Immigration Policy and Hispanics' Willingness to Run for Office (original) (raw)

SSRN Electronic Journal

Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but IZA takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The IZA Institute of Labor Economics is an independent economic research institute that conducts research in labor economics and offers evidence-based policy advice on labor market issues. Supported by the Deutsche Post Foundation, IZA runs the world's largest network of economists, whose research aims to provide answers to the global labor market challenges of our time. Our key objective is to build bridges between academic research, policymakers and society. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.

Immigrant Politics. Analyzing U.S. Presidential Elections through Immigration and Hispanics

2016

The United States is a democracy that every four years elects a President. During the presidential campaigns, the issue of immigration has grown to become one of the most debated in recent times. It has been used to attract voters and to develop the political platform of every candidate. By an empirical analysis of the last four presidential campaigns and the current one of 2016, regarding immigration positions of the candidates and politicians, this article looks to find the connection —if any— with this issue and the Hispanic vote. Thus, candidates focus on these issues in order to gain new constituencies. The declarations and policies about immigration of the 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 candidates will be analyzed in order to validate this premise. Keywords: Immigration Reform; Democrats, Republicans, Hispanics, Presidential campaigns.

The Economics of U.S. Immigration Policy

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 2012

The economic gains from immigration are much like those from international trade: The economy benefits overall from immigration, but there are distributional effects that create both winners and losers. Immigration is different from trade, however, in that the physical presence of the people who provide the goods and services that drive the economic gains also raises other issues, such as whether immigrants are a fiscal drain. It may be no surprise then that Americans' views on immigration are mixed. Polls show that the majority of Americans think immigration is "a good thing" for the United States (Gallup, 2011). Nonetheless, most Americans want immigration to decrease or remain at its present level; less than 20 percent of Americans support an increase in immigration (Gallup, 2011). We discuss below potential reasons why Americans are concerned about immigration. Many of the concerns stem from the belief that immigration has adverse labor market and fiscal impacts, although the economic evidence on these issues is mixed. Public concerns about immigration, particularly unauthorized immigration, have led to a number of state-level immigration laws but little action at the federal level in recent years. As we argue below, the federal government's failure to enact a major change in immigration policy since the Immigration Act of 1990 has resulted in an increasingly strained, inefficient immigration system in dire need of overhaul. One clarification on terminology: We use the terms "immigrant" and "foreign-born" interchangeably throughout this article. FACTORS DRIVING PUBLIC CONCERNS OVER IMMIGRATION Rightly or wrongly, immigrants have been a popular scapegoat for society's ills throughout history. Today, as in the past, some concerns are more justifiable than others. The public's main concerns center on the labor market and fiscal impacts of immigration. Public concerns over immigration are first and foremost driven by the increase in immigration in recent decades, particularly of unauthorized immigration. In a phenomenon sometimes referred to as the "second great migration," the foreignborn population increased from 9.6 million in 1970 to 40 million in 2010. As a share of the population, the foreign born rose from a historic low of 4.7 percent in 1970 to 12.9 percent in 2010. Unauthorized immigration has likely increased even faster than overall immigration. The undocumented population rose from a few hundred thousand, primarily agricultural workers, in the late 1960s to 2 to 4 million, mainly living in urban areas, in 1980 (Warren and Passel, 1987). The undocumented population rose further to 8.4 million in 2000 and 11.2 million in 2010 (Passel and Cohn, 2011). This increase occurred despite a large amnesty in 1986 that legalized nearly 3 million undocumented immigrants (Orrenius and Zavodny, 2003).

What drives the legalization of immigrants? Evidence from IRCA

Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2018

What Drives the Legalization of Immigrants? Evidence from IRCA * We develop a model to understand the trade-offs faced by an elected representative in supporting an amnesty when a restrictive immigration policy is in place. We show that an amnesty is more desirable the more restricted are the occupational opportunities of undocumented immigrants and the less redistributive is the welfare state. Empirical evidence based on the voting behavior of U.S. Congressmen on the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 provides strong support for the predictions of our theoretical model.

Fear is the Path to the Dark Side". Electoral Results and the Workplace Safety of Immigrants

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021

Minimum Wages and the Health and Access to Care of Immigrants' Children

Social Science Research Network, 2019

Labor Market Competition And Individual Preferences Over Immigration Policy

Review of Economics and Statistics, 2001

This paper uses three years of individual-leve l data to analyze the determinant s of individual preference s over immigration policy in the United States. We have two main empirical results. First, less-skille d workers are signi cantly more likely to prefer limiting immigrant in ows into the United States. Our nding suggests that, over the time horizons that are relevant to individuals when evaluatin g immigration policy, individuals think that the U.S. economy absorbs immigrant in ows at least partly by changing wages. Second, we nd no evidence that the relationship between skills and immigration opinions is stronger in high-immigration communities.

DE ALBA & RETA Immigrant politics. Analizing US presidential elections through migration.pdf

REMAP Revista Mexicana de Análisis Político y Administración Pública, 2016

The political economy of immigration policy

2009

We analyze a newly available dataset of migration policy decisions reported by governments to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs between 1976 and 2007. We find evidence indicating that most governments have policies aimed at either maintaining the status quo or at lowering the level of migration. We also document variation in migration policy over time and across countries of different regions and income levels. Finally, we examine patterns in various aspects of destination countries' migration policies (policies towards family reunification, temporary vs. permanent migration, high-skilled migration). This analysis leads us to investigate the determinants of migration policy in a destination country. We develop a political economy framework in which voter attitudes represent a key component. We survey the literature on the determinants of public opinion towards immigrants and examine the link between these attitudes and governments' policy decisions. While we find evidence broadly consistent with the median voter model, we conclude that this framework is not sufficient to understand actual migration policies. We discuss evidence which suggests that interest-groups dynamics may play a very important role.

Estimating the Potential Effects of Adding a Citizenship Question to the 2020 Census

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2019

Immigration Policy and Hispanics' Willingness to Run for Office (original) (raw)

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