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Showing papers in "American Journal of Sociology in 2012"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: How Central American immigrants in tenuous legal statuses experience current immigration laws is analyzed to expose how the criminalization of immigrants at the federal, state, and local levels is not only exclusionary but also generates violent effects for individual immigrants and their families, affecting everyday lives and long-term incorporation processes.
Abstract: This article analyzes how Central American immigrants in tenuous legal statuses experience current immigration laws. Based on ethnographic observations and over 200 interviews conducted between 1998 and 2009 with immigrants in Los Angeles and Phoenix and individuals in sending communities, this study reveals how the convergence and implementation of immigration and criminal law constitute forms of violence. Drawing on theories of structural and symbolic violence, the authors use the analytic category “legal violence” to capture the normalized but cumulatively injurious effects of the law. The analysis focuses on three central and interrelated areas of immigrants’ lives—work, family, and schooling—to expose how the criminalization of immigrants at the federal, state, and local levels is not only exclusionary but also generates violent effects for individual immigrants and their families, affecting everyday lives and long-term incorporation processes.

718 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored the prevalence and ramifications of eviction in the lives of the urban poor and found that women from inner-city black neighborhoods are evicted at significantly higher rates than men.
Abstract: Combining statistical and ethnographic analyses, this article explores the prevalence and ramifications of eviction in the lives of the urban poor. A quantitative analysis of administrative and survey data finds that eviction is commonplace in inner-city black neighborhoods and that women from those neighborhoods are evicted at significantly higher rates than men. A qualitative analysis of ethnographic data based on fieldwork among evicted tenants and their landlords reveals multiple mechanisms propelling this discrepancy. In poor black neighborhoods, eviction is to women what incarceration is to men: a typical but severely consequential occurrence contributing to the reproduction of urban poverty.

463 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This study shows that the link is stronger when measures of caregiving capture fathers’ increased responsibility for children, and the “father care” to “mother care’ ratio rises when mothers contribute a greater share of household earnings.
Abstract: Previous literature suggests a tenuous link between fathers’ care of children and maternal employment and earnings. This study shows that the link is stronger when measures of caregiving capture fathers’ increased responsibility for children. The analysis of time diary data from 6,572 married fathers and 7,376 married mothers with children under age 13 indicates that fathers (1) engage in more “solo” care of children when their wives are employed, (2) are more likely to do the kind of child care associated with responsibility for their children when their wives spend more time in the labor market, and (3) participate more in routine care when their wives contribute a greater share of the couple’s earnings. In addition, the “father care” to “mother care” ratio rises when mothers contribute a greater share of household earnings.

343 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article found that evicted families often relied more on new acquaintances than on kin, and the strategy of forming, using, and burning disposable ties allowed families caught in desperate situations to make it from one day to the next, but it also bred instability and fostered misgivings among peers.
Abstract: Sociologists long have observed that the urban poor rely on kinship networks to survive economic destitution. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among evicted tenants in high-poverty neighborhoods, this article presents a new explanation for urban survival, one that emphasizes the importance of disposable ties formed between strangers. To meet their most pressing needs, evicted families often relied more on new acquaintances than on kin. Disposable ties facilitated the flow of various resources, but often bonds were brittle and fleeting. The strategy of forming, using, and burning disposable ties allowed families caught in desperate situations to make it from one day to the next, but it also bred instability and fostered misgivings among peers.

342 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article investigates European countries’ attribution of rights to immigrants: Have these rights become more inclusive and more similar across countries?
Abstract: Immigrant citizenship rights in the nation-state reference both theories of cross-national convergence and the resilience of national political processes. This article investigates European countries’ attribution of rights to immigrants: Have these rights become more inclusive and more similar across countries? Are they affected by EU membership, the role of the judiciary, the party in power, the size of the immigrant electorate, or pressure exerted by anti-immigrant parties? Original data on 10 European countries, 1980–2008, reveal no evidence for cross-national convergence. Rights tended to become more inclusive until 2002, but stagnated afterward. Electoral changes drive these trends: growth of the immigrant electorate led to expansion, but countermobilization by right-wing parties slowed or reversed liberalizations. These electoral mechanisms are in turn shaped by long-standing policy traditions, leading to strong path dependence and the reproduction of preexisting cross-national differences.

