Race, Immigration & School Safety

Primary Investigators

Anthony Peguero, Arizona State University

Yasmiyn Irizarry, The University of Texas at Austin

Research Team: Paula Lezama, Nikita Rupani, and Michael Reid (UT Austin); Angelica Lopez (ASU).

In this project, we examine the effects of state-level population policies both on school-level safety and educational outcomes and on student-level perceptions of school-level safety and educational outcomes. Healthy and safe schools are likely crucial for academic progress, success, and attainment. As the United States becomes more demographically diverse, it becomes more critical to understand how states' approaches to population may affect school safety and education, and students' perceptions of school safety and education. This research will draw from multiple nationally representative datasets, including the School Survey on Crime and Safety, the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009, and Common Core Data, as well as data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

This study is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 2214370. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Introducing the State Immigration Legislation Data Archive (SILDA)

The State Immigration Legislation Data Archive (SILDA) is a comprehensive, systematically coded resource cataloging every state immigration law enacted in the United States between 2008 and 2017. SILDA includes approximately 3,000 laws from all 50 states, each coded across 80 distinct variables. These variables capture legislative metadata (such as year, state, chamber, and bill type), political and procedural context (including party affiliation, sponsors, voting data, and committee involvement), and substantive content (such as main topics, targeted populations, and provisions related to civil rights, fines, or incarceration). The coding framework also assesses legislative sentiment, civil rights implications, and the specific populations affected.

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