Disparities seen in immigrant application results

Immigrants to the U.S. with job offers often apply for work authorization. But immigrants from Latin America are less likely to have those requests granted than are immigrants from other regions, according to a new study conducted by scholars at MIT and Brown University - a study that also suggests a potential remedy for this problem, by finding that this regional disparity does not exist when officials examine cases in greater detail. "This could have significant implications for both understanding inequality [in immigration], and also how to think about testing solutions that will mitigate some of these demographic biases," says Emilio J. Castilla, an associate professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and co-author of a new paper detailing the findings. The study shows that over a recent period of more than three years, the U.S. federal government approved about 91 percent of labor certification applications from Asian immigrants and 90 percent from Canadian immigrants, but just 67 percent of applications from Latin American immigrants. The study controls for variations in the offered salaries and job titles; characteristics of the firms making the offers; and the visa histories of the immigrants in question. Ben A. Rissing PhD '13, who is the corresponding author of the paper, conducted the work with Castilla. Rissing began collecting data for the study while at MIT; he is currently a visiting assistant professor at Brown.