Colloquium: Legal Status and Local Political Power: Evidence from the Immigration Reform and Control Act

ABSTRACT: We study how immigrant legalization affects political representation, focusing on the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which granted legal status to three million undocumented immigrants. Exploiting cross-county variation in IRCA exposure, we combine difference-in-differences and instrumental-variable strategies with newly digitized data on Hispanic elected officials. Legalization increases Hispanic representation on school and city boards and facilitated upward political mobility. These effects operate through Hispanic community empowerment: IRCA stimulated increases in human capital, teacheremployment, and political engagement~---~without triggering counter-mobilization. These shifts translated into policy: High-exposure school districts increase capital spending and shift toward bond-based financing.