The Many Facets of Effective Immigration Reform

The United States needs a new immigration policy that is based less on wishful thinking and more on realism. Spending vast sums of money trying to enforce arbitrary numerical limits on immigration that bear no relationship to economic reality is a fool’s errand. We need flexible limits on immigration that rise and fall with U.S. labor demand, coupled with strict enforcement of tough wage and labor laws that protect all workers, regardless of where they were born. We need to respect the natural human desire for family reunification, while recognizing that even family-based immigrants are unlikely to come here if jobs are not available. And we need to create a pathway to legal status for unauthorized immigrants who are already here so that they can no longer be exploited by unscrupulous employers who hang the threat of deportation over their heads.     

The effects of tougher enforcement on the job prospects of recent Latin American immigrants

Attempts to enforce immigration laws in the U.S. interior have proliferated in recent years, yet the effects of these laws on immigrants are largely unknown. This paper examines whether increases in immigration‐related law enforcement since 2001 have adversely affected the labor market outcomes of low‐education male immigrants from Latin America, a group that comprises the bulk of undocumented workers in the U.S. The crackdown on the use of fraudulent Social Security numbers, increased requirements for government‐issued identification, and other changes associated with greater focus on national security likely lowered the demand for undocumented foreign‐born workers in the years following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Using Current Population Survey data and a difference‐in‐differences estimation technique, we find strong evidence of worse labor market outcomes among recent Latin American immigrants in the post‐9/11 period relative to natives and prior Latin American immigrants. The results indicate a decline in employment, hours worked, and earnings among recent male Latin American immigrants relative to similarly low‐skilled black and Hispanic natives and vis‐à‐vis Latin American immigrants who have been in the U.S. longer. Our findings are consistent with firms increasingly substituting legal workers for undocumented labor in the years following 9/11. © 2009 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Why Immigrants Stay in Fashion: Insights from New York's Garment Industry

For many observers the influx of immigrants into New York's garment industry seemed to exemplify the deleterious impact of undocumented immigration: native displacement and a simultaneous deterioration of wages and working conditions. This article argues that this conventional view is incorrect. There is little evidence linking immigrant presence to the availability of undocumented workers. Rather, the immigrant presence is the consequence of the industry's basic labor strategy; immigrants have moved into garments as an older labor force deriving from earlier waves of migration has cyckd out.     

Does border enforcement deter unauthorized immigration? The case of Mexican migration to the United States of America

This paper asks whether the migration decisions of unauthorized Mexican immigrants to the USA have been influenced by stronger US border enforcement efforts since 1993 that have sharply increased the physical risk and financial cost of illegal immigration. These measures were supposed to have decreased the probability of successful entry, thereby lowering the expected benefits of migration. We carried out a logistic regression analysis of data from a recent survey of 603 returned migrants and potential first‐time migrants in rural Mexico. Our findings indicate that tougher border controls have had remarkably little influence on the propensity to migrate illegally to the USA. Political restrictions on immigration are far outweighed by economic and family‐related incentives to migrate. An alternative, labor‐market approach to immigration control with higher probability of effectiveness is outlined.     

Presidential Address: “A Thousand Petty Fortresses”: Administrative Burden in U.S. Immigration Policies and Its Consequences

Contradictory elements in U.S. immigration policy, reflecting a long‐time struggle between inclusionary and exclusionary views, have resulted in federal legislation filled with compromises and tradeoffs that, at state and sub‐state levels, play out in unclear interpretations and uneven, highly discretionary administration and enforcement of immigration law and policy. This research describes a tool of discretionary administration—administrative burden—that is increasingly used in enforcing immigration law and policies at state and sub‐state levels and presents a theoretical frame for more fully investigating and addressing its consequences. The application and implications of administrative burden are explored empirically and qualitatively in a case study analysis of an enforcement‐oriented policy change in Texas that denied access to birth certificates for some citizen‐children born to Mexican immigrants. To better understand the potential consequences of this and related policies, interviews with immigrant parents and longitudinal data from a survey of children of immigrants are analyzed to assess both short‐term and later outcomes of children who are denied economic assistance and other benefits under policies that impose barriers to their integration into society. The study findings point to serious, adverse consequences for citizen children of state and sub‐state immigration policies that create administrative burden and perpetuate racial discrimination, while simultaneously diminishing the transparency, fairness, and effectiveness of public administration.     

