I am a fourth year PhD student at Vanderbilt University specializing in health and labor economics. My research focuses on the implications of immigration policies for vulnerable populations.

I am currently examining the effects of state employment verification (E-Verify) mandates. In one project, I find that E-Verify mandates reduce the probability that likely-unauthorized immigrants have private health insurance. Given that unauthorized immigrants are ineligible for public insurance, their overall rate of insurance falls. Meanwhile, those competing with unauthorized labor have improved labor market prospects and are consequently shifted from public to private insurance.  In another project, my coauthors and I find that E-Verify mandates lead to reductions in property crime. We show that these mandates improve the labor market prospects of low-skilled Hispanic natives who possess a higher propensity to commit crime than their immigrant counterparts.

In prior work, I examined immigrant disemployment effects from minimum wage increases, as well as how changes in migrant composition and internal enforcement policies have attenuated these effects over the last decade.