This analysis seeks to establish the key causal determinants of four psycho-social outcomes of children of immigrants — educational aspirations, educational expectations, perceptions of discrimination, and national self-identity — through first-differencing fixed-effects models. Using longitudinal data from the Spanish ILSEG study, we find that both increased identification with the host country and reported experiences of discrimination in it significantly increase educational ambition over time. Reduced experiences of discrimination facilitate increased identification with the host society, while such identification leads to less perceived hostility. Birthplace proves to be the strongest predictor of national self-identity.

This paper explores the link between legal status and transnational engagement through the lenses of territorial confinement and blocked transnationalism. We hypothesize that irregular legal status results both in direct territorial confinement–inability to visit the homeland–in indirect caging of remitting, an important non-mobile transnational activity. This caging is hypothesized to result from an attenuation of social ties associated with reduced physical co-presence with kin and other important individuals in the homeland. Using longitudinal data on Senegalese migrants in France, Italy, and Spain from the MAFE Project, we find that Senegalese migrants who lack of secure legal status are effectively confined to the destination territory, preventing them from making short visits to the homeland. The direct and indirect relationships between irregular status and remittances, though, vary by destination country: the hypothesized relationships are not evident for migrants in Spain, indicating the role played by other facets of the context of reception, such as policy tolerance and the characteristics of the co-ethnic community.

Policymakers are understandably concerned about the integration of migrants into labor markets. This article draws on retrospective data from the MAFE-Senegal (Migration between Africa and Europe) survey to show that the effect of legal status on Senegalese migrants’ labor market participation in France, Italy, and Spain differs for men and women because of gendered immigration policies. We find that there is little association between Senegalese men’s legal status and their labor force participation. For Senegalese women, however, those who legally migrate to these countries for family reunification are more likely to be economically inactive upon arrival than women with other legal statuses. Family reunification does not preclude labor market participation entirely, however, as some of these women eventually transition into economic activity.

This study examines how immigration policies construct pathways into irregular legal statuses and models three pathways: no-visa entry, overstaying, and befallen irregularity. Drawing on literature on the sociolegal production of migrant irregularity, this study hypothesizes that variation in contexts of reception and migrants’ access to forms of capital and institutional connections will produce different pathways. Retrospective MAFE-Senegal data provide legal status histories. Results show pathways that occur early in a migrant’s trip-no-visa entry and overstaying-are more sensitive to both contextual variables and access to forms of capital. In contrast, befallen irregularity is less related to contextual variation.

I present the main findings of my dissertation during my acceptance of the 2015 Maria Baganha Dissertation Award.