With the Foundation’s support, political scientists Alex Street and Chris Zepeda-Millán, in collaboration with Michael Jones-Correa, conducted an online survey of more than 1200 second generation Latinos to test whether socialization experiences are shaped by the responses of parents, children, and other political actors to the unique situation of U.S. citizens with undocumented parents. Among other consequences, they explore the effects of knowledge of deportations among second generation Latinos, especially on the evaluations of Democratic and Republican parties.

They “find that when young Latino citizens become aware of the Obama administration’s deportation policies, they view the Democratic Party as significantly less welcoming. Given that partisan attachments formed by young adulthood tend to persist through voters’ lives, this suggests that current deportation policies have the potential to alienate Latino voters from the Democratic Party for decades.”

They discuss their findings in a new blog post for Latino Decisions, including this somewhat surprising finding:

…As reflected in the figure below, we found that overall knowledge of the Obama administration’s deportation policies is limited. Survey participants were asked: “Do you know roughly how many undocumented migrants the Obama administration has deported each year? If you’re not sure, please give us your best guess. Is it less than under President Bush, about the same as President Bush, or more than President Bush?” 39% of those taking part in the survey opted for “Don’t know,” another 26% said “more,” 19% said “the same” and 16% said “less.” The correct response is “more” which indicates that only a quarter of the sample was accurate in their perceptions.

Read their full blog post here. Read their full working paper here. More information about this RSF-funded project can also be found here.