Guest workers or unauthorized immigrants? The case of forest workers in the United States

This study examines regional differences in the legal status of forest workers in the Pacific Northwest and Southeastern United States, using United States Department of Labor data and qualitative fieldwork in Alabama and Oregon. The authors find that there are significantly fewer H-2B guest workers on federal lands in Oregon than on privately owned forest plantations in Alabama, and the Southeast more generally. By contrast, numerous workers on federal lands in Oregon are undocumented. This difference may largely be explained by variations in the economies of scale in forest work in the Pacific Northwest (federal lands) and the Southeast (mainly private lands). The study also finds that there is no real difference in the working conditions of undocumented immigrants and guest workers—both groups face labor exploitation. Guest workers in the forest industry, many of whom have no previous work experience or access to social networks in the United States, face extreme isolation at worksites, are beholden to contractors, fear losing their jobs if they complain, and are generally unaware of their basic rights. By contrast, many undocumented forest workers in Oregon belong to established social networks through which they are recruited onto forest labor crews. However, unauthorized workers are also vulnerable to labor exploitation because they fear deportation and are obliged to their kin-employers. Policy recommendations to improve labor conditions and enforce existing labor laws for all forest workers include: better tracking of workers across states to monitor labor abuses, allocating more resources to state labor departments to facilitate worker outreach and worksite inspections, and better communication among land management officials and the Department of Labor.

Immigration,redistribution, and universal suffrage

The effect of immigration on redistribution has been widely debated. This paper contributes to this debate by testing two explanations, which are that (i) immigration tends to reduce redistribution due to people’s higher levels of xenophobia, and that (ii) immigration affects redistribution because immigrants do not have the right to vote. Since the demand for redistribution depends on the (expected) gap between median voter income and mean income, immigrants affect the demand for redistribution because, as non-citizens, they do not change the median voter’s income, but, as economic stakeholders, they do affect the mean income. Four empirical consequences of (i) and (ii) are tested at the individual level. Evidence from the European Values Survey in 45 countries confirms (ii), showing that immigrants’ expected competitiveness on the labor market affects preferences for redistribution and that it is amplified when the perceived number of immigrants is high. In contrast, (i) is globally rejected since the impact of the citizens’ declared level of solidarity with immigrants tends to be weak and depends on the type of measurement or specification used.     

A note on the political economy of immigration

In this note it is shown that the different attitudes towards immigration can be explained in terms of economic interest, although the public immigration debate is dominated by moral and political arguments. On the one hand, immigration supporters are mainly found among those who may expect economic gains from immigration – skilled workers and especially members of certain professions. On the other hand, unskilled workers who stand to lose economically because they can be easily substitued for by immigrants are for the most part opposed to immigration.     

The Impact of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act on the U.S. Poultry Industry: A Comparative Analysis

IRCA's impact on the U.S. poultry industry has been uneven across industry sectors and regions. In California, where undocumented immigrants have been present for some decades, IRCA strengthened unions in the processing sector without constricting labor supplies. In other areas of depressed local economies and high unemployment, IRCA has had little impact. Where low-wage industrial recruitment has increased competition for unskilled workers, however, plants have been relying on documented and undocumented new immigrants for labor. Although new immigrants stabilize industry work forces in the short run, over time these immigrant inflows reinforce high labor turnover and fuel the tendency for technological changes to accommodate an unskilkd labor force.     

“Illegalizing” Families: State,Status, and Deportability NPS Christian Bay Best Paper Award Winner,APSA 2018, Boston

There is a paradox within United States immigration policy. Immigration policy separates families while also promising family unity. We address this paradox by arguing that state actors use “family” as a state-granted status. The state perceives some households as families and grants them benefits, while forcing other households to live as legal strangers. Individuals may form familial relationships, but the privileges and status of family are controlled by state actors and institutions. When state actors separate low-wage immigrant worker families, the state's family-status-granting power keeps these workers and their families in a state of “deportability”-a legally ambiguous limbo-satiating business interests and securing a captive low-wage workforce. Lacking legal legitimacy, but financially and socially tied to their families and communities in the U.S., these immigrants have few options but to accept off-the-radar work and to raise their children while living as “outlaws.”     

Introduction: Immigration and U.S. Integration, Policy Reforms, and Economic Change

The economic and political ramifications of immigration will become increasingly evident in the United States during the coming decade, particularly in view of recent immigration policies that guarantee that the magnitude and diversity of the inflow will continue to grow. This symposium presents research that examines the role of immigrants in industrial restructuring and evaluates the effects of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. The importance of English language skills for economic advancement, and of government-supported training for refugees, are also examined. Together, this body of research directs our attention to the need for a more active public and private sector role in assisting all U.S. workers prepare for the demands of the labor market of the future.     

