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To what extent American cities are evolving towards a model in which their government is (or is not) adapting its structure to their growing Mexican immigrant population? What are the main factors for such transformation to take place? What is the role of the Mexican government in the process? This paper addresses these questions from two different perspectives, one local, and one transnational. From a local perspective, the paper addresses the government structure of the 14 most populated cities by Mexican immigrants. From a transnational perspective, the questions are addressed through the consideration of three stances: The use and acceptance of the Mexican Consular ID (Matrícula Consular) in an urban setting; the outreach activities of the Institute of Mexicans Abroad; and the motivations of the Mexican state governments in contacting directly U.S. local authorities regarding immigrant issues. Research for this paper suggests that some governments of American cities already count with (or have started a) structural transformation to address directly their immigrants? issues. The most important factors that lead to the creation of these offices are a strong and growing presence of foreign born population, high levels of community-based organization among immigrants, and the interaction of these organizations with some level of local government, like the Office of the Mayor or the City Council. Regarding the role of the Mexican government in the process, the interaction between different levels of Mexican government and local governments in the United States leads to the empowerment of the host society as a whole and, in particular, to the empowerment of the immigrant community. An important conclusion of this work is that the interaction between local and transnational politics explains different levels of empowerment of the home community in the host society. From a theoretical standpoint, this paper emphasizes the importance of incorporating research work on transnational politics into the mainstream research body of urban politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines public opinion towards the restriction or expansion of immigration in Canada, using data from the 2000 Canadian Election Study (CES). The paper is largely modeled on Citrin, et al (1997)’s "Public Opinion Towards Immigration Reform: The Role of Economic Motivations," although we make a methodological improvement that increases both the confidence of our results and our understanding of what drives not only opposition to immigration, but also for more immigration. In addition, we find that the variables explaining restrictionist opinions in the United States do not hold cross-nationally. Our methodological improvement is simple. Rather than using an ordered probit, we choose to use a multinomial logit. Because our three choices are exhaustive, we do not have to consider the irrelevance of independent alternatives. Thus, we can harness the principal advantage of the multinomial logit; namely, the independent measurement of the effect of each variable on each outcome. The model we use includes approximately 1200 respondents. Our initial results find that both personal and national economic evaluations are the principal factors causing opposition to immigration. This last significant result contradicts the American findings of Citrin et al. according to which personal economic circumstances play little role in opinion formation. In addition to challenging their main finding in regards to restriction, we generate a number of new findings on the factors influencing support for increased immigration. Most importantly, we demonstrate that these factors are not entirely symmetrical with the factors influencing support for decrease in immigration levels. Indeed, we find that national economic evaluations have much effect on support for decreased immigration, whereas it does not bear on support for increased immigration. Therefore our results demonstrate the value of employing a multinomial logit instead of an ordered probit in understanding public opinion towards immigration expansion or restriction. Moreover, the differences in significance of predictor variables between support for increase and decrease demonstrates that there can be various simultaneous processes at work in opinion formation on a single issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the ways local governments accommodate Latinos in the new Latino destinations, as identified by Pew Hispanic Center and Brookings Institute, throughout the United States. The paper begins by examining the context of incorporation research, focusing on some of the broader individual issues such as the emergence of transnational lifestyles, the importance of social and economic networks and the impact of immigration on the lives of the children of immigrants. This is followed by a description of the research methods for collecting information about new Latino community local governments. The data regarding formal incorporation of Latinos in elected and appointed positions is then presented. The discussion of findings then centers on the various accommodation approaches embraced by these local governments. The paper concludes with the recognition that while formal incorporation of Latinos into the political process is limited, efforts by local governments demonstrate the desire, for the most part, to accommodate their nuevos residentes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term transnationalism is now commonly used by a growing cluster of social scientists. However, some authors state that the term is practically useless: it tries to explain everything, and it ends up