Mr. Seemy’s class has just learned about the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) passed by the U.S. government in 1986. This law granted amnesty to nearly three million undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. before 1982. The IRCA also made it illegal for employers to knowingly hire undocumented workers.

Cesar’s family is undocumented. Cesar has the best grades in the class, but he is worried that it may be hard for him to get a good job or to go to college, since many college loans are oriented toward American citizens. “The only way that I could get a good job is if I’m granted amnesty!” Cesar says.

Mr. Seemy replies, “It seems like you have good reason to believe amnesty would help, but scientists use data to back up their claims. What evidence do you have that amnesty would actually lead to a better job?” He asked Cesar to do some research on the topic.

Cesar found a study that surveyed immigrants granted amnesty by the 1986 IRCA to share with the class. Of approximately 4,000 legalized immigrants surveyed, 48% of men and 38% of women had better jobs by 1992 than they had as undocumented immigrants. “This study shows that with amnesty, I could get a better job!” says Cesar.

“Wow! I had no idea there were studies like that!” says Takemi. “But even though some immigrants got better jobs, more than half did not, right? Isn’t it pretty normal for some people to get better jobs after six years?”

“Great research skills, Cesar!” says Mr. Seemy. “This certainly seems promising, but Takemi brings up an important point. It’s important to think about whether we can conclude that there is a cause and effect relationship between amnesty and better jobs. Think about this: if our class stopped eating candy this year, and next year only 3 students had cavities, we would want to make sure that not eating candy led to fewer cavities before telling everyone they should stop eating candy, right? It could be that the cafeteria food changed, and students in all classes had a decline in cavities. So let’s consider how we might be able to determine cause and effect for the amnesty study.

Mr. Seemy asked Takemi and Cesar to suggest different ways researchers could compare the findings in the study to what might have happened without amnesty.

There are other factors or variables that may have an effect on an activity or result. What other variables might lead to people getting better jobs?

How could researchers determine whether amnesty was the “cause” for nearly half of the legalized immigrants surveyed getting better jobs after six years?

Discussion Question:

In some studies, researchers are able to conduct careful experiments to compare two or more groups to determine the effect of something. Imagine what this type of experiment would look like for this topic: one group of immigrants would be granted amnesty and another similar group of immigrants would not be granted amnesty. Then, researchers would study whether people in one group got better jobs than the other group after a period of time. How is this strategy helpful? How is it harmful? How might we do valid research on topics like this without conducting experiments where some people or groups are excluded from something beneficial?