Between punishment and discipline: comparing strategies to control unauthorized immigration in the United States

Immigration scholars have noted the rise of a distinctive discourse concerning immigrants in the United States. The ‘immigrant threat’ discourse is said to portray immigrants as an existential threat to the country and contributes to highly restrictive enforcement policies. Through a close examination of national political debates concerning comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) (2005–2007), the paper shows that most politicians involved in this debate (from liberal Democrats to conservative Republicans) agreed with the basic assumptions of this general discourse. But the paper also identifies important variants on the ‘threat’ discourse and associated strategies. Hardline conservatives stressed that the essential ‘illegalness’ of immigrants posed a threat to the country. Protecting the nation state from this threat required policies to totally banish all undocumented immigrants from the country, irrespective of their ‘good’ conduct or exceptional circumstances. Moderate and liberal reform advocates agreed with the idea that undocumented immigrants posed a threat to the country. However, they believed that banishment alone could not address the threat. Instead they advocated a strategy of risk management whereby the population would be differentiated according to levels of risk (high to low priority) and policies of inclusion and exclusion would be adjusted accordingly. This would allow the government to incorporate low risk/priority immigrants while freeing government resources to target the ‘truly threatening’ groups (i.e., criminals, delinquents, homeless, repeat unauthorized entries, etc.). Thus, while both sides conceded that undocumented immigrants were a threat to the country, they developed important variants on the discourse and contrasting policy solutions to exert control over the population.     

Local labour market competition and radical right voting: Evidence from France

How do the economic effects of immigration affect radical right support? The evidence in support of the labour market competition theory — which posits that the economic threat posed by immigration to jobs and wages leads to radical right voting — has been mixed. On the one hand, individual-level surveys underreport economic drivers because of social desirability bias. On the other hand, contextual studies show contradictory findings due to an over-reliance on units of analysis that are too aggregated to meaningfully capture the competitive threat posed by immigrants. This paper identifies the influence of labour market competition on radical right voting at a local level in contexts where native workers are directly affected by the arrival of immigrants who have similar or higher skillsets. Using an original longitudinal dataset of fine-grained municipal electoral, demographic and economic data from France over the 2002–2017 period, the paper provides empirical evidence of local contextual influences of economic competition between natives and immigrants of any skillset. Under local conditions of material deprivation, measured by the local unemployment rate, the effect of labour market competition on municipalities’ radical right vote share is amplified. Moreover, higher radical right support is observed in municipalities with a higher share of any one of the following groups: low-skilled natives, medium-skilled immigrants or high-skilled immigrants. This supports the hypothesis that immigrants with higher qualifications are compelled to accept lower-skilled jobs, and are thus perceived as a competitive threat to low-skilled natives. By reconciling radical right contextual studies and research on the political economy of immigration policies, this paper highlights the importance of a local analysis in detecting the effect of labour market competition on radical right support. This paper also explains why some local areas are more prone to radical right support than others over time.     

Insiders or outsiders? Argentinean immigrants in Spain

Immigration and citizenship laws mark the boundaries of the imagined community that is the nation. However, these boundaries are not stable constructs: quite the contrary, they are sites of constant struggle and change. This paper discusses the evolving status of Argentinean-born immigrants in Spain since 1985 in these two bodies of legislation. After a brief introduction to the history of population exchanges between Spain and Argentina throughout the twentieth century, I draw from official statistics and Spanish legislation to discuss how changes in the legislation have impacted the arrival and settlement of Argentineans in Spain since 1985, when the country joined the European Union. I then analyse material gathered in more than 30 in-depth interviews conducted in the fall of 2006 and explore respondents' efforts to preserve the political privileges that Argentineans traditionally enjoyed in Spanish immigration and citizenship legislation. I conclude that further work is needed to understand the impact of the changes introduced in these two bodies of legislation in the face of increased immigration flows, particularly in the contexts where colonial histories and the europeanisation of national institutions collide.     

The Hidden American Immigration Consensus: A Conjoint Analysis of Attitudes toward Immigrants

Many studies have examined Americans' immigration attitudes. Yet prior research frequently confounds multiple questions, including which immigrants to admit and how many to admit. To isolate attitudes on the former question, we use a conjoint experiment that simultaneously tests the influence of nine immigrant attributes in generating support for admission. Drawing on a two‐wave, population‐based survey, we demonstrate that Americans view educated immigrants in high‐status jobs favorably, whereas they view those who lack plans to work, entered without authorization, are Iraqi, or do not speak English unfavorably. Strikingly, Americans' preferences vary little with their own education, partisanship, labor market position, ethnocentrism, or other attributes. Beneath partisan divisions over immigration lies a broad consensus about who should be admitted to the country. The results are consistent with norms‐based and sociotropic explanations of immigration attitudes. This consensus points to limits in both theories emphasizing economic and cultural threats, and sheds new light on an ongoing policy debate.     