explaining nothing new, or even worst, its regular users seem not to agree on the definition of the term, and the debates that it generates generally takes social scientists nowhere. The proposed paper deals with this situation from two perspectives. Firstly, we point out the theoretical problems that transnationalism presents as an interdisciplinary concept. We expose the use of the term in several disciplines (political science, sociology, law, economy, migration studies, and anthropology), and emphasize how these disciplines generate different theoretical considerations. Then, we expose how each discipline has dealt with different units of analysis while attempting to build a solid theoretical background, focusing mainly on the individual, the family, organizations, the society, the economy, the polity, cultural practices, and the state. Finally, we argue that the use of the term transnationalism has been transformed to a point in which is practically impossible to sustain the broader sense of the term beyond its generic roots. Terms like political transnationalism, anthropological transnationalism, sociological transnationalism, etc., form a more feasible working frame if the term is to prevail in the neighborhood. Secondly, from an empirical perspective, we develop an analysis of political transnationalism based on the Mexican immigrant experience in American cities. We focus on an organizational analysis of transnational politics, and lay emphasis on the role of the Mexican and American states in the process. In the analysis, we underline several factors that characterize the analysis within a political transnational framework, like: (1) addressing the elite formation among immigrants in the process, (2) the agenda setting process, and (3) underlining the effect that non-electoral politics exert on electoral politics, mostly at local and state levels, within a framework of political mobilization of a immigrant community in an urban setting. Data for this paper was obtained from in-situ historical research, analysis of secondary sources, and more than 50 interviews that took place mostly in Houston and Chicago, between February and July 2002. Interviewees include leaders, activists, organizers, chairmen, and priests within a wide range of organizational backgrounds: community-based organizations, service providers, unions, church-based organizations, chambers of commerce, civic associations, and Mexican state federations. Immigration scholars, officials from the Mexican Consulate and city officials in both cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the interplay between migration flows, policy reform, and the new ?Smart Borders? regulatory regime initiated by the United States to police its frontier with Mexico. Progress on regularizing certain undocumented migration flows appeared to be a possibility in the initial year of the Fox and Bush administrations. The events of September 11th, 2001 and the subsequent focus on terrorism across U.S. borders altered the political equation on migration and other bilateral issues in favor of technologically-oriented border control systems designed to facilitate free trade but at the same time screen out terrorists, weapons of mass destruction, illicit drugs, and undocumented migrants. On January 7, 2004, President Bush revived hopes for a bi-national migration accord by announcing a new guest worker proposal. Based on policy analysis, the paper will explore the Smart Border program and the extent migration is implicated in it; it will also assess the possibility of real reform in this area given the new international security environment. Finally, it briefly examines the impact of all this on concepts of state sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration is highly salient in the United States, yet many questions remain unanswered. This paper attempts to grapple with two of those questions. First, why are immigration attitudes and policies so volatile in the United States? Second, what causes this volatility? Building off of Rogers Smith's multiple traditions thesis, I argue that United States immigration policy is one illiberal part of America's political philosophy. I contend that immigration's volatility stems from ascription, one of the central tenants of American political philosophy, and is subject to various shocks. I find ascription more dormant during times of relative stability but more prominent during times of uncertainty (i.e. during economic and/or national security shocks). Broadly, the paper looks at immigration attitudes and policies from the twentieth century onward, with consideration to the ebb and flow of ascription. First, the paper reviews Smith's multiples traditions theory. Second, the paper outlines immigration policy from the 1900s to the 1960s. Third, the paper analyzes the criminalization of immigration beginning in the 1970s through the lens of Juliet Stumpf's crimmigration thesis. Fourth, it highlights immigration policy in the 1980s and 1990s. Fifth, the paper discusses the post 9/11 United States. The concluding section of the paper explores what may move the United States beyond exclusionary policies and considers the potential consequences of a changing American demographic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper about quantitative analysis on voter decisions related to prevailing local economic conditions in the U.S. is presented. It discusses economic data for testing the ability of sociotropic models of voting behavior including local dependence on the agricultural sector for the outcome of the referendum at the county level. It examines immigration including passage of Arizona immigration law which has become an important political issue in the U.S.

