Climbing the political ladder with legal status: evidence from the Immigration Reform and Control Act

Working paper

We study how immigrant legalization affects political representation and public service delivery, focusing on the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which granted legal status to nearly three million undocumented Hispanic migrants. Using geographic variation in IRCA exposure and newly digitized data on 12,000 Hispanic officials, we find legalization increased Hispanic representation in local government and facilitated upward mobility from school boards into municipal and county offices. These changes altered institutional behavior, shifting education spending toward capital investment and diversifying the racial composition of the teaching workforce. Immigration policy thus reshapes who governs and how public goods are allocated.

Authors: Bernini, A; Sabet, N

• Publication status: Published
• Publisher: University of Oxford
• Series: Department of Economics Discussion Paper Series
• Place of publication: Oxford
• Publication date: 2025-08-21
• Paper number: 1088
• Language: English
• Keywords: political mobility; local public finance; political representation; legalization