The Politics of Immigration: Partisanship, Demographic Change, and American National Identity
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| Anteprima |
Immigration
has been deeply woven into the fabric of American nation building since
the founding of the Republic. Indeed, immigrants have played an
integral role in American history, but they are also intricately tied to
America's present and will feature prominently in America's future.
Immigration can shape a nation. Consequently, immigration policy can
maintain, replenish, and even reshape it. Immigration policy debates are
thus seldom just about who to let in and how many, as a nation's
immigration policies can define its identity. This is what helps breathe
fire into the politics of immigration.
Against this backdrop,
political parties promote their own narratives about what the
immigration policies of a nation of immigrants should be while
undermining the contrasting narratives of political opponents. Racial
and ethnic groups mobilize for political inclusion as immigration
increases their numbers, but are often confronted by the counteractive
mobilization of nativist groups. Legislators calibrate their positions
on immigration by weighing traditional electoral concerns against a new
demographic normal that is reshaping the American electorate. At stake
are not just what our immigration policies will be, but also what
America can become.
What are the determinants of immigration
policymaking in the United States? The Politics of Immigration focuses
the analytical lens on the electoral incentives that legislators in
Congress have to support or oppose immigration policy reforms at the
federal level. In contrast to previous arguments, Tom K. Wong argues
that contemporary immigration politics in the United States can be
characterized by three underlying features: the entrenchment of partisan
divides among legislators on the issue of immigration, the political
implications of the demographic changes that are reshaping the American
electorate, and how these changes are creating new opportunities to
define what it means to be an American in a period of unprecedented
national origins, racial and ethnic, and cultural diversity.
