Congress and Immigration Policy: A Study of the Member-level Motivations and Agenda Setting Strategies Surrounding Immigration Reform

Abstract

This dissertation project unpacks a micro- and macro-level behavioral quandary: the constraint of member-level motivations on majority party agenda setting strategies, existing in policy contexts that generate internal divisions within political parties. In particular, I do this through the lens of immigration reform. At the micro-level, I explore the district-level mechanisms that drive House members’ voting behavior on roll-calls that expand/contract immigration rights. I argue that the existing decision-making literature on immigration policy has paid scant attention to an important district-level factor: industry demand for immigrant labor. Models of legislative behavior surrounding immigration policy have, to date, largely focused on the descriptive characteristics of constituencies, often overlooking the moneyed interests that benefit from immigrant labor. The micro-level examines the interplay between district-level industry preferences and district-level economic concerns relating to the presence of immigrants (e.g., welfare, healthcare, low-skill labor market). I analyze final passage, immigration-related roll-calls during the 88th to 112th Congresses. I find that the greater the district-level industry demand for immigrant labor, the more likely a House member is to expand immigration rights generally; and, as days to an election decrease, this effect is magnified. Furthermore, the member’s party affiliation offers less predictive power (relative to other policy domains) regarding the member’s support/opposition to expanding immigration rights, especially in the modern era; thus, making parties unstable coalitions in immigration policy. At the macro-level, I further examine the consequences of these individual-level forces on agenda setting strategies. I unpack the strategic considerations of U.S. House majorities in structuring the agenda on immigration reform. Subject to multiple, potentially competing principals, rank-and-file legislators often face difficult countervailing forces in this policy domain (e.g., well-organized lobbies, advocacy groups, and constituency pressures), all of which generate internal divisions within political parties. These divisions present unique challenges to party leaders when setting the legislative agenda, as they seek to forward legislation that is likely to yield policy victories to a (relatively) cohesive majority party. Under what conditions, then, does the majority party push immigration bills to the floor? I rely on the logic of a cartelized agenda and conduct a multinomial logistic regression analysis, arguing that individual-level dynamics affect support for policies, and the results of variation at the aggregate-level increase support for bills to make it onto the agenda. My findings support aid argument and offer important insights into the incremental changes that occur in the immigration policy domain. In totality, this project helps to bridge the legislative behavior and agenda setting literatures with the literature on public policy. I look at these literatures through the lens of immigration policy – a unique and salient domain.