While political science research on immigration attitudes among the American public has traditionally focused on such factors as economic threat, social context, socioeconomic status, and racial prejudice, relatively few studies have examined the psychological determinants of immigration- and immigrant-related policy preferences. Furthermore, the role of nativism, the attitude that a distinctly American way of life needs to be protected against foreigners and foreign influence, is largely understudied in this context. Thus, this paper examines a novel psychological method of measuring nativism and its relationship to immigration policy attitudes. A computer-administered "implicit association test" (IAT) procedure (Greenwald, et al., 1998; Greenwald, et al. 2002; Greenwald and Banaji 2005) is used to measure automatic preferences for American culture verses Latino-American culture among approximately 800 undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Iowa. These automatic nativist preference measures are then compared to explicit nativism measures and incorporated into a multivariate model to predict immigration policy attitudes. Finally, this paper also discusses the implications of these findings for the "social desirability" problem in measuring racial attitudes and also for the symbolic racism theory of racial policy preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades moderates have steadily declined in Congress. This decline is often seen as an unusual matter, but there were few moderates in Congress from the 1870s until the late 1920s. They emerged in both houses within the Democratic Party, because of a developing split within the party. Southern Democrats were once the base of the party, but found themselves in opposition to the growing Northern wing of the party over cultural issues such as race, immigration and alcohol. These issues split the party and pushed the Southern Democrats into moderate voting records. In later years moderates also emerged within the Republican Party as a result of a split within that party, with the Northeast wing moving from the core to moderate as the party changed. In each case, therefore, the former core of the party shifted to being the moderate wing. The paper will present trends in the presence of moderates overall and by party from 1900-2006, and then review and analyze the type of legislation that created splits and the rise of moderates within each party over time. The paper will explain the emergence of moderates and it will also indicate how internal party conflicts declined, resulting in the decline of moderates. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alfred Hitchock's Vertigo questioned many of the forced erasures of Chicano identity in the United States and inspires a contemporary questioning of these processes. These questions about erasure inform this essay and are important to many of the other texts analyzed in this essay, such as Sesshu Foster's Atomik Aztex. These questions about erasure also extends some of this questioning into a more expansive field considering some commonalities of oppressions that are singular to different marginalized groups. Using transnationalism and the border as a theme, this essay extends the questioning in cinematic, literary, lyrical, and visual texts to consider processes of what Balibar (1991) calls neo-racism (racism that is not based on phenotype). Balibar (1991) proposes that types of racism can shift from one group to another while remaining similar. For example European anti-Semitism and prejudice against North African Muslims follow the same patterns of behavior despite the fact that these two groups are often regarded as very different. While Balibar argues that the cause of the shift from neo-racism against Jews to neo-racism against Muslims is about economic crises built into Capitalism, this paper asks if there are also other causes both for a shift of neo-racism and for a shift against neo-racism? This paper also asks whether the texts analyzed may identify other groups subject to "neo-racism" that Balibar does not foreground? A third question is whether the conditions and effects of neo-racism could be turned back upon themselves into a precondition for empowerment of groups hitherto subject to neo-racism? In light of these questions, this essay states that the Chicana scholar, Gloria Anzaldúa's term La Facultdad, which states that marginalized people who survive the violence of marginalization are able to gain a way of seeing that empowers themselves, is a step toward making a shift against neo-racism that eventually renders powerless some of the conditions of neo-racism. Moreover, the term La Facultdad when applied to the texts considered helps to bring to the foreground new groups impacted by neo-racism such as trauma victims/the disabled, women, and silenced immigrant/diaspora populations. Although these groups may not have the same challenges or react in the same way, La Facultdad combined with an idea of neo-racism shows that these groups are targeted in the same manner. This targeting is shown by looking at their interaction with the nation-state in border regions. Moreover, La Facultdad helps to state that the experience of the groups mentioned above are worthy of consideration for dialogue about the border and process of nationalism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UNHCR is seen as an effective and authoritative international organization (IO) due to its ability to adapt to new problems and teach new normative understandings to states. Its success, however, is surprising for two reasons. The first of these is that when UNHCR was created in 1950, it was initially granted a strictly limited mandate and scant resources. The second is that prior to its creation, the institutional record had been decidedly mixed, most notably in the failure of IOs both inside and outside of the League of Nations to protect refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. In the post-Second World War period, while Western states recognized the need for a formal IO to protect refugees, they disagreed on the form that it should take. Why did UNHCR succeed when other IOs did not? This paper will suggest that the interwar IOs, while they introduced a number of crucial norms, were unable to get widespread state adoption due to discordance with domestic norms which reflected a widespread anti-immigration bias. After the Second World War, states more readily accepted humanitarian principles and the discordance slowly disappeared. Even so, an effective IO did not emerge until UNHCR succeeded in reframing refugee protection as a Cold War issue and by expanding it away from a Eurocentric basis to a global one. Thus this paper will argue that an IO's success as a norm entrepreneur can vary significantly. In order to be effective at reframing state identities, an IO's efforts must build on a preexisting concordance with domestic norms and culture. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Processes of global restructuring have fundamentally transformed the Mexican state and economy. In this context, the increase in rural-urban migration within Mexico and international migration to the US have had far-reaching impacts. This paper explores the links between processes of global restructuring and transformations of social reproduction in rural Mexican communities. Based on ethnographic fieldwork research in rural Mexico the paper analyses the changing forms of social reproduction, focusing on family dynamics and the role of the heteronormative family model, gendered divisions of labour within the family and the community; and changing forms of masculinity. Thus, for example, women face the triple burden of reproductive, productive and community work; children are abandoned by their parents and left in the care of other family or community members; big motor vehicles become a new way for (young) men to assert their masculinity, etc. The aim of the paper is twofold: to illustrate the complexity and multidimensionality of the crisis of social reproduction, and to show how forms of social reproduction in Mexico have been affected by global restructuring, and in return affect these processes in a mutually influencing relationship. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A conference paper about the economic and political influences on U.S. immigration policy is presented. It reviews existing scholarship on the determinants of support amongst the public and in the U.S. legislature for the liberalization of immigration. It explores theoretical perspectives that might explain votes on bills which help or hinder immigrants' attempts to enter and live in the U.S. It examines the roll call voting.

