Partisan Preferences: The Enforcing and Crafting of Immigration Policy

Abstract

Abstract

Despite its prominence in political debates over immigration policy, undocumented immigration is largely absent from empirical research on studies of the bureaucracy and state politics. To clarify, political scientists have looked at both cultural and economic concerns and legislative activity centered on immigration policy, and they have found that economic concerns have a mild effect on attitudes toward immigrants and swift growth of the immigrant population provokes states to adopt state-level immigration policies. On average, political leaders view a growing immigrant population as precursor to an increase in the crime, unemployment, and poverty rates. Do social issues explain variation in policy enforcement actions and on the tone of state-level immigration policies? What effect do these social issues have on elected political leaders given their partisanship? In this dissertation, I argue that partisanship and social issues affect the states’ propensity to adopt restrictive or accommodating state-level immigration policies. Additionally, they affect the rigor in the enforcement of immigration policy. I further argue that social issues, of concern to constituencies, either amplify or attenuate the partisan effect. Through an analysis of data on enforcement actions—the number of arrests and removals—and classifying legislation according to tone, I find some support for my arguments. By analyzing the data on enforcement actions and state legislation, I find that the effect of partisan affiliation of the governor on arrests, removals, and propensity of states to adopt either restrictive or accommodating policies is conditional upon both the unemployment and crime rates and the growth of the Latino population. The findings demonstrate that, as it relates to immigration, the political parties favor particular social issues. This dissertation opens the door to studying the partisan effect through the prism of social issues intrinsic to public policy. Additionally, it presents a picture of the political landscape that could be useful to immigration advocacy organizations as they strategize where to focus their limited resources and who should they target.