Immigration Policy and Immigrant Families

Jennifer Van Hook, Ph.D., is Director of the Population Research Institute and Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Demography at Penn State. Her research focuses on the demographics of immigrant populations and the socioeconomic integration of immigrants and their children. She has published research on the size, characteristics, and dynamics of the unauthorized foreign-born population. She also has ongoing research projects that focus on the relationship between immigrant legal status and the health and well-being of immigrants and their children.Valarie King, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Demography, and Human Development and Family Studies and an Emeritus Associate of the Population Research Institute at Penn State. Her research focuses on intergenerational relationships across the life course and their implications for the health, well-being, and development of family members. Dr. King’s most recent work focuses on elucidating the factors that promote the development of strong ties between children and their stepfathers, and the ways in which stepfathers can promote children’s well-being.

• Part 1 How Immigration Policy Enforcement Shapes Families.- Chapter 1 Family Reunification and Separation: How U.S. Immigration Policy Shapes Family Structures.- Chapter 2 Adding Return Migration to the Equation: U.S. Immigration Policy and Migrant Families in Mexico.- Chapter 3 (Re)building Families: Undocumented Young Adults Contest Legal Violence.- Part 2 Exclusion in Immigrant Family Building.- Chapter 4 The Impact of U.S. Immigration Policy on Parenting.- Chapter 5 Parenthood Matters: Institutional Surveillance of U.S. Latinos by Citizenship and Parental Status.- Chapter 6 Motherhood, Legal Status, and COVID-19: How Immigration Policies Shaped the Pandemic Experiences of Latina Immigrant Mothers.- Part 3 Longer-Run Impact of Immigration Policy on Immigrant Families.- Chapter 7 Immigration Policy Vacuum: Health and Well-being of DACA-Eligible Immigrants and their Children.- Chapter 8 Well-being in Chinese Immigrant Families: Aging in a Foreign Land.- Chapter 9 Generational precarity ripples: Legal status, economic mobility, and well-being within and across generations.- Part 4 Conclusions and Future Directions.- Chapter 10 Impact of Immigration Policy on Immigrant Families: Current Research and Future Directions.