The Effect of Immigration Enforcement on School Engagement - Evidence From 287(g) Programs in North Carolina

Oct 15, 2026

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Examines how immigration enforcement affects school engagement in North Carolina through 287(g) programs, which are partnerships between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local law enforcement. Using a triple-difference quasi-experimental strategy comparing student educational outcomes across counties before and after program activation (2003/2004–2012/2013), the study links these programs to reduced school engagement. Effects operate mainly through increased attendance-related outcomes, especially chronic absenteeism.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Background on 287(g) Programs

Immigration enforcement partnerships and program authority

The Effect on School Engagement

Triple-difference strategy and identification approach

Attendance and chronic absenteeism mechanisms

Findings and Implications

AERA Open January-December 2021, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 1–20 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584211039467 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2021. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) The Effect of Immigration Enforcement on School Engagement: Evidence From 287(g) Programs in North Carolina Laura Bellows University of Virginia During the past 15 years, immigration enforcement increased dramatically in the U.S. interior. There is a growing recognition that immigration enforcement in the U.S. interior has spillover effects onto U.S. citizens. I examine the impacts of a type of partnership between Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local law enforcement, 287(g) programs, on school engagement within North Carolina. In North Carolina, nine counties were approved to establish 287(g) programs, and another 15 applied but were not approved to participate. I use a triple difference strategy in which I compare educational outcomes for different groups of students in these two sets of counties before and after activation of 287(g) programs between 2003/2004 and 2012/2013. Ifind that 287(g) programs decrease school engagement by decreasing attendance. This effect appears to be driven by increases in chronic absenteeism (missing 15 or more days per year). Keywords: immigration enforcement, absenteeism, quasi-experimental analysis During the past 15 years, partnerships between local law enforcement and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) expanded the reach of immigration enforcement into the U.S. interior (Capps et al., 2018) . The best known of these partnerships between ICE and local law enforcement, 287(g) programs, give authority to local law enforcement to act as immigration enforcement agents. When asked about their experiences with 287(g) programs, immigrants express high awareness of these programs, describing increases in contact with local law enforcement following program activation (Nguyen & Gill, 2015) . In response, unauthorized immigrants, and immigrant communities more generally, may reduce their contact with public institutions to avoid exposing themselves, their friends, or their family members to detection by immigration enforcement. In deterring families from accessing public services to which they are entitled, immigration enforcement represents a form of administrative burden (Heinrich, 2018) . Although prior work finds that immigration enforcement decreases affected families’ engagement with social services and other public institutions (Alsan & Yang, 2018; Hagan et al., 2010; Vargas, 2015; Vargas & Pirog, 2016; Watson, 2014), less work has examined the effects of immigration enforcement on youth engagement with public institutions. Most youth have substantial contact with public institutions via public schools; one measure of their engagement with schools is attendance. Beyond its usefulness as a measure of short-term engagement, school attendance affects other student outcomes. Each day of increased absence per year is associated with lower achievement (Gershenson et al., 2017; Gershenson et al., 2019) . Chronic absenteeism, defined by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights as missing 15 or more days per school year, is negatively associated with longer term student outcomes. Students who are chronically absent for multiple years in early elementary school are less likely to read on grade level by third grade (Ehrlich et al., 2018) . Middle school and highschool students with high levels of absenteeism have greatly increased risk of dropping out of high school (Balfanz et al., 2007; Schoeneberger, 2012) . This article adds to the extant literature by examining the effect of immigration enforcement, via the activation of 287(g) programs, on school engagement via student attendance. In North Carolina, nine counties established 287(g)

FAQs

What are 287(g) programs in this article?

The article describes 287(g) programs as Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, authorizing agreements where ICE allows state and local law enforcement to act as immigration enforcement agents, with ICE providing training and capacity support.

How does the study estimate the causal effect of 287(g) programs?

It uses a triple difference strategy that compares educational outcomes for different groups of students in counties that established 287(g) programs versus counties that applied but were denied, before and after activation.

What effect do 287(g) programs have on school engagement?

The study finds that 287(g) programs decrease school engagement by reducing attendance, with the effect driven by increases in chronic absenteeism (missing 15 or more days per year).

Which student group experiences the strongest absenteeism impacts?

The article reports increases in absences and chronic absenteeism for Hispanic students, including those ever classified as limited English proficient (LEP) and those never classified as LEP.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Adam