Making Noncitizens’ Rights Real: Evidence from Immigration Scam Complaints

Abstract

Noncitizens seeking to make sense of U.S. immigration systems encounter a labyrinth of information and deception. This paper is the first national study of scams targeting noncitizens seeking immigration legal services. Although the universe of all scams remains unknown, we can examine whether FTC scam reports more common in welcoming counties, even after accounting for restrictionist immigration contexts. I construct a county-year database (N = 3,135 over a four-year time period, 2011-2014) across secondary data sources to analyze the correlates of immigration scam complaints submitted to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The data capture instances where individuals were willing to report scams. Results indicate welcoming contexts of reception are over-represented among counties where individuals willingly reported scams. I also find fewer-than-expected reports are filed where immigration restrictionist policies are most common, but restrictionism does not offset the role of welcoming contexts. A robust safety net proved the most reliable predictor of immigration scams reported to the FTC. Immigration attorneys, legal aid services, and language access were also positively associated with the number of FTC scam reports. In this national study, welcoming contexts of reception are also more closely related to the number of immigration scam reports than immigration restrictionism.