Research Agenda
My research agenda focuses on the Latinx immigrant experience broadly. I am currently focusing on how Latinx immigrants and their children incorporate politically and how political institutions and the American public react to their attempts to create a place for themselves in the United States.
Book Contract with University of Chicago Press
Information Brokers: Political Socialization in Latinx Immigrant Families
Information Brokers reexamines the dynamics of political socialization among Latinxs in the United States and explores its implications for their political incorporation. While traditional political socialization theories often emphasize the role of parents in shaping their children’s political development, the role of children is frequently overlooked, as they are primarily seen as passive recipients of political lessons from their parents. This book seeks to update this notion, demonstrating that children are not only active participants in their own political socialization but can also significantly influence their parents’ political journey. This argument is particularly relevant for the children of Latinx immigrants, whose parents often rely on them as sources of information for navigating life in the United States. Although the book shows that children can be influential in both immigrant and non-immigrant households, especially when addressing their parents’ needs, the influence of the children of immigrants is especially potent. Many immigrant parents lack resources and knowledge about U.S. customs and norms, factors that traditional theories of socialization take for granted, assuming that most Americans inherently understand the “rules of the game.” This dependency on their children, often born out of necessity, obligates the children of immigrants to provide this missing information, a responsibility not typically expected of U.S.-born children. While under-resourced parents, in general, may rely on their children for help, the impact is not as profound as it is in immigrant families. These hefty obligations also provide the children of immigrants with a pathway to become influential in major household decisions. Information Brokers demonstrates that this child-to-parent influence extends to politics. Specifically, the book shows that when children teach, influence, or advocate on behalf of their immigrant parents, they engage in political behavior that has significant consequences for both the parents and themselves, particularly regarding their involvement in the political process. To substantiate its claims, Information Brokers employs a multi-method empirical strategy, including six original surveys, survey experiments, and qualitative data from time spent with children working to protect their parents from deportation. Ultimately, this work not only advances our understanding of the political socialization process of the largest ethnic minority in the U.S. but also calls for reevaluating the foundational literature regarding under-resourced communities, political learning, political incorporation, and the role of all children in socialization. With the Latinx population at 64 million and rapidly growing, this book provides crucial insights into the political incorporation of this community.
Information Brokers reexamines the dynamics of political socialization among Latinxs in the United States and explores its implications for their political incorporation. While traditional political socialization theories often emphasize the role of parents in shaping their children’s political development, the role of children is frequently overlooked, as they are primarily seen as passive recipients of political lessons from their parents. This book seeks to update this notion, demonstrating that children are not only active participants in their own political socialization but can also significantly influence their parents’ political journey. This argument is particularly relevant for the children of Latinx immigrants, whose parents often rely on them as sources of information for navigating life in the United States. Although the book shows that children can be influential in both immigrant and non-immigrant households, especially when addressing their parents’ needs, the influence of the children of immigrants is especially potent. Many immigrant parents lack resources and knowledge about U.S. customs and norms, factors that traditional theories of socialization take for granted, assuming that most Americans inherently understand the “rules of the game.” This dependency on their children, often born out of necessity, obligates the children of immigrants to provide this missing information, a responsibility not typically expected of U.S.-born children. While under-resourced parents, in general, may rely on their children for help, the impact is not as profound as it is in immigrant families. These hefty obligations also provide the children of immigrants with a pathway to become influential in major household decisions. Information Brokers demonstrates that this child-to-parent influence extends to politics. Specifically, the book shows that when children teach, influence, or advocate on behalf of their immigrant parents, they engage in political behavior that has significant consequences for both the parents and themselves, particularly regarding their involvement in the political process. To substantiate its claims, Information Brokers employs a multi-method empirical strategy, including six original surveys, survey experiments, and qualitative data from time spent with children working to protect their parents from deportation. Ultimately, this work not only advances our understanding of the political socialization process of the largest ethnic minority in the U.S. but also calls for reevaluating the foundational literature regarding under-resourced communities, political learning, political incorporation, and the role of all children in socialization. With the Latinx population at 64 million and rapidly growing, this book provides crucial insights into the political incorporation of this community.