Controlling Migration in an Open Labor Market

A direct immigration policy is no longer feasiblefor a single region in a common labor market. Within apolitical economy approach, this paper focuses on the question ofwhether migration can be controlled through the composition ofgovernment expenditures. Taking into account both capital and laborincome, it turns out that the median voter's income is U-shaped in thenumber of immigrants. Therefore, the government can eitherprovide less of the goods preferred by foreigners in order to minimizeimmigration or carry out an active immigration policy byshifting its expenditures towards those publicly provided goods. Thepaper identifies the factors that determine the government'schoice between the two strategies.     

USA,the West and the Rest after September 11/October 7, 2001+: A Midterm Report

This article argues that if the proponents of immigration reform have it their way, the proposed guest worker program will transform American citizenship from an institution based on civic membership to one based on residence rights and socio-economic status. American citizenship, now a relatively accessible option, will become a closed-off status, unattainable for the majority of temporary workers. With this policy, the United States will create a permanently disadvantaged category of guest workers and further reduce the competitiveness of low-skilled minimum wage American workers. The concept of immigration has begun to change from an inclusive notion granting equal rights to immigrants and citizens to a more ambivalent model emphasizing obligations and responsibilities of newcomers while withholding social, political, and legal rights. Guest worker programs with limited residence will accentuate for immigrants that they must pay taxes and benefit the American economy, obey US laws and otherwise contribute to the host society which, in turn, has no reciprocal obligations toward them. This will exacerbate the already existing two-tiered system of human and social rights, creating a new feudalism in America.     

Economic Explanations for Opposition to Immigration: Distinguishing between Prevalence and Conditional Impact

What explains variation in individuals’ opposition to immigration? While scholars have consistently shown cultural concerns to be strong predictors of opposition, findings regarding the labor‐market competition hypothesis are highly contested. To help understand these divergent results, we distinguish between the prevalence and conditional impact of determinants of immigration attitudes. Leveraging a targeted sampling strategy of high‐technology counties, we conduct a study of Americans’ attitudes toward H‐1B visas. The plurality of these visas are occupied by Indian immigrants, who are skilled but ethnically distinct, enabling us to measure a specific skill set (high technology) that is threatened by a particular type of immigrant (H‐1B visa holders). Unlike recent aggregate studies, our targeted approach reveals that the conditional impact of the relationship in the high‐technology sector between economic threat and immigration attitudes is sizable. However, labor‐market competition is not a prevalent source of threat and therefore is generally not detected in aggregate analyses.     

Forging a Migration Policy for Capital: Labor Shortages and Guest Workers

The expanding use of guest work is the wave of the future global neoliberal capitalism, but is a recurring theme in capitalism. The trade in global labor was pervasive during the Victorian age, second only to trade in finance. As the United States lost manufacturing to the global South, service and professional workers and their unions found it reassuring that that their jobs could not sent abroad. In the last decade, importing service workers from the global South is a dominant trend. As the United States is closing doors to traditional forms of immigration, it promotes migrant labor as a means to fill job shortages created by capital to lower wages. Guest work destabilizes the working class through turning “good jobs” into “bad jobs.” If comprehensive immigration reform includes guest work, borders will close and free migrant labor will become indentured labor. The World Bank and WTO view these programs as the new development model for the global South. Promoting export of skilled and unskilled labor benefits a bare few while driving most workers and peasants into abject poverty while heightening exploitation of labor worldwide.     

Is unauthorized immigration an immoral act? On David Miller’s ‘weak cosmopolitan’ defense of the right to exclude

While immigration is attracting increasing attention in political theory, there are as yet, few political theorists who adopt a restrictionist stance. With very few exceptions, the most political theorists have offered so far are pragmatic, not principled, defenses of the right to exclude. Looked at in this light, David Miller’s engagingly thoughtful book is surely a welcome and distinctive addition to the burgeoning literature on immigration. But readers who are looking for a normative counterpart to Joseph Carens’ Ethics of Immigration might be disappointed. In fact, the two books display more similarities than one would expect. Most notably, they share a common methodological ground: both reject top-down approaches, which proceed from abstract normative principles and apply these principles to immigration and integration policies. Yet, Miller’s realism reaches farther, giving greater weight to empirical evidence and focusing on institutions instead of on how individuals should act. This institutional focus is a key-defining feature of Miller’s political philosophy of immigration as distinct from an ethics of immigration. However, as I shall argue in the first part of this paper, Miller does not remain faithful to this distinction. He blames unauthorized migrants for acting ‘unfairly.’ But his criticism of irregular migration lacks a sufficient normative and empirical basis. The second part of the paper deals with the question whether legal coercion gives rise to a right to stay. My focus is in particular on the costs that irregular immigrants must bear when they are forced to go back to their countries of origin. These costs tend to be much higher than one expects.