimensions of legal values among prospective migrants from Mexico. The third paper develops and tests a decision-making model of unauthorized migration that considers not only the economic motivations of prospective migrants, but also their beliefs, attitudes, and social norms regarding U.S. immigration law and legal authorities. Together, these papers show that even in the context of unauthorized migration in which individuals are strongly motivated by economic need, the decision to migrate illegally cannot be fully understood without considering an individual's underlying values and norms.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2011 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Ryo, Emily |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Sociology. |
| Primary advisor | Grusky, David B |
| Thesis advisor | Grusky, David B |
| Thesis advisor | Dauber, Michele Landis |
| Thesis advisor | Jiménez, Tomás R. (Tomás Roberto), 1975- |
| Advisor | Dauber, Michele Landis |
| Advisor | Jiménez, Tomás R. (Tomás Roberto), 1975- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Emily Ryo. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Sociology. |
| Thesis | Ph.D. Stanford University 2011 |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2011 by Emily Ryo
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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