Publications
Blasingame, Elise, Christina L. Boyd, Roberto F. Carlos, and Joe Ornstein. “How the Trump Administration’s Quota Policy Transformed Immigration Judging” (2024). American Political Science Review
The Trump administration implemented a controversial performance quota policy for immigration judges in October 2018. The policy’s political motivations were clear: to pressure immigration judges to order more immigration removals and deportations as quickly as possible. Previous attempts by U.S. presidents to control immigration judges were ineffective, but this quota policy was different because it credibly threatened judges’ job security and promotion opportunities if they failed to follow the policy. Our analysis of hundreds of thousands of judicial decisions before and after the policy’s implementation demonstrates that the quota policy successfully led immigration judges to issue more immigration removal orders (both in absentia and merits orders). The post-policy change in behavior was strongest among those judges who were less inclined, pre-policy, to issue immigration removal decisions. These findings have important implications for immigration judge independence, due process protections for noncitizens, and presidential efforts to control the federal bureaucracy.
APSA Law and Courts Section Award Best Conference Paper, APSA 2023
Evan Ringquist Award for Best Paper on Political Institutions, MPSA 2023
Boyd, Christina L., Roberto F. Carlos, Margaret H. Taylor, Matthew Baker, and Elise Blasingame. (2023). “Reviewing In Absentia Immigration Removal Orders in the Federal Circuit Courts” Political Research Quarterly
Within the politically charged immigration system in the United States, Congress mandates the entry of in absentia removal orders against immigrants who fail to appear for immigration court hearings. Statutory guidance similarly constrains the ability of appellate courts to overturn those in absentia orders. In this article, we examine how federal circuit court judges make decisions in the review of in absentia orders when faced with discretion-revoking congressional statutory language pitted against a highly politicized area of law where policy preferences sit at the forefront of judges’ minds. Using an original dataset of U.S. Courts of Appeals cases decided from 2001 to 2020, we find that pro-immigrant decisions are rare, as intended by the governing statute. We also find, however, that judicial policy preferences predict the degree to which federal judges support the petitioning immigrant through statutory factors related to the adequacy of government notice and the presence of exceptional circumstances to justify nonappearance.
Carlos, Roberto F., Geoffrey Sheagley, and Karlee Taylor (2022). “Tolerance for the Free Speech of Outgroup Partisans” PS: Political Science & Politics
The studies yielded four broad conclusions: (1) in the absence of tradeoffs, support for free speech was high; (2) Republicans expressed greater support for free speech than Democrats; (3) the introduction of tradeoffs altered support for free speech and did so similarly for Democrats and Republicans; and (4) support for free speech did not depend on whether partisan in-groups or out-groups engaged in the speech
Carlos, Roberto F. (2021). “Politics of the Mundane” American Political Science Review
Extensive research on political participation suggests that parental resources strongly predict participation. Other research indicates that salient political events can push individuals to participate. I offer a novel explanation of how mundane household experiences translate to political engagement, even in settings where low participation levels are typically found, such as immigrant communities. I hypothesize that experiences requiring the children of Latinx immigrants to take on ‘adult’ responsibilities provide an environment where children learn the noncognitive skills needed to overcome the costs associated with participation. I test this hypothesis using three distinct data sets: a survey of Latinx students, a representative survey of young adults, and a ten-year longitudinal study. The analyses demonstrate that Latinx children of immigrants taking on adult responsibilities exhibit higher levels of political activity compared to those who do not. These findings provide new insights into how the cycle of generational political inequality is overcome in unexpected ways and places.
Boldt, Ethan, Boyd, Christina, Carlos, Roberto F., and Baker, Matthew. (2021). “The Effects of Judge Race and Sex on Pretrial Detention Decisions” Justice System Journal
The pretrial detention decision has critical implications for a defendant’s employment opportunities, family ties, likelihood of conviction, and length of prison sentence. While prior researchers have assessed the disparities that exist in the bail decision based on defendant and case characteristics, little systematic empirical attention has been paid to the effects of the pre- trial detention judge on decisions at this stage of criminal case proceed- ings. Here, we focus specifically on judge race and sex, exploring not only the unconditional effects of judge sex and race but also whether the effects of these judge characteristics at the bail decision are conditioned on the sex and race of the defendant. Using newly collected pretrial deten- tion data from 22 federal district courts from 2003 to 2013, we empirically examine the effects of judge and defendant race and sex on whether defendants are released on their own recognizance before trial or, instead, are given a more punitive pretrial outcome. Our results indicate important judge and defendant-based differences in bail setting leniency provided to defendants including that Black judges are more likely to grant pretrial release without hefty conditions to white defendants than are white judges. We also find that female judges are more likely to detain or require monetary bail for male defendants and less likely to do so for female defendants relative to male judges.
