DACA's Association With Birth Outcomes Among Mexican-Origin Mothers in the United States

Abstract

The 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program granted work authorization and protection from deportation to more than 800,000 young undocumented immigrants who arrived to the United States as minors. We estimate the association between this expansion of legal rights and birth outcomes among 72,613 singleton births to high school–educated Mexican immigrant women in the United States from June 2010 to May 2014, using birth records data from the National Center for Health Statistics. Exploiting the arbitrariness of the upper age cutoff for DACA eligibility and using a difference-in-differences design, we find that DACA was associated with improvements in the rates of low birth weight and very low birth weight, birth weight in grams, and gestational age among Mexican immigrant mothers.

Structural interventions that affect racial inequities and their impact on population health outcomes: a systematic review

“…Two studies of minimum-wage levels and one study of EITC expansion (36, 37, 40) found positive effects of increased minimum wage on health inequities, supporting unconditional cash transfers that can impact daily living. Similarly, two studies of DACA found reduced inequities (47,51), possibly because the opportunities granted by DACA affect many areas of life.…”

“…Eight studies evaluated the effect of immigration-related policies on Hispanic/Latinx populations in the USA (Table 1). Six studies evaluated the effects of anti-immigration on health or other health outcomes (42,(48)(49)(50)58), and two studies evaluated the effect of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy (47,51). In alignment with the WHO CSDH framework (28), each of these policies affect governance and in uence one's socioeconomic position based on race and/or ethnicity (Fig.…”

“…Two studies evaluated the health effects of DACA (47,51), a program that protected young immigrants who were brought to the USA as children from deportation (65). Hamilton et al found signi cant improvements in birth outcomes for infants born to DACA-eligible mothers (47).…”

“…Two studies evaluated the health effects of DACA (47,51), a program that protected young immigrants who were brought to the USA as children from deportation (65). Hamilton et al found signi cant improvements in birth outcomes for infants born to DACA-eligible mothers (47). Venkataramani et al found that implementation of DACA was associated with signi cant reductions in psychological distress for those who were eligible for the program (51).…”

Dreaming of Leaving the Nest? Immigration Status and the Living Arrangements of Dacamented

“…At the same time, Kuka et al (2020) find that DACA significantly increased high school attendance and high school graduation rates. There is also increasing evidence that DACA improved mental health (Venkataramani et al, 2017;Giuntella and Lonsky, 2020;Hainmueller et al, 2017;Patler et al, 2019;Giuntella et al, 2021) and birth outcomes (Hamilton et al, 2021), reduced teenage fertility (Kuka et al, 2019), and crime (Gunadi, 2020).…”