ESL teachers play important roles in teaching English and cultural orientation to immigrants coming to the US. They serve a variety of people residing legally within the United States such as permanent residents, refugees, migrant workers, asylees, parolees, and some citizens and international students. They also serve undocumented immigrants.…

This study focuses on the experiences of adult recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals ("DACA") Program in the United States. Semi-structured interviews were conducted six months after the Trump administration's 2017 rescission announcement in a sample of DACA recipients enrolled in colleges across the US. Guided by the…

This dissertation consists of three papers. In each paper, I use applied econometric methods to study the interaction between immigration policy and the postsecondary policy. The findings offer insights about how immigration policy can influence the education outcomes of undocumented individuals. In my first paper, I explore the effect on…

For most people in the United States, quality postsecondary credentials--which include two- and four-year college degrees, vocational training certificates, and professional licenses--offer the most direct path to economic and social mobility. In fact, 80 percent of today's jobs require more than a high school degree. Yet as of 2019, about 115.3…

The thinking underlying people's positions on complex issues is often of limited scope or complexity, yet changing minds is notoriously difficult. We investigated the thinking underlying people's positions on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Rather than seek to influence their thinking by engaging them in considering alternative…