The Democrats Are Out of Touch on Immigration (2018)

Maryland Journal of International Law, 2018

2020

Since 2017, President Trump and his allies have hurtled the politics and policy of immigration in xenophobic directions to an extent without modern precedent, and with devastating effect. The Trump presidency has instituted hundreds of restrictionist measures, including high profile initiatives that have prompted significant public controversy and many less prominent, often technical measures that have erected a sprawling, “invisible wall” and placed millions at heightened risk of deportation. With the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the administration has intensified this crackdown further, using the outbreak as a pretext to institute even more sweeping restrictions that it previously had tried but failed to achieve. Because these measures have been implemented almost entirely through executive action, rather than new legislation, the incoming Biden administration will be well-positioned to roll back many of them—that is, provided that it commits the resources, energy, and political capital required. But even as it seeks to dismantle the Trump immigration legacy, the new administration should also lay the foundation for a more fundamental paradigm shift away from the entrenched regime of comprehensive immigration severity that enabled the Trump presidency’s xenophobic crackdown in the first place. In both its executive actions and legislative agenda on immigration, the new administration has an opportunity to embrace the more ambitious objective, as it has in other policy domains, to "build back better" in the aftermath of Trump.

Illinois Association of Multilingual Multicultural Education Bulletin, 2017

On Friday, January 20, 2017, Donald Trump became the 45th President of the United States. He ran on a campaign that heavily maligned immigrants in general, but undocumented immigrants in particular. From the beginning of his campaign, Trump and his supporters have made many statements indicating that “Mexico is not sending us their best” and that Mexico will pay for a wall to keep Mexicans from coming to the U.S. Although blatantly false, statements such as the above are partially what attracted so many people to him and ultimately got him elected. In this paper, we take common beliefs about undocumented immigration and shed light on what is the reality in hopes that by sharing facts instead of spreading misinformation, people can become more educated on this topic.

2019

The focus of this paper is in trying to understand why senators voted the way they did for the passage of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act. The votes were assessed on the basis of existing research which argues that members of Congress cast votes based on what their constituency wants, what their party demands, and what ideology they follow. Data was gathered on the party affiliation, immigrant population by state, and ideology of each senator in the 113th Congress who cast a vote on the bill. The data was then examined through a series of statistical analysis tests measuring the degree of influence the three variables had on the votes cast. It was determined that while all three variables had an effect, ideology had the most influence. Further research was conducted to understand why some Republican senators voted for the bill even though the party consensus was to vote against it. The results of the tests indicated that ideology and immi...

Labor, 2008

The practical and ethical challenges posed by unauthorized immigration in the United States have a long history. In this article, which serves as the basis of discussion in this issue's Up for Debate section, Daniel Tichenor demonstrates how the immigration debate defies the usual liberal/conservative divide of U.S. politics and illustrates the different ways that distinct ideological camps define the problem of illegal immigration. He then shows how American immigration reform, because of the contentious politics it inspires, has been propelled over time by compromises among strange bedfellows. The legislative result for almost a century has been a series of Faustian bargains over porous borders and access to cheap, low-skilled labor. Equally important, the capacity and will of the national state to enforce its immigration laws have long been beleaguered by a tradition of inadequate resources, erratic leadership, and poor oversight. While the political spotlight usually trains ...

2020

Comparative Analysis of the Trump-Biden Electoral Impact on Immigration Policies and Enforcement

SMU LAW REVIEW, 2008

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While U.S. immigration entry policies after 1953 became a hallmark of ideological openness, designating the United States as the unquestioned leader of a freer and more just world order, Donald Trump's current immigration strategies isolate America, damage her economy, and fuel divisive feelings among citizens. This paper hopes to persuade the Republican Party not to revert to its pre-1953 restrictionist and nativist stance, thereby undoing the crucial work undertaken by the Eisenhower Administration. The author argues that a sound grasp of the debate that led to the approval of the Refugee Relief Act in 1953 can lead to better informed political decision-making, tracing a new phase of America's active presence on the world stage, in line with the country's national interest and Cold war tradition.

This paper seeks to explain the apparent paralysis that has affected efforts to address the very real immigration problems that the United States faces. The answer appears to lie in the divergence between the politics and the economics of immigration that has prevented the Congress from adopting comprehensive reforms that would rationalize an immigration system riddled with contradictions and continuing tolerance for illegal migration. The paper begins with a historical overview of immigration policy decision-making processes in the United States. It then briefly presents current immigration policies and explains their successes and failures. This section also sets out the principal policy recommendations that have been under consideration to reform immigration. The paper then discusses three factors that help explain the difficulties in enacting comprehensive reform: 1) the coalitions that form around immigration policy, which often successfully coalesce over specific provisions in the law but break apart over others; 2) public ambivalence about immigration, particularly among those who see their own immigrant forebears through rose-colored glasses but are fearful that today's immigrants will fail to adopt American norms and values; and 3) practical impediments that make effective reform difficult to achieve. The final section discusses future prospects for immigration reform and presents recommendations for steps that may help achieve that end.

2015

In the summer of 2014, tens of thousands of Central American women and children arrived at the United States border. The numbers were unprecedented and their arrival was quickly characterized as a crisis. However, many immigrants’ rights activists also saw it as an opportunity. They hoped the border crisis would force the government to pass sweeping immigration reform. It did. Unfortunately, many immigrants would have been better off without these changes.