When Organizations Matter

Abstract

Increasingly, scholars have argued that immigration politics are inseparable from racial politics, which implies that organizations and individuals who mobilize around racial group interests influence racial and immigration attitudes and behaviors. How does the racialpolitical context influence anti-immigration lawmaking? In what ways does this influence vary at different stages of lawmaking? To address these questions, we combine comprehensive datasets of racially conservative organizations and state immigrant legislation and use negative binomial regression to estimate the count of anti-immigrant bills and laws in the fifty states from 1991 to 2010. We find that the presence of racially conservative organizations encourages the introduction of exclusionary proposals, but only in contexts with a Republicandominated government. At the approval stage, on the other hand, racially conservative organizations foster the passage of exclusionary laws, and this effect is heightened in contexts with a growing foreign-born population or where a majority of voters report antiimmigrant opinions or identify as conservative. This indicates that the institutionalization of the colorblind racial ideology (in the form of racially conservative organizations) resonates with lawmakers, but in a different manner when the stakes are higher. These findings have important implications and challenge previous research on the conditions under which advocacy organizations influence lawmaking and additional forms of group behavior.

Anti-Immigrant Ordinances and Discrimination in New and Established Destinations

“…Here, we see that reports of discrimination are lower in new destination counties (counties that experienced above average growth rates in the Mexican-origin population) that also experienced an exclusionary ordinance (see Figure 2). According to previous research, an increase in perceived threats among the dominant group appears to have more to do with change (growth rates) than the share of a racially minority population (Ebert et al, in press; Hopkins, 2010; Newman, Johnston, Strickland, & Citrin, 2012; Ramakrishnan & Wong, 2010; Walker & Leitner, 2011). As such, we would expect that if local political elites provide legitimacy for perceived threats to the dominant group in established destinations that activate discriminatory actions against Mexican Americans, then this process would also occur in counties experiencing rapid change in the population reporting Mexican ancestry.…”

“…Immigrants and their children seek the promise of upward mobility against the headwinds of economic uncertainty and discrimination from U.S.-born individuals and political elites (Bohon, Conley, & Brown, 2014; Silver, 2014). The enactment of exclusionary laws—laws that restrict the rights of and services accorded to immigrant groups—in states such as Alabama and Arizona has raised concerns that immigrant communities will face increased hardship as a result (Ebert, Estrada, & Lore, in press). Indeed, past research has found that restrictive climates and discriminatory experiences lead to inequalities in multiple arenas, such as political participation (De la Garza & Vaughan, 1984) and socioeconomic mobility (Silver, 2014; Turney & Kao, 2009).…”