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

A Broad 22 Microns Emission Feature in the Carina Nebula H II Region

We report the detection of a broad 22 microns emission feature in the Carina nebula H II region by the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) Short Wavelength Spectrometer. The feature shape is similar to that of the 22 microns emission feature of newly synthesized dust observed in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. This finding suggests that both of the features are arising from the same carrier, and that supernovae are probably the dominant production source of this new interstellar grain. A similar broad emission dust feature is also found in the spectra of two starburst galaxies from the ISO archival data. This new dust grain could be an abundant component of interstellar grains and can be used to trace the supernova rate or star formation rate in external galaxies. The existence of the broad 22 microns emission feature complicates the dust model for starburst galaxies and must be taken into account correctly in the derivation of dust color temperature. Mg protosilicate has been suggested as the carrier of the 22 microns emission dust feature observed in Cassiopeia A. The present results provide useful information in studies on chemical composition and emission mechanism of the carrier.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, to appear in ApJ Letter

Historic Log Buildings as Archives of Past Forest Ecology

This dissertation is composed of three separate but related manuscripts with the common theme of using historic log buildings from the central Appalachian Mountain region of eastern North America as ecological archives. In Chapter 1, I explore the biases, limitations, and ecological applications of tree-ring data from historic log buildings. European immigrants selected trees from a forested stand based on species, log sizes, and construction locations. Despite this selection bias, ecological information can be gleaned from historic log buildings, which offer a complementary record of past forest ecology and represent a site type that is not often associated with old-growth trees; the upland forest. Chapter 1 was published in Dendrochronologia in 2017. In Chapter 2, my coauthor and I investigate reforestation following the depopulation of Indigenous Peoples in the central Appalachian Mountain region by comparing recruitment, early radial growth, and growth releases of historic logs and old-growth trees. Results from most, but not all, historic log buildings suggest that these trees were felled from second-growth forests supporting the previously hypothesized idea that depopulation of Indigenous Peoples led to forest regrowth on abandoned land. Chapter 2 is currently in press at Journal of Biogeography (10/04/19). In Chapter 3, I use carbon isotopes in tree rings from a historic log building and modern live trees from the same site to demonstrate similar responses of trees to changes in moisture during the pre-industrial (pre-1850 CE) and post-industrial (post-1850 CE) periods. Changes in mean ∆13C from dry to wet years is similar for historic and modern samples suggesting that historic wood archives are a reliable tree-ring isotope source for tracking environmental changes of the past several centuries

Chemical Constraints on the Water and Total Oxygen Abundances in the Deep Atmosphere of Saturn

Thermochemical equilibrium and kinetic calculations for the trace gases CO, PH3, and SiH4 give three independent constraints on the water and total oxygen abundances of Saturn's deep atmosphere. A lower limit to the water abundance of H2O/H2 > 1.7 x 10^-3 is given by CO chemistry while an upper limit of H2O/H2 < 5.5 x 10^-3 is given by PH3 chemistry. A combination of the CO and PH3 constraints indicates a water enrichment on Saturn of 1.9 to 6.1 times the solar system abundance (H2O/H2 = 8.96 x 10^-4). The total oxygen abundance must be at least 1.7 times the solar system abundance (O/H2 = 1.16 x 10^-3) in order for the SiH4 to remain below a detection limit of SiH4/H2 < 2 x 10^-10. A combination of the CO, PH3, and SiH4 constraints suggests that the total oxygen abundance on Saturn is 3.2 to 6.4 times the solar system abundance. Our results indicate that oxygen on Saturn is less enriched than other heavy elements (such as C and P) relative to a solar system composition. This work was supported by NASA NAG5-11958.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

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

De middeleeuwse bouwgeschiedenis van de Amsterdamse Sint-Anthonispoort. De Waag op de Nieuwmarkt nader onderzocht

Waag on Nieuwmarkt was built as a city gate and later transformed into a weigh house. The numerous descriptions of the history of the building are nearly exclusively based on written sources. Building-historical research was lacking. On the basis of a memorial stone with the year 1488 it was assumed that the gate had been built in connection with the construction of the Amsterdam city wall during the eighties and nineties of the fi fteenth century. However, a further search in the records, building-historical research, and typological research provided new views on the actual construction date of St Anthonispoort, the various phases in which it proves to have been built, and on late medieval defensive works in Amsterdam. Due to the city extension of 1425, in which Geldersekade, Kloveniersburgwal and Singel were excavated, the fourteenth-century gates were no longer situated on the edge of the city and new gates were required. On the basis of sources in the records, St Anthonispoort proves to have existed in 1466, but possibly already in 1462 or 1456. The fifteenth-century city gates Haarlemmerpoort and Regulierspoort and a few brick walls also appear in records dating from before the building of the city wall. After the city fi re of 1452 a few towers were built at the urgent request of Philip the Good, but it is not clear if the fi rst appearance of St Anthonis blockhouse in 1462 is related to this work. Documents show that in 1451 the defensive importance of fourteenth-century St Olofspoort had decreased - probably because of the existence of St Anthonispoort - but that the outermost defensive works were not completely trusted yet. St Anthonispoort consists of a main gate and a front gate. There are differences between the lower part and the upper part of the main gate. An abrupt rejuvenation took place and the brickwork below differs from the brickwork above as regards the existence of string courses, bond, colour and probably also brick formats. The presence of remains of battlements in the transitions of the brickwork in the towers St Eloystoren and Schutterstoren proves that in an earlier phase the main gate was a smaller gate with battlemented towers. The medieval forerunner of the present Metselaarstoren is still partly present and shows a resemblance with the rest of the main gate and was probably also part of the earlier small main gate. There are also differences in the brickwork of the main gate and the front gate as regards colour, brick formats (22 x 10-10.5 x 5.5-6 cm and a ten-layer measure of 69.5-70 cm in the main gate versus 19.5-20 x 9.3-10 x 4.3-4.7 cm and a ten-layer measure of 56-59 cm in the front gate) and the distance between the string courses (twenty to twenty-seven layers of bricks in the main gate, versus ten to eleven in the front gate). It occurred more often that front gates were added to existing gates, as for instance around 1482 in Spaarnwouderpoort in Haarlem, of which the front gate strongly resembles that of St Anthonispoort. It is likely that the extension of St Anthonispoort in 1488 concerned the addition of the front gate, but is not clear whether the raising of the main gate and the construction of the front gate took place simultaneously. The conclusion that St Anthonispoort is older than the city wall throws new light on the Amsterdam defensive works in the fi fteenth century, which before the construction of this wall appear to have been more extensive than is often thought