A conference paper about the regulation of immigration and noncitizens in the U.S. is presented. It discusses the United States' regulation of mass European immigration. It looks at the politics of Chinese exclusion in the state's regulation of immigration. It examines the regulation of immigration through employer sanctions.

Focusing on the experiences of Japan, the United States, and Sweden, the paper examines how differing conceptions of citizenship and moral personhood shape policy outcomes. The paper employs this analytic framework to interpret institutional variations in immigration politics, and to then show how these political factors affect each country's welfare policy. It argues that different kinds of policy assumptions are based on distinct political mythologies and their often-implicit philosophical traditions, and that these "moral parables of citizenship and personhood" provoke different kinds of immigrant activism. In Japan, this concept is framed in terms of purity and hierarchy. In the United States, the relevant terms involve civic features of citizens, and the abiding importance of freedom. Finally, in Sweden the abiding terms are a more substantive conception of equality, and again a concern with freedom. Thus Japan's "control policy," which treats immigrants as workers (rather than persons with equal moral standing to citizens) provides the greatest impetus for local activism through informal democratic institutions. In contrast, the United States' "assimilationist policy" and Sweden's "multicultural policy," both of which treat immigrants as potential citizens (albeit in very different ways), provide greater national activism through both formal and informal democratic organizations and processes. As a member of the European Union, Sweden is also witnessing activism at the supranational, multilateral level. As a result, Japan has a greater proportion of immigrant rights NGOs, the United States has more faith-based organizations, while Sweden has focused on immigrant ethnic associations. The paper then addresses how the institutional variations in immigration policies and activism have impacted each country's social welfare policies, particularly for immigrants. Japan's system of universal healthcare covers all except for "polluted" illegal foreigners while Sweden's universal healthcare treats everyone equally. The United States private healthcare system offers excellent services and choices to those who can pay while the government subsidizes faith-based organizations and other private institutions to provide free/low-cost health and welfare services to the needy, including the newly arrived and poor immigrants. These social welfare policies are consistent with each country's interpretation on the concept of the person and its immigration policy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critiques assimilation norms in mainstream immigration literature, including literature that views itself as progressive, on 3 levels: the economic lens with which nearly every aspect of immigration to the U.S. is viewed; the primacy of the nation-state in all accounts that is obfuscated, thereby obscuring undemocratic aspects of assimilation norms; and finally the legal context of reception that shapes immigrants' experiences and which must be taken into account when assessing the "success" of the assimilation process. More broadly, the idea that assimilation norms are peaceful, mutual, consensual (and so on) is questioned and very briefly, the paper argues for post-national citizenship. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the extent to which there has been a discursive shift in the debate over U.S. immigration policy from a right-based framework to a security-based framework. In addition to examining the discourse shaping the debate over U.S. immigration policy, the paper considers the extent to which norms that shape the debate over U.S. immigration policy have been effectively translated into legislation or implemented at the bureaucratic level. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1986, U.S. immigration authorities have sought to crack down on so-called "green card marriages"--unions undertaken for the purpose of securing legal permanent resident status for an alien spouse. This paper explores the legal grounds for official efforts to distinguish between real marriages and fraudulent ones. Beginning with a study of the nineteenth century origins of modern efforts to regulate immigration marriage fraud, the paper then considers the current context, disclosing two distinct standards for assessing the legitimacy of a marriage in play in U.S. law--one used by federal immigration officials, and another relied upon in state family law. I argue that the distinction drawn in immigration law between bona fide and fraudulent marriages is not just incoherent but unconstitutional. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on contemporary research on the changing and heterogeneous roles of international borders, this paper examines the geopolitics of borders. In addition to relating the disciplines of geography, sociology, and international relations to their analytical foci, I argue that the global mobility regime is undergoing a fundamental shift in strategy and tactics in light of the American war on terror. The 20th C global mobility regime was designed to reify state/national structures in a way that normalized Cold War geopolitics and decolonization -- which had the aim of liberalizing the global movement of persons. In the age of globalization: geographers have pointed to the disaggregation of territoriality; sociologists pointed to the delocalization of border functions; and international relations scholars examined the changing security/mobility dynamic. In this paper I analyze the ways in which America (as the hegemonic underwriter of the global mobility regime) and the ICAO (Int'l