Carlos, Roberto F. (2018). “Late to the Party: On the Prolonged Partisan Socialization Process of 2nd Generation Americans.” The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics
This article posits that the key to understanding the low levels of political involvement within contemporary immigrant communities, such as Asian and Latino communities, requires a closer examination of the partisan socialization process of the native-born children of immigrants. This article finds that many native-born children of immigrants, otherwise known as second-generation Americans, experience what I call a “prolonged partisan socialization process.” In the absence of parental partisan transmission, many second-generation Americans are left to find their own path to partisan attainment. The consequences of this are that many second-generation Americans eventually come to find their partisan identity outside of the home and much later in life. These findings disrupt the traditional partisan attainment story, which assumes that partisanship is the product of a process of socialization led by parents. Accounting for this pro- longed socialization process provides significant insight into why partisan identification, and by extension political participation, among many second-generation Americans, such as Latinos and Asians appears muted. Therefore, while it will likely take some time for many within these contemporary immigrant communi- ties to reach “partisan maturity,” we should not mistake the prolonged socialization process to mean that these individuals are destined to be politically disengaged.
Wilson, Walter, and Carlos, Roberto F. (2014). “Do Women Representatives Regender Legislative Bureaucracy? Assessing the Effect of Representative Sex on Women’s Presence among Congressional Staff.” The Journal of Legislative Studies 20 (2): 216-235.
Achieving greater female presence in influential positions is a commonly discussed strategy for gender reform in institutions such as the US Congress. Using theory adapted from research on gender in the workplace, this study examines whether women representatives, as ‘managers’ of congressional offices, alter patterns of gender representation in Congress by hiring and promoting more women staffers compared with men representatives. Cross-sectional logistic regression analyses of staffer sex during the 110th and 111th Congresses (2007–10) reveal a positive relationship between women representatives and female presence on congressional staffs. However, the relationship does not hold with respect to the most influential staff positions. These findings provide only limited support for theories that women representatives act as ‘change agents’ by directly facilitating opportunities for women, and highlight the importance of exploring alternative strategies for empowering women and regendering legislative institutions.
The Trump administration implemented a controversial performance quota policy for immigration judges in October 2018. The policy’s political motivations were clear: to pressure immigration judges to order more immigration removals and deportations as quickly as possible. Previous attempts by U.S. presidents to control immigration judges were ineffective, but this quota policy was different because it credibly threatened judges’ job security and promotion opportunities if they failed to follow the policy. Our analysis of hundreds of thousands of judicial decisions before and after the policy’s implementation demonstrates that the quota policy successfully led immigration judges to issue more immigration removal orders (both in absentia and merits orders). The post-policy change in behavior was strongest among those judges who were less inclined, pre-policy, to issue immigration removal decisions. These findings have important implications for immigration judge independence, due process protections for noncitizens, and presidential efforts to control the federal bureaucracy.
APSA Law and Courts Section Award Best Conference Paper, APSA 2023
Evan Ringquist Award for Best Paper on Political Institutions, MPSA 2023
Boyd, Christina L., Roberto F. Carlos, Margaret H. Taylor, Matthew Baker, and Elise Blasingame. (2023). “Reviewing In Absentia Immigration Removal Orders in the Federal Circuit Courts” Political Research Quarterly
Within the politically charged immigration system in the United States, Congress mandates the entry of in absentia removal orders against immigrants who fail to appear for immigration court hearings. Statutory guidance similarly constrains the ability of appellate courts to overturn those in absentia orders. In this article, we examine how federal circuit court judges make decisions in the review of in absentia orders when faced with discretion-revoking congressional statutory language pitted against a highly politicized area of law where policy preferences sit at the forefront of judges’ minds. Using an original dataset of U.S. Courts of Appeals cases decided from 2001 to 2020, we find that pro-immigrant decisions are rare, as intended by the governing statute. We also find, however, that judicial policy preferences predict the degree to which federal judges support the petitioning immigrant through statutory factors related to the adequacy of government notice and the presence of exceptional circumstances to justify nonappearance.
