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It is argued that immigration attitudes are driven both by individual circumstances as well as geographic conditions. Because recent immigrants to the United States have fewer skills they should not be seen as universally threatening. Instead, certain populations should be more threatened than others. The population standing to lose the most from low skill immigrants should be the working class. Consequently this group should be the most vociferous in their support for immigration restrictions. Therefore the primary driving force behind immigration attitudes is argued to stem from labor-market competition. .x000d.Furthermore, it makes little sense to say that all working class individuals bear the same burden. A working class individual in a small town in Iowa is unlikely to experience the same threat from immigrants as an individual in Queens NY. Not living in close proximity to immigrants makes it difficult to argue they threaten an individual’s job prospects. Consequently, contextual geographic information should play a significant role in illuminating this competition. Using NES data this paper will investigate both the role of labor market competition as well as immigrant proximity in the determination of these relevant attitudes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a survey experiment to assess how imagery can serve to "prime" either more or less inclusive attitudes about immigrants and immigration policy. Specifically, we examine two partially competing hypotheses: the first, based on the Common In-Group Identity Model, is that respondents will view protesters waving the American flag more favorably than those who do not, and in turn be more accepting of immigration. This effect should be heightened among patriots, for whom the Stars and Stripes are most meaningful. The second is that any image of immigrants protesting, regardless of the flags they are flying, will provoke a backlash in terms of attitudes among survey respondents. This should be especially true for national chauvinists, who are more likely to view the protests as threatening to the nation. We find little or no evidence for the first of these, but strong evidence in favor of the second. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the centrality of race in U.S. immigration policy. We analyze immigration policy in the U.S. over time and suggest that race has been, and remains, a central component in any debates about immigration. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

En Route to Aztlán: The Struggle of Mexicans for Political Spaces in New Yorktitlán In 1965, the US eliminated restrictive and discriminatory criteria for the admission of immigrants in concordance with the domestic improvements in civil rights and the new foreign policy emphasis on establishing relations with newly independent developing countries. At the same time, with the termination of the Bracero Program in 1964, undocumented migration (mostly from Mexico) started to increase. In March 2002, according to the Census Bureau, the foreign-born population in the US was 32.5 million, representing 11.5 percent of the total population. More than one third of this population came from Mexico and Central American countries. Also, from the total foreign-born population from Latin America, two thirds was originally from Mexico. Further, the Latino foreign born population has experienced an exponential growth: in 1990 there were 8.4 million Latinos, that is 44.3 percent of the total foreign-born population, while in 1980 they represented only one third and in the 1970’s just one fifth. These figures show that the influx of immigrants towards the US in the last 30 years has been explosive, especially from Latin America. Some work has been written on the political incorporation of immigrants but very little scholarship has been produced on the Mexican-origin community, specifically in the New York City metro area. This paper seeks to fill this gap in the literature by studying how Mexican civic and religious associations in New York City have tried to incorporate their members into the American society. In this paper I will expound on the characteristics of the most notable Mexican NGO in New York, the Tepeyac Association, and explain which factors within this organization have encouraged a religiously based political mobilization. I contend that, as of today, the association’s function as a political mobilizing agent is much more important than its spiritual role. I will go on to examine briefly some of the other Mexican organizations in New York City and their role in the incorporation of Mexicans into the American political system. Regarding the Tepeyac, I am interested in solving three puzzles. First, why has the Tepeyac, a religious association, had an unprecedented success in politically organizing Mexican-Americans and first generation Mexican immigrants (most of them undocumented) in New York City? Second, what are the incentives for Mexicans living in New York to join an association such as the Tepeyac and not other associations that could have more leverage within the American polity? And third, which other factors are promoting their political mobilization? Some of the factors that I will explore are the power of the New York Catholic Church, transnational immigration policies, the opening of the Mexican economy and the liberalization of the political system (a process that started in the mid 1980’s and consolidated in the second half of the 1990’s), the changing role of the Mexican Consulates and the establishment of the Mexican Cultural Institutes throughout the US, and the newly formed Institute for Mexicans Living Abroad. Further, I am also interested in analyzing the role that other organizations in New York have in the process of political (or at least civic) incorporation of Mexicans into the American polity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a recent field research experience that documented transnational migrant experiences of criminal predation and government attempts to respond, this paper explores the impact illegal hiring patterns on immigrant populations and, more broadly, the effectiveness of state security in balancing individual and state interests. Once undocumented migrants leave their country of origin.x000d.and the citizenship rights guaranteed therein, they enter a sort of legal limbo where the choice and process to report crimes committed against them represents a serious risk to their exposure as a person without legal permission to be in the host country. As a result, key sites along the migratory route become zones that are effectively lawless for migrants. Once in the United States, migrants fall prey to employers who knowingly exploit undocumented workers in a pattern of illegal hiring practices. When the paradigms of state sovereignty and individual human rights come into conflict over the process of migration, how can U.S. policy accommodate both ideals? Ultimately, this paper exposes a site of state-individual conflict through the process of migration, deportation, and the interaction between state policy and migrant populations. