This paper provides an empirical assessment of the prevalence and determinants of cross-state social exchanges and attachments among Latin American immigrants living in the United States. As we shall show, using data from a recent survey of Latin American migrants living in the United States, migrant cross-state social action comes in a variety of types, with the direction of conditioning factors differing from one type to another. Moreover, social and political incorporation in the United States reduces affective ties and provision of material support, all the while facilitating other forms of cross-state social action. Consequently, while international migrants regularly engage in trans-state social action, the paper shows that neither transnational ism as condition of being, nor transmigrants , as distinctive class of people, is commonly found. © 2008 by the Center for Migration Studies of New York.

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international migration empirical analysis immigration policy transmigration immigrant cross-border relations assessment method United States North America immigrant population