319 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a cross-national panel analysis of three measures of carbon dioxide emissions was conducted to evaluate the relationship between economic development and time, and the results varied across the three outcomes as well as between developed and less developed countries.
Abstract: Ecological modernization theory posits that even though economic development harms the environment, the magnitude of the harmful link decreases over the course of development. In contrast, the treadmill of production theory argues that the strong relationship between environmental harms and economic development will remain constant or possibly increase through time. To evaluate these competing propositions, interactions between economic development and time are used in cross-national panel analyses of three measures of carbon dioxide emissions. The results vary across the three outcomes as well as between developed and less developed countries, providing mixed support for both theoretical perspectives. The authors conclude by discussing how both theories could benefit from engaging contemporary research concerning changes within the transnational organization of production and the structure of international trade and how these global shifts influence environment/economic development relationships.

318 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Using two decades of longitudinal data from a national survey, the authors demonstrate that not only does an individual’s race change over time, it changes in response to myriad changes in social position, and the patterns are similar for both self-identification and classification by others.
Abstract: The authors link the literature on racial fluidity and inequality in the United States and offer new evidence of the reciprocal relationship between the two processes. Using two decades of longitudinal data from a national survey, they demonstrate that not only does an individual’s race change over time, it changes in response to myriad changes in social position, and the patterns are similar for both self-identification and classification by others. These findings suggest that, in the contemporary United States, microlevel racial fluidity serves to reinforce existing disparities by redefining successful or high-status people as white (or not black) and unsuccessful or low-status people as black (or not white). Thus, racial differences are both an input and an output in stratification processes; this relationship has implications for theorizing and measuring race in research, as well as for crafting policies that attempt to address racialized inequality.

297 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Drawing from in-depth interviews and archival sources, the author shows that four elements are understood to jointly produce educational success: ambitious career goals, sustained effort, unflagging optimism, and resistance to temptation.
Abstract: Imagined futures, once a vital topic of theoretical inquiry within the sociology of culture, have been sidelined in recent decades. Rational choice models cannot explain the seemingly irrational optimism of youth aspirations, pointing to the need to explore other alternatives. This article incorporates insights from pragmatist theory and cognitive sociology to examine the relationship between imagined futures and present actions and experiences in rural Malawi, where future optimism appears particularly unfounded. Drawing from in-depth interviews and archival sources documenting ideological campaigns promoting schooling, the author shows that four elements are understood to jointly produce educational success: ambitious career goals, sustained effort, unflagging optimism, and resistance to temptation. Aspirations should be interpreted not as rational calculations, but instead as assertions of a virtuous identity, claims to be “one who aspires.”

278 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the diffusion of protest tactics among social movement organizations through their collaboration in protest groups and find that collaboration is an important channel of tactical diffusion and that SMOs with broader tactical repertoires adopt more tactics via their collaboration with other SMOs, but only up to a point.
Abstract: This article examines the diffusion of protest tactics among social movement organizations (SMOs) through their collaboration in protest groups. Using a longitudinal data set of SMO protest activity between 1960 and 1995, the authors adapt novel methods for dealing with two forms of selection and measurement bias in network analysis: (i) the mechanism that renders some SMOs more likely to select into collaboration and (ii) the notion that diffusion is an artifact of homophily or indirect learning rather than influence. The authors find that collaboration is an important channel of tactical diffusion and that SMOs with broader tactical repertoires adopt more tactics via their collaboration with other SMOs, but only up to a point. Engaging in more collaboration also makes SMOs more active transmitters and adopters of new tactics. Finally, initial overlap in respective tactical repertoires facilitates the diffusion of tactics among collaborating SMOs.