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The three traditional components of community sustainability are economic, social, and environmental health. This paper argues, however, in light of recent migration trends and their subsequent increase in urban development in and around areas prone to natural hazards in the United States, it is imperative that a fourth component, community resiliency, now be considered a fundamental element of sustainability. Community resiliency, cultivated through natural hazard mitigation measures intended to strengthen a community's resistance to natural disasters, contends with issues that cut across social, economic, and environmental lines. Policy makers, community leaders, and the general public can not afford to disregard this emergent component of sustainability. This paper identifies recent migration trends within the United States and their implications for hazard risk and vulnerability. It shows that the broad community objectives of economic development, social well-being, environmental health and resource protection are intimately linked with a community's capacity to reduce or eliminate long-term risk to people and property from hazards-related disasters. It asserts that true sustainable development applies the principles of sustainability to the practice of hazards mitigation. This paper examines the current approach towards development in the United States and the premises for which coping with natural hazards is based, and argues that it disregards the relationship between sustainability, social resiliency, and loss reduction. It addresses the connections between changes in land use, settlement policies, population distributions and the associated ecological degradation and dramatically increased levels of hazard exposure and vulnerability. Finally, this paper presents a vision of sustainable communities with disaster resilience as a key element and discusses the necessary policy initiatives for its facilitation and implementation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political theorists agree that there are few notions more central in politics than citizenship. Throughout United States history, multiple racial and ethnic groups have struggled for political membership and enfranchisement. Specifically, I plan to outline how nativist ideologies in the United States have contributed to a specific discourse on immigration that strategically aligns African Americans with White Americans. This apparent alignment not only serves to validate the argument that immigration is a threat to American citizens, but also provides African Americans with a form of symbolic power, that legitimizes their claims against illegal immigration, when their voice historically has received no legitimacy. The citizenship status of Latino immigrants has created a particular kind of dialogue between African Americans and Latinos. More importantly for this paper, I argue that the different notions and framings of citizenship are important factors to understand what causes Blacks and Latinos to become so polarized. Methodologically, these questions will be quantitatively analyzed.Using the 2007 Los Angeles County Survey, I will analyze how African Americans’ respond to various questions on Latinos and Latino immigration. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a broadly constructed view of American culture from which we analyze debates surrounding immigration. This construction provides a more thorough understanding of immigration and appropriate immigration policy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to examine the causes and outcomes of the influx of immigrants in the European Union and the United States from 1995 to 2005. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration policy has emerged as an important policy debate across theOECD countries, yet it remains relatively under explored in political science.To date, the majority of the work in political science and economics focuseson questions of what determines individual preferences on immigration policy.This paper seeks to insert the legislative process into the analysis by examiningwhat determines the vote of senators on immigration reforms. I treatmigration as a globalization phenomenon that can be explained with similarmodels to the ones utilized to study trade. I build a migration score based onthe thirty nine roll call votings on immigration reform from the Senate in the190th United States Congress using the same methodology as Hix and Noury(2007). I find that the proportion of manufacture employment in the state andthe skill level of the population are significant determinants of immigrationpolicy, consistent with the Stolper-Samuelson findings for trade policy. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers whether immigration is an issue that evolves, beginningin the 1990s. It is argued that whenever the immigrant population can be associ-ated with high costs, then policy entrepreneurs will start the evolution process bydwelling on the cost symbol. This idea is tested by comparing partisan polariza-tion for the entire United States, for the seven states that incurred a net deficit inspending on immigrants, and for California alone. As hypothesized, polarizationincreases the most in California, though not in a way that suggests issue evolution. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the U.S. immigration regime of Chinese Exclusion, 1882 to 1943, to understand the refining of state administrative capabilities. Theoretically and empirically, it contributes to American Political Development historiography. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines pre- and post-September 11th attitudes toward immigration. We find that in contrast to the pre-September 11th era, moral conservatism and racial resentment strongly influence attitudes toward immigration. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether an adoption of American identity is associated with an acceptation of conservative racial attitudes, and explores determinants of Asians? racial attitudes associating with their immigration backgrounds. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the 2004 American National Election Study, I develop models that explore the factors that determine why some Americans support and why some oppose increased immigration. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research allows us to determine if and how the act of crossing the border and shifting from a potential migrant to an actual immigrant changes ones opinion of how the United States treats and welcomes immigrants. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]