A new report summarizes the findings of immigration research funded by the Russell Sage Foundation and conducted by a team of scholars at the University of California, Irvine over the course of eighteen months.

Between January 2014 and September 2015, Susan Coutin and colleagues investigated the uncertainties surrounding two immigration-related “Executive Relief” programs, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA). While DACA and DAPA would have allowed qualifying noncitizens to avoid deportation and receive federal work authorization starting in 2015, legal challenges prevented them from taking effect, leaving eligible undocumented immigrants in legal limbo.

Drawing from 16 in-depth interviews with staff of 10 different immigrant serving organizations and 47 interviews with noncitizens in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas, the authors captured the on-the-ground challenges facing noncitizens and community based organizations as the scope and availability of DACA and DAPA were debated. Their report explores the hardships and barriers to incorporation imposed by ambiguous legal status, the challenges faced by organizations mediating between their constituents and the state in periods of legal uncertainty, and the ways that uncertainty has reshaped the social, political and legal environment in which immigrant-serving organizations and their constituents interact.

Click here to download the report in full.