UCLA

Immigrants’ documentation status has become an important and rampant source of inequity inthe United States. Prior studies show that lacking a lawful documentation status is correlated with negative mental health outcomes, lower socioeconomic status, and a plethora of other unfavorable social conditions. This dissertation offers three distinct, important studies that expand the knowledge base about the extent to which documentation status is associated with a variety of outcomes at different stages of the life course. My first study focuses on children. I examine the extent to which a policy that expanded healthcare access for undocumented children in California impacted the healthcare coverage and annual doctor visits of Latinx children. This chapter uses multiple cross sections of the California Health Interview Survey. I found that this policy reduced the probability of being uninsured and of having unstable healthcare among Latinx children. The second study focuses on middle and older adults and captures an oftenoverlooked aspect about immigrants’ documentation status- the fact that it is a dynamic variable. I found that Latinx immigrants who recently gained their green card experienced quicker declines in their self-reported health regardless of previous exposure to an unauthorized immigration status. The last chapter focuses on the wealth of middle and older adults across their life course to investigate the extent to which immigration status composition in groups can account for racial/ethnic wealth inequality. I found that immigrants’ documentation status holds different explanatory power for wealth gaps depending on the racial ethnic group at hand. I also find that among immigrants in a precarious documentation status, the relationship between age and wealth is weaker. Together, these three studies build upon existing research about immigrant incorporation, race/ethnicity, and immigrant health. I provide three examples of how depending on the independent variable of interest immigrants’ documentation status can be studied from different perspectives and with distinct operationalizations. My dissertation offers an important insight: that both race/ethnicity and documentation status need to be considered in tandem in future sociological studies. Population exposures to an undocumented status whether it is previous or contemporary will leave an important imprint on the experiences of inequality among the Latinx community in the United States.