189 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors compare the experiences of blacks, Mexicans, and southern and eastern Europeans in the first half of the 20th century and suggest that the Mexican story might have more to teach us about these current and future lines than the SEE one.
Abstract: Contemporary race and immigration scholars often rely on historical analogies to help them analyze America’s current and future color lines. If European immigrants became white, they claim, perhaps today’s immigrants can as well. But too often these scholars ignore ongoing debates in the historical literature about America’s past racial boundaries. Meanwhile, the historical literature is itself needlessly muddled. In order to address these problems, the authors borrow concepts from the social science literature on boundaries to systematically compare the experiences of blacks, Mexicans, and southern and eastern Europeans (SEEs) in the first half of the 20th century. Their findings challenge whiteness historiography; caution against making broad claims about the reinvention, blurring, or shifting of America’s color lines; and suggest that the Mexican story might have more to teach us about these current and future lines than the SEE one.

168 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examined how dynamics surrounding biographical disruptions compare to more routine fluctuations in personal social networks using data from the Indianapolis Network Mental Health Study (INMS) using data collected from the National Institute of Mental Health (NOMA).
Abstract: This study examines how dynamics surrounding biographical disruptions compare to more routine fluctuations in personal social networks. Using data from the Indianapolis Network Mental Health Study,...


Journal ArticleDOI
Wade M. Cole1
TL;DR: Two-stage regression analyses that control for the endogeneity of treaty membership show that stronger commitments in the form of optional provisions that allow states and individuals to complain about human rights abuses are often associated with improved practices.
Abstract: Much research has shown human rights treaties to be ineffective or even counterproductive, often contributing to greater levels of abuse among countries that ratify them. This article reevaluates the effect of four core human rights treaties on a variety of human rights outcomes. Unlike previous studies, it disaggregates treaty membership to examine the effect of relatively “stronger” and “weaker” commitments. Two-stage regression analyses that control for the endogeneity of treaty membership show that stronger commitments in the form of optional provisions that allow states and individuals to complain about human rights abuses are often associated with improved practices. The article discusses the scholarly and practical implications of these findings.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors found that about a third of network structure is consistent within persons across roles: those who in one role build networks rich in access to structural holes will build similar networks in other roles; builders of closed networks also tend to build that network across roles.
Abstract: The more consistent a person’s network across roles and the more relevant that consistency is for achievement, the more important agency is for understanding network effects on achievement. With network, experience, and achievement data on persons playing multiple characters in a virtual world, evidence is presented to support two conclusions: (1) About a third of network structure is consistent within persons across roles: that is, those who in one role build networks rich in access to structural holes will build similar networks in other roles; builders of closed networks also tend to build that network across roles. (2) Network consistency across roles contributes almost nothing to predicting achievement, which is instead determined by experience and the network specific to the role. The two conclusions are robust across substantively significant differences in the mix of roles combined in a multirole network (too many roles, difficult combination of roles, or roles played to overlapping audiences).

