View Research by Author - Rosa Maria Castaneda

Publications

The Latino population has been steadily increasing in the District of Columbia, and the city's Latino population has many unique and important qualities that distinguish it from other racial and ethnic groups. This report describes the current state of the Latino population in the District of Columbia and paints a picture of the opportunities and challenges Latinos face today. In this report, we describe how Latinos are faring in three domains: population and demographics, housing and neighborhood change, and economics and the workforce. We use the most recent data available to compare Latinos with non-Latinos living in the District and to describe trends over time. To supplement the available data, this study also draws on qualitative findings from interviews with officials, community leaders, and service providers to determine how the national recession is affecting Latinos in the District of Columbia.

This report examines the consequences of parental arrest, detention, and deportation on 190 children in 85 families in six locations, providing in-depth details on parent-child separations, economic hardships, and children's well-being. The contentious immigration debates around the country mostly revolve around illegal immigration. Less visible have been the 5.5 million children with unauthorized parents, almost three-quarters of whom are U.S.-born citizens. Over several years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) intensified enforcement activities through large-scale worksite arrests, home arrests, and arrests by local law enforcement. The report provides recommendations for stakeholders to mitigate the harmful effects of immigration enforcement on children.

This report summarizes the roundtable "Infants and Toddlers in State and Federal Budgets: Yesterday's Choices, Today's Decisions, Tomorrow's Options" conducted by the Urban Institute, with support from the A.L. Mailman Family Foundation, on March 30, 2009. The roundtable's focus grew out of the widely perceived mismatch between sharply limited public investments on infants and toddlers and an accumulated body of research demonstrating the significance of the earliest years of life. We describe the group's diverse perspectives and wide-ranging discussion of strategies to address this mismatch.

Rosa Maria Castaneda, a research associate in UI's Labor, Human Services, and Population Center, is coauthor of "Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America's Children." She answers five questions about her research, her next project, and the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's newly issued guidelines on the conduct of raids.

Over the past year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has intensified immigration enforcement activities by conducting several large-scale worksite raids across the country. From an in-depth study of three communities—Greeley, CO, Grand Island, NE and New Bedford, MA—this report details the impact of these worksite raids on the well-being of children. The report provides detailed recommendations to a variety of stakeholders to help mitigate the harmful effects of worksite raids on children.

This paper builds on a series of ANF publications that explored various aspects of social policy federalism since 1996. It explores what ANF's work can tell us about the evolution of federalism within five major social programs during the nine years between 1997 and 2006, focusing on lessons about federal-state relationships. It addresses Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Food Stamps, Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and child welfare. The paper is the result of a review and synthesis of over 65 publications addressing state and federal financing and/or programmatic arrangements in the major program areas, informed by interviews with experts who participated in ANF research.

Capital access programs and funds for women starting and expanding their businesses have grown dramatically over the past decade. These programs cover the spectrum from microenterprise to venture capital funds and serve highly diverse populations. Thirteen "best practice" programs and three "promising practices" (new programs that appear innovative but do not yet have a track record) are profiled in this report and are the basis for our analysis of key success factors, barriers, and constraints faced by women entrepreneurs, and our policy recommendations. We profile and analyze the programs to share best practices and lessons learned so that successful programs can be replicated. Our analysis of these best practice programs identifies six areas that can improve the strength of all capital access programs and expand their reach.

The Urban Institute partnered with the One Economy Corporation in applying for a special improvement project (SIP) grant from OCSE to develop high-quality online child support information specifically developed for families in low-income and ethnic and culturally diverse communities. This grant was awarded and used to prepare three sets of bilingual web pages (one national and two local) that are now available to millions of Americans across the country, and can also be used as models for other local and national sites. The main “products” of this grant are the new child support web pages, which can be viewed live at www.thebeehive.org. This report provides the history and background for this project, describes the work completed under the SIP grant, presents interesting findings not apparent on the website itself, and discusses lessons learned for similar future efforts.

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