UC Irvine

Prior research has established that legal vulnerability affects undocumented students’ educational experiences. Building on this work, we examine how undocumented immigration status may disrupt academic performance through students’ behavioral engagement in their coursework. Drawing on a survey of nearly 1,277 undocumented college students in California, we use latent profile analysis to identify student profiles based on their experiences of immigration-related distractions. We then assess the role of self and family demographics on profile membership, and the relationship between immigration-related distraction profiles and students’ behavioral engagement outcomes. We identify five distraction profiles that indicate a wide variation in frequency of immigration-related distractions and suggest that these distractions result from both students’ own and their parents’ immigration-related issues. These distractions are consequential as students with more frequently distracted profiles are more likely to report negative behavioral engagement outcomes. Ultimately, we argue that academic distractions and behavioral disengagement are key ways in which legal vulnerability disrupts the academic success and educational experiences of undocumented students.