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe three ideal-typical inequality regimes (big-class, microclass, and gradational) and identify the mechanisms driving a shift toward or away from each of them.
Abstract: Recent inequality scholarship fixates on trends in the amount of inequality and largely ignores trends in the form of inequality. The authors describe three ideal-typical inequality regimes (big-class, microclass, and gradational) and identify the mechanisms driving a shift toward or away from each of them. Using GSS and CPS data on 39 measures of life chances, attitudes, and behaviors, the authors find that big-class inequality is in decline whereas microclass inequality has remained stable. Moreover, big classes are simplifying into largely economic aggregates, whereas microclasses remain more complicated moral configurations that cannot be understood in terms of economic standing.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors trace a portion of the rise of racial inequality in incarceration in northern and southern states to increasing rates of African-American migration to the North between 1880 and 1950.
Abstract: Of all facets of American racial inequality studied by social scientists, racial disparity in incarceration has proved one of the most difficult to explain. This article traces a portion of the rise of racial inequality in incarceration in northern and southern states to increasing rates of African-American migration to the North between 1880 and 1950. It employs three analytical strategies. First, it introduces a decomposition to assess the relative contributions of geographic shifts in the population and regional changes in the incarceration rate to the increase in racial disparity. Second, it estimates the effect of the rate of white and nonwhite migration on the change in the white and nonwhite incarceration rates of the North. Finally, it uses macro- and microdata to evaluate the mechanisms proposed to explain this effect.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the concepts of "weak field" and "avatar" are used to explain Europe's historically variable meanings, analyzing two successful reinventions (as a "community of law" and a "single market") and one failure (social Europe).
Abstract: The present article mobilizes the concepts of “weak field” and “avatar” to explain Europe’s historically variable meanings, analyzing two successful reinventions (as a “community of law” and a “single market”) and one failure (“social Europe”). Focusing on law and economics, the authors first show that the weak field of EU studies serves as a crossroads between nationally anchored scholarly professions and Europe’s political field; second, they show that under certain conditions legal and economic constructions have exerted performative effects via scholarly avatars. Depending on their strategic positioning, scholarly avatars facilitate symbolic exchange across political, technocratic, and scholarly boundaries and endow theoretical constructions with performative potential.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Analysis of data from the National Survey of Families and Households and the 2003–7 waves of the American Time Use Survey shows that men who do “women’s work” in the market spend more time on male-typed housework relative to men in gender-balanced occupations and their wives spend moretime on female-typing housework.
Abstract: This article takes a new approach to gender and housework by identifying a new measure of gender deviance—work in gender-atypical occupations—and by arguing that men who do “women’s work” and women who do “men’s work” in the labor market may seek to neutralize their gender deviance by doing male- and female-typed work at home. Analysis of data from the National Survey of Families and Households and the 2003–7 waves of the American Time Use Survey shows that men who do “women’s work” in the market spend more time on male-typed housework relative to men in gender-balanced occupations and their wives spend more time on female-typed housework. Women in gender-atypical occupations also do more female-typed housework than women in gender-balanced occupations. The article provides clearer evidence about the important ways in which cultural conceptions of gender shape and are shaped by economic processes.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results recast organized labor as an institution vital for its economic inclusion of African-American men and women and points to the need to move beyond class-based analyses of union decline to an understanding of the gendered role unions once played in mitigating racial inequality.
Abstract: Why have African-American private-sector unionization rates surpassed those of white workers for decades, and how has private-sector union decline exacerbated black-white wage inequality? Using data from the Current Population Survey (1973–2007), the authors show that African-Americans join unions for protection against discriminatory treatment in nonunion sectors. A model-predicted wage series also shows that, among women, black-white weekly wage gaps would be between 13% and 30% lower if union representation remained at high levels. The effect of deunionization on racial wage inequality for men is less substantial, but without deunionization, weekly wages for black men would be an estimated $49 higher. The results recast organized labor as an institution vital for its economic inclusion of African-American men and women. This study points to the need to move beyond class-based analyses of union decline to an understanding of the gendered role unions once played in mitigating racial inequality.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Multilevel age, period, and cohort models support diffusion arguments by demonstrating that the effects across cohorts of education, income, and occupational prestige first strengthen, then weaken, suggesting that diffusion of environmental concern first produces positive relationships consistent with postmaterialism arguments and later produces null or negative relationships consistentWith global environmentalism arguments.
Abstract: Long-standing debates over the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) on environmental concern contrast postmaterialist and affluence arguments, suggesting a positive relationship in high-income nations, with counterarguments for a negative or near zero relationship. A diffusion-of-innovations approach adapts parts of both arguments and predicts initial adoption of proenvironmental views by high-SES groups; however, environmentalism diffuses over time to other SES groups, weakening the association. This argument is tested with General Social Survey data (1973–2008) across 83 cohorts, whose attitudes before, during, and after the emergence of environmentalism identify long-term changes in environmental concern. Multilevel age, period, and cohort models support diffusion arguments by demonstrating that the effects across cohorts of education, income, and occupational prestige first strengthen, then weaken. This finding suggests that diffusion of environmental concern first produces positive relationships cons...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article showed that the early founding of a nonprofit organization in one domain imprints a community with a general institutional legacy of collective civic action, and the community is more likely to later establish new nonprofit organizations in a different domain.
