How Local Stakeholders are Implementing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program

In June 2012, President Obama instituted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which suspended deportations and authorized work permits for an estimated 1.76 million eligible young undocumented immigrants. As one of the most significant recent shifts in policy, this executive immigration action has been hotly contested. Conservatives decry it as presidential overreach, while immigrant advocates say it does too little to stop deportations. Broader congressional solutions have been elusive and the U.S. Supreme Court has blocked a 2014 policy that would have protected more undocumented immigrants, including the parents of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents. As arguments over immigration reach new levels of toxicity in the 2016 elections, it is important to consider how the implementation of Deferred Action is faring. An array of stakeholders has worked hard to carry out this program, especially local governments, nonprofit service providers, unions, advocacy organizations, and foreign consulates. How have these stakeholders managed implementation and what lessons do their experiences hold for future immigration reform initiatives? We found answers by interviewing about 270 institutional informants in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Greater Houston Area, and the New York City Metro Area

An Institutional Examination of the Local Implementation of the DACA Program

In June 2012, President Barack Obama created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to offer qualified young undocumented immigrants a two-year renewable stay of deportation and the ability to apply for a work permit. DACA is a federal administrative directive, not a congressional law, and unlike the last major legalization program in 1986, no federal resources have been allocated for its implementation. The case of DACA thus raises questions about how new rights granted by executive prosecutorial discretion are actually implemented in local communities and how they are experienced by the intended beneficiaries in different localities. More specifically, how have different stakeholders, including local government officials, legal service providers, advocacy organizations, funders, consulates, and labor unions, integrated (or not) DACA into their mission, programming, and resource allocation? What collaborations have formed between these different stakeholders around the DACA program? What challenges do they face along the way and how are they addressing these challenges

Helping the Growing Ranks of Poor Immigrants Living in America’s Suburbs

Ask Americans to draw a mental map of who lives where, and they will likely say that immigrants and the poor live in large cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, while middle-class whites make their homes in the surrounding suburbs. But these mental maps are often inaccurate. Today, more poor people live in suburbs than in central cities, and more than half of all metropolitan-area immigrants reside in suburbs. Immigration, job growth, and residential choices are making our nation’s suburbs more economically and culturally diverse. How are suburban leaders responding to disadvantaged immigrants in their communities? Are they doing as much to support immigrant residents as leaders in traditional gateway cities? We explored these issues by tracking flows of public money through four local governments in the San Francisco Bay Area. A key federal government initiative, the Community Development Block Grant program, allocates millions of dollars to help municipalities improve services and support for low and moderate-income residents. When Bay Area municipalities put these funds to use, do big central cities and suburbs do equally well at helping poor immigrants

Funding Immigrant Organizations: Suburban Free Riding and Local Civic Presence

The authors argue that taken-for-granted notions of deservingness and legitimacy among local government officials affect funding allocations for organizations serving disadvantaged immigrants, even in politically progressive places. Analysis of Community Development Block Grant data in the San Francisco Bay Area reveals significant inequality in grants making to immigrant organizations across central cities and suburbs. With data from 142 interviews and documentary evidence, the authors elaborate how a history of continuous migration builds norms of inclusion and civic capacity for public-private partnerships. They also identify the phenomenon of “suburban free riding” to explain how and why suburban officials rely on central city resources to serve immigrants, but do not build and fund partnerships with immigrant organizations in their own jurisdictions. The analysis affirms the importance of distinguishing between types of immigrant destinations, but argues that scholars need to do so using a regional lens

The Infrared Spectra of Very Large Irregular Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs): Observational Probes of Astronomical PAH Geometry, Size and Charge