Carlos, Roberto F., Geoffrey Sheagley, and Karlee Taylor (2022). “Tolerance for the Free Speech of Outgroup Partisans” PS: Political Science & Politics
The studies yielded four broad conclusions: (1) in the absence of tradeoffs, support for free speech was high; (2) Republicans expressed greater support for free speech than Democrats; (3) the introduction of tradeoffs altered support for free speech and did so similarly for Democrats and Republicans; and (4) support for free speech did not depend on whether partisan in-groups or out-groups engaged in the speech
Carlos, Roberto F. (2021). “Politics of the Mundane” American Political Science Review
Extensive research on political participation suggests that parental resources strongly predict participation. Other research indicates that salient political events can push individuals to participate. I offer a novel explanation of how mundane household experiences translate to political engagement, even in settings where low participation levels are typically found, such as immigrant communities. I hypothesize that experiences requiring the children of Latinx immigrants to take on ‘adult’ responsibilities provide an environment where children learn the noncognitive skills needed to overcome the costs associated with participation. I test this hypothesis using three distinct data sets: a survey of Latinx students, a representative survey of young adults, and a ten-year longitudinal study. The analyses demonstrate that Latinx children of immigrants taking on adult responsibilities exhibit higher levels of political activity compared to those who do not. These findings provide new insights into how the cycle of generational political inequality is overcome in unexpected ways and places.
Boldt, Ethan, Boyd, Christina, Carlos, Roberto F., and Baker, Matthew. (2021). “The Effects of Judge Race and Sex on Pretrial Detention Decisions” Justice System Journal
The pretrial detention decision has critical implications for a defendant’s employment opportunities, family ties, likelihood of conviction, and length of prison sentence. While prior researchers have assessed the disparities that exist in the bail decision based on defendant and case characteristics, little systematic empirical attention has been paid to the effects of the pre- trial detention judge on decisions at this stage of criminal case proceed- ings. Here, we focus specifically on judge race and sex, exploring not only the unconditional effects of judge sex and race but also whether the effects of these judge characteristics at the bail decision are conditioned on the sex and race of the defendant. Using newly collected pretrial deten- tion data from 22 federal district courts from 2003 to 2013, we empirically examine the effects of judge and defendant race and sex on whether defendants are released on their own recognizance before trial or, instead, are given a more punitive pretrial outcome. Our results indicate important judge and defendant-based differences in bail setting leniency provided to defendants including that Black judges are more likely to grant pretrial release without hefty conditions to white defendants than are white judges. We also find that female judges are more likely to detain or require monetary bail for male defendants and less likely to do so for female defendants relative to male judges.
Carlos, Roberto F. (2018). “Late to the Party: On the Prolonged Partisan Socialization Process of 2nd Generation Americans.” The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics
This article posits that the key to understanding the low levels of political involvement within contemporary immigrant communities, such as Asian and Latino communities, requires a closer examination of the partisan socialization process of the native-born children of immigrants. This article finds that many native-born children of immigrants, otherwise known as second-generation Americans, experience what I call a “prolonged partisan socialization process.” In the absence of parental partisan transmission, many second-generation Americans are left to find their own path to partisan attainment. The consequences of this are that many second-generation Americans eventually come to find their partisan identity outside of the home and much later in life. These findings disrupt the traditional partisan attainment story, which assumes that partisanship is the product of a process of socialization led by parents. Accounting for this pro- longed socialization process provides significant insight into why partisan identification, and by extension political participation, among many second-generation Americans, such as Latinos and Asians appears muted. Therefore, while it will likely take some time for many within these contemporary immigrant communi- ties to reach “partisan maturity,” we should not mistake the prolonged socialization process to mean that these individuals are destined to be politically disengaged.
Wilson, Walter, and Carlos, Roberto F. (2014). “Do Women Representatives Regender Legislative Bureaucracy? Assessing the Effect of Representative Sex on Women’s Presence among Congressional Staff.” The Journal of Legislative Studies 20 (2): 216-235.
Achieving greater female presence in influential positions is a commonly discussed strategy for gender reform in institutions such as the US Congress. Using theory adapted from research on gender in the workplace, this study examines whether women representatives, as ‘managers’ of congressional offices, alter patterns of gender representation in Congress by hiring and promoting more women staffers compared with men representatives. Cross-sectional logistic regression analyses of staffer sex during the 110th and 111th Congresses (2007–10) reveal a positive relationship between women representatives and female presence on congressional staffs. However, the relationship does not hold with respect to the most influential staff positions. These findings provide only limited support for theories that women representatives act as ‘change agents’ by directly facilitating opportunities for women, and highlight the importance of exploring alternative strategies for empowering women and regendering legislative institutions.