Civil Aviation Authority - as the bearer of norms and standards for international mobility) have reacted to the war on terror. Coupling a theoretical survey of border theory with the specific empirical cases of the American border and ICAO yield a fruitful examination of the current function and symbolism of international borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than fifty years have passed since V. O. Key wrote the closing chapter of his masterpiece, Southern Politics in State and Nation, in which he lists urbanization of the region as one of the factors that could cure the South of the politics of racial demagoguery which has plagued post-Reconstruction political debate in the former Confederacy. Although considerable urbanization has occurred in the South since 1950, the divisive politics of race have not disappeared. Much of the existing urban politics literature paints a pessimistic picture of growing distrust between groups of ethnic and racial minorities as they compete for scare jobs, housing, and government services is American cities. The weakness of this literature is that it looks at competition between well-established groups and blacks and other racial and ethnic minorities instead of the tripartite relationship between whites, blacks, and other minorities that now characterizes much of the South. The population makeup of Southern cities has changed dramatically since 1990 as a result of Latino immigration–the percentage of Latino inhabitants in North Carolina has increased by nearly 500 percent since that date. Using a carefully crafted pilot study of whites, African Americans, and Latinos in Durham, NC, we inquire as to the nature of inter-group relations in the South amid this massive demographic change. Using data from a survey of Durham, NC residents, we address several questions about the changing nature of Southern politics as a result of Latino immigration. NB: There are five more co-authors on this paper: Shayla D. Nunnally, Duke University Victoria M. DeFrancesco, Duke University Jason Johnson, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Gerald Lackey, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Jeffrey D. Grynaviski, University of Chicaco [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an active learning course entitled the United States, Mexico, and Immigration. The course sought to derive the benefits of an active learning course utilizing a service component. However, the authors argue that the course went beyond traditional service learning in two ways. First, it sought to deconstruct national identity by highlighting the socially constructed nature of nationalism. Second, the service aspect of the course intentionally aided undocumented Hispanic workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has increased trade and investment between Mexico and the U.S., it has not stemmed patterns of "illegal" migration. In fact, undocumented migration from Mexico to the U.S. has increased since NAFTA’s inception ten years ago. In the years following NAFTA?s implementation one could argue that trade liberalization would stimulate job growth in Mexico?s export sector, that wage levels would converge with those in the U.S. and as a result fewer Mexicans would seek employment in the U.S. Why then, did Mexican migration increase so rapidly during the decade of NAFTA?s realization? Has economic integration between the U.S. and Mexico done anything to stem the flow of unauthorized Mexican workers into the U.S.? This paper will address these questions by examining employment, income and productivity trends in Mexico?s export sector, and more specifically the maquiladora industry, as a way of determining the impact of NAFTA on employment opportunities for Mexican labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent release of US and Canadian census data has sparked interest among politicians, journalists, and researchers in imigrant dispersal outside major urban centers. This paper analyzes how collective meaning is constructed in media accounts of census information. We argue that the 2001 Canadian census has been used to construct an understanding of immigration that assumes federal intervention in immigrants’ settlement patterns; peresentationsof the 2000 US census construct immigration settlement as the outcome of choices made by individual immigrants and as local policy problems. In each country the construction of immigration dispersal omits alternative interpretations of its causes and effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a tide of immigrants has changed American society, there have been corresponding waves of speculation about how the immigration tide might transform the nature of race in America. Such a racial reconfiguration would likely have important consequences for American politics, given the central role race has played from the earliest years. Some hope for Jesse Jackson's "rainbow coalition," with people of color, other marginalized groups, and liberal whites joining together to create a political juggernaut. The 2008 and 2012 presidential election seemed to turn on just such a coalition, but it remains less certain how much this coalition shares a political perspective beyond an aversion for GOP presidential candidates. In this paper, I ask whether the foundations of Asian American politics are likely to orient Asian Americans toward political outlooks common to other communities of color. I argue that Asian Americans continue to be perceived through an immigrant frame, a perspective that can be beneficial and detrimental, but, in either case, is very different than the minority frame through which African Americans are perceived. Being framed differently by outsiders is not incompatible with being partners in an electoral coalition, but it might make it harder to reach agreement over public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]