Abstract: Conventional wisdom in organization theory holds that the environment imprints organizations at the time of their birth. We reverse the imagery and propose that early founding of a nonprofit organization in one domain imprints a community with a general institutional legacy of collective civic action. Consequently, the community is more likely to later establish new nonprofit organizations in a different domain. Empirically, we show that Norwegian communities that were the earliest to establish mutual fire insurance organizations and mutual savings banks in the 19th century were more likely to experience foundings of cooperative stores in the 20th century. We discuss how the founding of formal nonprofit organizations creates an institutional legacy that amplifies variations in the civic capacity of communities and outline how it complements accounts of organizational imprinting.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article explored the conditions under which political modernization leads to nation building, to the politicization of ethnic cleavages, or to populism by modeling these three outcomes as more or less encompassing exchange relationships between state elites, counterelites, and the population.
Abstract: This article explores the conditions under which political modernization leads to nation building, to the politicization of ethnic cleavages, or to populism by modeling these three outcomes as more or less encompassing exchange relationships between state elites, counterelites, and the population. Actors seek coalitions that grant them the most advantageous exchange of taxation against public goods and of military support against political participation. Modeling historical data on the distribution of these resources in France and the Ottoman Empire from 1500 to 1900 shows that nation building results from strong state centralization and well-established civil societies; ethnic closure, from weak state capacity and civil societies; and populism, from medium centralization and weak civil societies. The results are consistent with French and Ottoman political histories of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Journal ArticleDOI
Erich Steinman1
TL;DR: Identifying the United States as a settler colonial society, the study suggests that a decolonizing framework is more apt than racial/ethnicity approaches in conceptualizing the struggle of American Indians.
Abstract: The article extends the multi-institutional model of power and change through an analysis of the American Indian Sovereignty Movement. Drawing upon cultural models of the state, and articulating institutionalist conceptions of political opportunities and resources, the analysis demonstrates that this framework can be applied to challenges addressing the state as well as nonstate fields. The rational-legal diminishment of tribal rights, bureaucratic paternalism, commonsense views of tribes as racial/ethnic minorities, and the binary construction of American and Indian as oppositional identities diminished the appeal of “contentious” political action. Instead, to establish tribes’ status as sovereign nations, tribal leaders aggressively enacted infrastructural power, transposed favorable legal rulings across social fields to legitimize sovereignty discourses, and promoted a pragmatic coexistence with state and local governments. Identifying the United States as a settler colonial society, the study suggests...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Weber's approach to the environment, including its significance for his interpretive-causal framework and his understanding of capitalism, has been examined in this paper, where Weber's sociological meanings were often anchored in biophysical realities, including climate change, resource consumption, and energy scarcity, while environmental influences were refracted in complex ways within cultural reproduction.
Abstract: In the last two decades classical sociology, notably Marx, has been mined for environmental insights in the attempt to surmount the “human exemptionalism” of post–Second World War sociology. Weber, however, has remained an enigma in this respect. This article addresses Weber’s approach to the environment, including its significance for his interpretive-causal framework and his understanding of capitalism. For Weber, sociological meanings were often anchored in biophysical realities, including climate change, resource consumption, and energy scarcity, while environmental influences were refracted in complex ways within cultural reproduction. His work thus constitutes a crucial key to constructing a meaningful postexemptionalist sociology.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper examined 20 communities that are at risk for mobilization because they face controversial proposals for large energy infrastructure projects and found that community context shapes motivations to oppose or accept a proposal, not objective measures of threat.
Abstract: Social movement theory has rarely been tested with counterfactual cases, that is, instances in which movements do not emerge. Moreover, contemporary theories about political opportunity and resources often inadequately address the issue of motivation. To address these shortcomings, this article examines 20 communities that are “at risk” for mobilization because they face controversial proposals for large energy infrastructure projects. Movements emerge in only 10 cases, allowing for the identification of factors that drive mobilization or nonmobilization. Utilizing insights from social psychology, the authors contend that community context shapes motivations to oppose or accept a proposal, not objective measures of threat. They conclude that the combination of community context—to understand motivation—and measures of capability is the best way to model movement emergence.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a commercialization project that gained public acceptance yet nevertheless failed is considered, and the key theoretical insight is that the organizational decoupling required for successful commercialization may complicate companies' ability to gain employee acceptance.
Abstract: The market’s tendency to organize personal spheres of life is not always unfettered, and while past studies have identified public discomfort as a bar to market expansion, this study considers a commercialization project that gained public acceptance yet nevertheless failed. The study’s key theoretical insight is that the organizational decoupling required for successful commercialization may complicate companies’ ability to gain employee acceptance. Rich ethnographic data from Motherhood, Inc., an organization offering support and services for new mothers, is leveraged to identify two conditions under which employee resistance may arise and undermine successful commercialization. This article contributes to sociological understandings by theorizing the important role of employees in commercialization and to organizational theory more generally by specifying conditions under which decoupling may be difficult to achieve.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors used ethnographic material gathered on American Jews' understandings of anti-Semitism and its relationship to contemporary politics, and inductively discerned four alternative models of collective selfhood (embattled, relating, political, and redeemed) that correspond to four alternative narratives of identity politics.
Abstract: Identity politics arises out of conditions of systematic stigmatization and structural disadvantage, but sharing a social structural position does not guarantee that people will define themselves and their collectivity in the same way. In fact, because identity politics occupies two major points of tension, it gives rise to several alternative ways of conceptualizing the “we,” the collective self. Using ethnographic material gathered on American Jews’ understandings of anti-Semitism and its relationship to contemporary politics, this article inductively discerns four alternative models of collective selfhood (embattled, relating, political, and redeemed) that correspond to four alternative narratives of identity politics (reified identity, humanistic dialogue, critical solidarity, and evangelism). These narratives help explain the deep emotions sparked by challenges to people’s self-definitions. A comparison to studies of LGBT movements further reveals the utility of this conceptualization and elaborates ...

