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This paper begins a project of a "value-critical" policy analysis of the U.S. approach to immigrant settlement policy. After describing this approach to policy analysis, the paper argues that the U.S. approach to immigrant settlement policy - described herein as punitive, assimilative, and laissez-faire - is based on an inaccurate and distorted understanding of the social and historical context within which international migration to the United States takes place. That false understanding is one in which the United States is understood to be a passive recipient of immigrants, bearing no causal role in the generation of immigrants. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of the large-scale post-1965 immigration on efforts to employ public policy to gain greater ethno-racial equality in the United States. The paper uses interpretive methods of political analysis to claim that recent immigrants have not been a major factor - though clearly they have been used rhetorically and politically - in the reversal of fortune for the "Second Reconstruction" in American politics since the late 1960s. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]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 ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]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 analyzes newspaper coverage of immigration reform in mainstream English-language newspapers prior to, and following passage of immigration reform legislation by the US House of Representatives in December, 2005. The purpose of this project is twofold: 1) To illuminate the media's participation in the social construction of the policy "problem" and acceptable "solutions" to it; 2) To illuminate how the social construction of the policy problem and solution contributes to the social construction of a particular group of people in America, namely Latino immigrants. The analysis presented here is based upon a qualitative analysis of a large random sample of newspaper articles published in the northeast and southwest United States during August 2005, April 2006, and October 2006. The analysis reveals both consistency and significant changes in the news coverage of immigration reform between April 2005 and October 2006. I discuss two key findings at length. First, changes in coverage between August 2005 and October 2006 portray an expansion in the terms of the debate about immigration reform that has proven significant in the course of the policy's development. Second, while many articles fail to explain the need for immigration reform, the coverage generally portrays the problem as "illegal immigrants" from south of the US-Mexican border. This portrayal contributes to the social construction of Latinos as the Other. This project therefore enhances our understanding of the social construction of immigration policy and its subjects, and the print media's contribution to this process. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current body of scholarship on the political incorporation of Latinos in the United States overlooks a key cohort: young immigrants. This paper seeks to address this gap by systematically analyzing, through multivariate analyses, the political orientations and behaviors of Latino immigrant youth, including a comparative examination of the three most studied Hispanic subpopulations: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans. While many policy makers have voiced concerns about the political incorporation of Latin American immigrants, our results suggest that most first- and second-generation Latino immigrant youth report few suspicions of government institutions and processes, high levels of support for economic individualism, and significant levels of engagement in electoral processes. Taken together, the study points a high degree of political incorporation among young Latino immigrants with only modest and inconsistent differences among the major national subgroups. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the immigration policy of the U.S. regarding illegal Mexicans living in the country. Presented are the theoretical frameworks identified as relevant to establish if there is a perception gap in U.S. immigration policy. It stresses that as long as there is a perception gap, the illegal immigrants will keep on entering the U.S., and suggests engaging U.S. foreign policy process with an informed Latino perspective in order to close this perception gap.

The article examines why Latinos are more trusting of the U.S. federal government as compared to Anglos and African Americans. The importance of discrimination and generational status in predicting the levels of Latinos' political trust is noted. It is argued that the heavy flow of immigration by Latinos has changed their population in such a way that the views of the foreign-born are disproportionately represented in survey questions concerning government trust.

The article presents a discussion about the media coverage of illegal immigration in the U.S. It is noted that lives of people residing in state along the U.S.-Mexico border are affected by incidents of illegal immigration. Gallup public opinion data from January to December 2006 revealed that the public sees illegal immigration as a significant problem in the country.

Intense debates in the United States over immigration often coincide with each wave of mass immigration. The last two decades have witnessed the largest number of immigrants admitted to the US. In addition to increases in legal immigration, there has been a dramatic increase in undocumented immigrants, which by some estimates has grown to over 11 million. The increase in "legal" and "illegal" immigration has predictably resulted in a backlash toward immigrants and current US immigration policy which many consider to be broken. In response to this backlash, in 2005 the House of Representatives passed HR 4437, which sought to create a 700 mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border and criminalize undocumented immigrants and persons assisting them. Politicos and media elites were taken by surprise when in the spring of 2006 over a million immigrants and immigrant-rights advocates took to the streets in protest of these draconian measures. In light of these dramatic events, this study seeks to examine the factors shaping American public opinion toward undocumented immigrants and US immigration policy. Current studies on attitudes toward immigration largely consider the role of economic motives, inter-group contact, affect, and symbolic orientations (Pantoja 2006a, 2006b; Binder, Polinard, and Wrinkle 1997; Hood and Morris 1997; Citrin, Green, Muste and Wong 1997; Espenshade and Hempstead 1996; Espenshade and Calhoun 1993). Each of these studies has advanced our understanding of the factors underlying opinion formation toward immigrants and US immigration policy. However, given data limitations, most have not examined how media framing influences immigration attitudes. Furthermore, since many studies were conducted pre-9/11, we know little about how national security concerns influence attitudes toward immigration. This study overcomes these issues by proposing an experimental design to test the effects of differing frames (Druckman 2004) in shaping public opinion toward undocumented immigrants and immigration policies. Subjects are assigned to one of six conditions: a control group, a national security frame, an economic benefit frame, an economic cost frame, a social instability frame, and a historical tradition frame. We hypothesize that those who receive a positive frame (economic benefits and historical tradition) will have more favorable views towards undocumented immigrants and be more supportive of progressive immigration reform relative to those who receive a negative frame (economic cost, social instability, and national security). We treat each frame separately to see whether some frames carry a stronger effect than others in influencing the ingredients of evaluations and opinions on immigration. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]