Taking Part without Blending In: Legalization Policies and the Integration of Immigrants

How do legal institutions shape immigrant incorporation? A growing literature documents how unauthorized status shapes structural incorporation---channeling undocumented immigrants into precarious labor markets, deterring engagement with public institutions---but has had less to say about cultural consequences. I argue that legalization enables simultaneous structural participation and cultural expression among undocumented immigrants. Under unauthorized status, institutional barriers constrain structural participation, while deportation threat compels legal passing, the concealment of ethnic markers to avoid detection. Legalization reverses both dynamics. Using regression discontinuity and difference-in-differences designs, I examine DACA (2012) and IRCA (1986). Both policies improve structural participation (English ability, employment, civic participation), while enabling cultural expression (reflected in naming distinctiveness). The cultural effect is strongest in high-deportation contexts, consistent with the abandonment of legal passing. When enforcement threat is removed, undocumented immigrants reveal cultural preferences suppressed by the costs of concealment, complementing existing accounts of cultural expression as reactive or instrumental.