Biden will have to tread a fine line to pass immigration reform and represent all Americans. However, the Biden-Harris administration is sure to bring changes.
Biden will have to tread a fine line to pass immigration reform and represent all Americans. However, the Biden-Harris administration is sure to bring changes.
America’s immigration discourse has led to incompetent policies that inefficiently spend our tax dollars and harm immigrants.
This paper overviews the intentional, explicit, and harsh U.S. immigration policy and the ways that it, directly and indirectly, has defined American and white as synonymous. There is a brief literature review followed by an argument that whiteness has actually required the immigration discourse to uphold and perpetuate racist ideas and enlist average white citizens. This process happens at the systemic level, in terms of national policy, laws, and private industry, and at the individual level as individuals become deputized to uphold whiteness through the lens of who is allowed in America.
In the U.S., social constructions have been used to disenfranchise immigrants based on their ability, or inability, to assimilate into white culture.
Given immigration’s continued salience in the political landscape, it is paramount that we understand how immigration is perceived and how its features and contexts change how people view politics and immigrants themselves. This study will investigate the effect current demographic changes may have on American public opinion by looking at how an immigrant’s gender and reason for migrating affect how they are perceived, focusing specifically on economic and cultural threat. Regression analysis reveals that the gender and reason for migration of the immigrant does not have an effect on the level of threat expressed; however, political ideology, feminist identification, and education of the respondent all emerged as predictors of threat expression. This knowledge can be applied to policy campaign communications for the purpose of targeting specific groups of constituents and can give lawmakers a sense of how people feel and potential underlying causes for why they feel that way.
The immigration debate should be reframed to centralize empathy, compassion, and caring for those escaping poor living conditions or threats of violence.
For decades, immigration law has criminalized migration and created a social construction that labels immigrants to the United States as criminal aliens.
Immigration debates have made DACA one of the most contentious and relevant issues in the 21st century. The repeal of DACA is based on fear rather than facts.
Guest worker programs should include worker protections and a pathway to legal protection to incentivize labor participation and a more robust workforce.