Volume 7, Issue 3 - The Politics of Immigration Reform

The immigration issue seems insistently with us in the late 2000s, though immigration policy seems persistently elusive. Seeking an intellectual handle on this disjunction, a cluster of Forum authors focus on immigration politics in its many forms. Daniel Tichenor maps the difficult terrain for policymaking in this realm, while Ben Marquez and John Witte address alternative congressional strategies for making immigration policy. Randall Hansen looks at American policy in comparative perspective, while Peter Schuck raises the possibility of giving the individual states wider latitude to legislate. Peter Skerry argues that observers have misperceived the reality of immigration politics and policy; Jack Citrin and Matthew Wright link notions of American identity with public preferences in this realm; while Gary Freeman considers the inescapable links between immigration and welfare policy. Among reviews, Daniel DiSalvo considers Christopher Caldwell, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West. In other pieces, Gregory Koger analyzes the agenda-setting choices of President Obama and Democratic congressional leaders, Matthew Grossman asks how political scientists differ from political practitioners in thinking about election campaigns, and Brendon O‘Connor reviews Sergio Fabbrini, America and Its Critics: Virtues and Vices of the Democratic Hyperpower, with a response from Fabbrini.

Few issues have proven more contentious in American politics during recent decades than immigration. Although there is wide agreement that the existing immigration system is "broken," major policy reform poses enormous political perils for presidents and congressional leaders. The internal conflicts within the Republican and Democratic Parties are at least as great as those between rival partisans. The obstacles to reform are especially daunting when focused on illegal immigration and the status of unauthorized immigrants. This article explains why immigration policymaking is so politically divisive, and how illegal immigration in particular makes even basic problem definition difficult, focusing on the role of rival ideas and interests, elusive coalition-building, widespread cynicism over past implementation failures, an expanded scope of conflict, and flawed policy alternatives. It also illuminates how the Clinton and Bush administrations formulated strategic responses to pressures for immigration reform. The implications of recent immigration reform politics are striking: Whereas Clinton translated its lethargy and defensive opportunism on immigration policy into consequential electoral gains for the Democrats among Latinos and Asians, Bush's vigorous advocacy produced a rebellious and unmanageable party base and further eroded support for the Republican Party among new immigrant voters and kindred ethnics. Significantly, the Obama administration is almost certain to have far fewer degrees of freedom on immigration than its recent predecessors.

This paper deals with the current prospects and potential problems with passage of immigration reform. Rather than recommend legislative and programmatic changes that many other commentators have posed, this paper discusses the possible legislative strategies for accomplishing changes in an immigration system that most believe is in dire need of reform. Specifically it asks if the various complex issues involved in immigration should be considered as separable and discrete issues, subject to serial and incremental legislation, or, as currently being conceived by the Obama administration, as a comprehensive package of reforms. We begin by describing and analyzing the core set of issues defining immigration policy. We then discuss various theories of issue preferences and how those theories have implications for the choice of relevant strategies for the immigration debate. Finally we present evidence based on recent congressional voting patterns and the positions taken by the most important interest groups.

This article examines the immigration issue in the United States in a comparative and (to a lesser degree) historical context. It begins by stepping back and examining broader immigration patterns, first to the United States and then to Canada and select European countries. It then moves on to the issue of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S., their numbers, motivations for travelling to the United States, past efforts to address unauthorized immigration, and developments since the onset of the 2008-present recession. Finally, the article concludes by reflecting on the possibilities, and limitations, surrounding President Obama's – indeed, any president's – attempts to end unauthorized immigration to the U.S. and to bring some closure to the debate about what to do with those already there. It makes a qualified case, given how unappealing the alternative is, for legalization and a temporary workers program.

Largely because of the immense shadow cast by the plenary power doctrine, immigration policy is overwhelmingly the domain of federal law. This article casts doubt on some of the premises of this legal centralism, including the myth of greater state hostility to immigrants and calls on Congress to delegate greater authority to the states in several areas of immigration policy: employment-based admissions, enforcement, and employer sanctions. A concluding section analyzes the legal standards that states must meet in order to overcome federal preemption challenges to their immigration-related statutes.

"Comprehensive immigration reform" has become the banner around which highly visible efforts to address this seemingly intractable issue now assemble. Yet even as immigration has been drawn by various political entrepreneurs onto the center stage of American politics, the quiet workings of client politics are still very much in evidence. The by-play between these two different types of politics has been evident in connection with foreign agricultural laborers, refugees, and skilled temporary workers. A proposed immigration commission might be the means of buffering immigration policy-making from the drawbacks of both client and entrepreneurial politics.

This article analyzes survey data that establishes a connection between how ordinary citizens conceive of American identity and their preferences for immigration policy. The distinction between ethnocultural and liberal images of America matters for public preferences about how many and what kind of immigrants should enter the United States.

Immigration is the driving force behind the rapidly growing ethnic, racial, and religious diversity of Western welfare states. This essay reviews research on the effects of immigration and diversity on the political support for redistributive social programs. A growing body of scholarship finds negative relationships between indicators of ethnic heterogeneity and measures of immigration, on the one hand, and attitudes towards welfare measures and state expenditures on welfare, on the other. Responding to these results, scholars have searched for mediating factors that slow or reverse these effects. As empirical studies multiply it is important to develop theories to make sense of the data. I discuss in-group and out-group theory, reciprocal altruism, and the neoDarwinian theory of ethnic nepotism. I argue that while no theory has been shown to be clearly superior to the others, neoDarwinism is the most comprehensive and should not be dismissed because of its pessimistic implications for immigration, diversity, and welfare states.

This article surveys President Obama's policy agenda-setting for the first six months of his term. I consider whether the conditions ripe for an ambitious policy agenda and summarize the logic of Presidential agenda-setting. I use this framework to explain the Democrats' agenda for 2009, summarize their progress thus far, and discuss the implications for the Democratic Party in 2010 and after. Although the Democrats have made significant progress on their policy goals, they have not reaped the full political rewards from this success. Instead, the majority party will likely be judged on the pace of economic recovery and whether they pass significant health care reform, with climate change as a second major agenda item.

Political consultants believe that strategic decisions made by candidates in the midst of campaigns help determine election outcomes. Political scientists have traditionally been skeptical of these claims. Indeed, we have produced little evidence that consultant decisions, other than routine actions driven by obvious electoral circumstances, affect outcomes. Despite an increasing overlap between the interests of practitioners and scholars, current research limits the potential for ideas to travel between them. The result is that claims made by consultants about the effects of myriad decisions regarding advertising, public relations strategies, mobilization, and responses to opposition messages remain largely unassessed. Likewise, the practitioner focus on the importance of campaign messages is not central to scholarship. To make academic literature speak to the concerns of practitioners, scholars need to combine their work on the contextual determinants of campaign strategy with their knowledge of the multiple factors that influence voter decision-making.

Sergio Fabbrini rebuttals O'Connor's review of Fabbrini's book America and Its Critics: Virtues and Vices of the Democratic Hyperpower.