The mid-IR spectra of six large, irregular PAHs with formulae (C84H24 - C120H36) have been computed using Density Functional Theory (DFT). Trends in the dominant band positions and intensities are compared to those of large, compact PAHs as a function of geometry, size and charge. Irregular edge moieties that are common in terrestrial PAHs, such as bay regions and rings with quartet hydrogens, are shown to be uncommon in astronomical PAHs. As for all PAHs comprised solely of C and H reported to date, mid-IR emission from irregular PAHs fails to produce a strong CCstr band at 6.2 um, the position characteristic of the important, class A astronomical PAH spectra. Earlier studies showed inclusion of nitrogen within a PAH shifts this to 6.2 um for PAH cations. Here we show this band shifts to 6.3 um in nitrogenated PAH anions, close to the position of the CC stretch in class B astronomical PAH spectra. Thus nitrogenated PAHs may be important in all sources and the peak position of the CC stretch near 6.2 um appears to directly reflect the PAH cation to anion ratio. Large irregular PAHs exhibit features at 7.8 um but lack them near 8.6 um. Hence, the 7.7 um astronomical feature is produced by a mixture of small and large PAHs while the 8.6 um band can only be produced by large compact PAHs. As with the CCstr, the position and profile of these bands reflect the PAH cation to anion ratio.Comment: accepted by Ap

IGF1R signaling drives antiestrogen resistance through PAK2/PIX activation in luminal breast cancer

Antiestrogen resistance in estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer is associated with increased expression and activity of insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF1R). Here, a kinome siRNA screen has identified 10 regulators of IGF1R-mediated antiestrogen with clinical significance. These include the tamoxifen resistance suppressors BMPR1B, CDK10, CDK5, EIF2AK1, and MAP2K5, and the tamoxifen resistance inducers CHEK1, PAK2, RPS6KC1, TTK, and TXK. The p21-activated kinase 2, PAK2, is the strongest resistance inducer. Silencing of the tamoxifen resistance inducing genes, particularly PAK2, attenuates IGF1R-mediated resistance to tamoxifen and fulvestrant. High expression of PAK2 in ER+ metastatic breast cancer patients is correlated with unfavorable outcome after first-line tamoxifen monotherapy. Phospho-proteomics has defined PAK2 and the PAK-interacting exchange factors PIXα/β as downstream targets of IGF1R signaling, which are independent from PI3K/ATK and MAPK/ERK pathways. PAK2 and PIXα/β modulate IGF1R signaling-driven cell scattering. Targeting PIXα/β entirely mimics the effect of PAK2 silencing on antiestrogen re-sensitization. These data indicate PAK2/PIX as an effector pathway in IGF1R-mediated antiestrogen resistance

Rolling Out the Welcome Mat: State and City Immigrant Affairs Offices in the United States

Introduction Since 1965, the United States has admitted over 36 million legal immigrants, and millions more have entered the country clandestinely. Compared with the white Europeans who dominated the great wave of migration at the turn of the twentieth century, today’s immigrants tend to be people of color from Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa. While bifurcated in terms of skills and human capital, many of the newer immigrants lack formal educational credentials, have limited En..

Filling the Federal Policy Void: State and Local Responses to Undocumented Immigration in the U.S.

Bio: Els de Graauw is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Baruch College, the City University of New York. Her research lies at the intersection of immigration studies, (sub)urban politics, civic organizations, and public policy. Her book manuscript analyzes the role of community-based nonprofit organizations as public policy advocates on behalf of disadvantaged immigrants in San Francisco. De Graauw also has underway a project on municipal identification cards and undocumented immigrants as well as collaborative research on urban and suburban differences in responding to immigration. De Graauw received her Ph.D. in 2008 in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a post-doctoral researcher at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 2008-2009

Out of the Shadow of the State: Immigrant Nonprofits as Self-Motivated Political Actors in Urban Politics

I document and analyze the political presence in local politics of 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations catering to immigrants and refugees in San Francisco, California. Contrary to much of the nonprofit literature rationalizing the political apathy and quietude of 501(c)(3) nonprofits, my qualitative data from fieldwork conducted in 2005 and 2006 reveals that immigrant nonprofits have a broad understanding of what constitutes “politics” and are politically active in both the local policymaking and electoral processes. My data further shows that immigrant nonprofits function as multi-dimensional advocates engaged in legislative, administrative, and judicial advocacy at the local level. While immigrant nonprofits have a visible political presence within all three branches of local government, I argue that they are unique in the degree to which they engage in administrative advocacy targeted at the city’s bureaucratic agencies