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors used a structural equation model and data from a recent survey of adult immigrant offspring in Los Angeles to find that second-generation cross-border activities are strongly affected by earlier experiences of and exposure to home country influences.
Abstract: Theories of migrant transnationalism emphasize the enduring imprint of the premigration connections that the newcomers bring with them But how do the children of migrants raised in the parents’ adopted country develop ties to the parental home country? Using a structural equation model and data from a recent survey of adult immigrant offspring in Los Angeles, this article shows that second-generation cross-border activities are strongly affected by earlier experiences of and exposure to home country influences Socialization in the parental household is powerful, transmitting distinct home country competencies, loyalties, and ties, but not a coherent package of transnationalism Our analysis of five measures of cross-border activities and loyalties among the grown children of migrants shows that transmission is specific to the social logic underlying the connection: activities rooted in family relationships such as remitting are transmitted differently than emotional attachments to the parents’ home country

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a series of 52 interviews with economists working in various jobs is used to reveal a possible way out of this paradox by highlighting three basic features of economic expertise: cognitive and practical framing via a core of relatively simple ideas and techniques, great flexibility in results due to various available subframes, and dependence of the selection of subframes on local institutional contexts.
Abstract: In an increasingly knowledge-based global environment, American-style economics may be an especially important form of expertise to understand. Existing studies of the discipline present something of a paradox, however, as some suggest that economic discourse is a logically unified and powerful promarket ideology, while others indicate that in practice it is quite fragmented and constrained. A series of 52 interviews with economists working in various jobs is used to reveal a possible way out of this paradox by highlighting three basic features of economic expertise: cognitive and practical framing via a “core” of relatively simple ideas and techniques, great flexibility in results due to various available “subframes,” and dependence of the selection of subframes on local institutional contexts. These underlying features potentially explain how the unified academic discourse of economics produces a variety of outcomes and maybe even plays a range of quite different social roles in different situations.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For example, this paper found that criminal deportations increase during times of rising unemployment, and this effect was partly mediated by an elevated discourse about immigration and labor, and that changes in criminal deportation rates mirror the trend in incarceration rates.
Abstract: This study documents and explains historical variation in U.S. criminal deportations. Results from time-series analyses suggest that criminal deportations increase during times of rising unemployment, and this effect is partly mediated by an elevated discourse about immigration and labor. An especially strong association between deportations and unemployment emerges from 1941 through 1986, a period in which the federal law enforcement bureaucracy and deportation laws were well established and judges retained substantial discretion. After 1986, changes in criminal deportation rates mirror the trend in incarceration rates. The study connects the burgeoning sociological literatures on immigration and punishment, revealing a historically contingent effect of labor markets on the criminal deportation of noncitizen offenders.