Synopses & Reviews
The United States deported nearly two million illegal immigrants during the first five years of the Obama presidencyandmdash;more than any previous administration. President Obama stands accused by activists of being andldquo;deporter in chief.andrdquo; Yet despite efforts to rebuild what many see as a broken system, the president has not yet been able to convince Congress to pass new immigration legislation, and his record remains rooted in a political landscape that was created long before his election. Deportation numbers have actually been on the rise since 1996 when two federal statutes sought to delegate a portion of the responsibilities for immigration enforcement to local authorities.
Policing Immigrants traces the transition of immigration enforcement from a traditionally federal power exercised primarily near the US borders to a patchwork system of local policing that extends throughout the countryandrsquo;s interior. As federal authorities set local law enforcement to the task of bringing suspected illegal immigrants to the federal governmentandrsquo;s attention, local responses have varied. While some localities have resisted the work, others have aggressively sought out unauthorized immigrants, often seeking to further their own objectives by putting their own stamp on immigration policing. Tellingly, how a community responds can best be predicted not by conditions like crime rates or the state of the local economy but rather by the level of conservatism among local voters. What has resulted, the authors argue, is a system that is neither just nor effectiveandmdash;a system that threatens the core crime-fighting mission of policing by promoting racial profiling, creating fear in immigrant communities, and undermining the critical community-based function of local policing.
Review
andldquo;
The Politics of Belongingand#160;makes a profound contribution to the research on public opinion and immigration. Theoretically rich and innovative, it tackles the subject matter in an original and thought-provoking manner, deftly weaving a historical narrative of the creation of Americaandrsquo;s immigration laws with the countryandrsquo;s racial hierarchy. Against this backdrop, Natalie R. Masuoka and Jane Junn offer a wealth of data to argue convincingly that public opinion on immigration is a reflection of racial attitudes.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;
The Politics of Belonging offers a timely, important, and forceful argument for how race and ethnicity structure the publicandrsquo;s understandings of American identity, racial/ethnic identity, and immigration policy. Natalie Masuoka and Jane Junn argue persuasively that a groupandrsquo;s position in the American social, economic, and political hierarchy influences how group members arrive at their views of who counts as an American and what shape immigration policy ought to take.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Natalie Masuoka and Jane Junn pose the central political question in an era of global immigration: Who should belong inside a nation? Taking a social structural approach that incorporates racial hierarchy and group position theory, they embed public opinion in a broader historical account of law and institutional practices. And in analyzing the contrasting dynamics of opinion across Americaandrsquo;s main ethnic and racial groups, they uncover the crucial moderating role played by group identities. The result is the most thorough and authoritative account of public opinion about immigration yet to be done.andrdquo;
Review
"Masuoka and Junn's,The Politics of Belonging . . . covers new ground on understanding the attitudes and political beliefs of communities that are often left out of national discussions of politics. [An] important read."
Review
and#8220;Masuoka and Junn focus on American structural racism, particularly as it relates to immigration policy. . . . They persuasively argue that this structure is invisible to those who belong but clearly visible to those who have been deemed excluded, rendered invisible. . . . [The authors] write so clearly that this book is accessible to and recommended to all levels of readers.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Thereand#8217;s a consistent level of nuance and innovation in [The Politics of Belonging] that I find remarkable. . . . This book opens the door for new theories and new methods precisely because it asks us larger questions about how, when, and why researchers see meaningful boundaries between and within groups. In doing so, it makes the study of public opinion more complex, which is a welcome development indeed.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;When studying public opinion regarding immigration, scholars tend to focus on the effect of partisanship or ideology on Americansand#8217;policy preferences. Rarely do political scientists consider factors like race or ethnicity as anything other than a simple control variable in the analysis. In The Politics of Belonging, however, Masuoka and Junn move the study of racial identity to centerstage by arguing that the distinct historical experiences of Americaand#8217;s largest racial groupsand#8212;whites, African Americans, Latinos, and Asiansand#8212;shape important differences in their attitudes toward immigration. But The Politics of Belonging is much more than a book about immigration; instead, it is a study of intergroup relations and the effects of the perceived racial hierarchy in American society. . . . A must-read.and#8221;
Review
and#160;andldquo;An original and important contribution to an understanding of immigration policy attitudes. . . . Masuoka and Junn provide a rich theoretical story of how oneandrsquo;s position in the American racial hierarchy influences oneandrsquo;s sense of belonging, which in turn affects opinions on immigration policy. The text deftly weaves together the development of the argument, with support backed up with empirics. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding opinions on immigration, but the contribution goes well beyond that.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Policing Immigrants is one of the few books to comprehensively analyze the devolution of immigration enforcement into the andlsquo;patchworkandrsquo; of policies and practices that defines contemporary immigration policy in the United States. Drawing on a large cache of original data, the authors trace in careful detail the historical development of the variations across local jurisdictions and provide clear and in-depth analysis of devolution is proceeding, including the challenges and implications. The book makes an important contribution.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;How to address immigration is among the most significant political issues in the United States. With the political parties increasingly polarized on whether or how to integrate the eleven million undocumented immigrants presently in the country, Policing Immigrants makes a major contribution to our understanding of US legal policy on immigration and will contribute to the debate for years to come. No other book so well describes the dramatic variations in local immigration enforcement or the implications for local communities and federal policy.andrdquo;
Synopsis
The United States is once again experiencing a major influx of immigrants. Questions about who should be admitted and what benefits should be afforded to new members of the polity are among the most divisive and controversial contemporary political issues.
Using an impressive array of evidence from national surveys, The Politics of Belonging illuminates patterns of public opinion on immigration and explains why Americans hold the attitudes they do. Rather than simply characterizing Americans as either nativist or nonnativist, this book argues that controversies over immigration policy are best understood as questions over political membership and belonging to the nation. The relationship between citizenship, race, and immigration drive the politics of belonging in the United States and represents a dynamism central to understanding patterns of contemporary public opinion on immigration policy. Beginning with a historical analysis, this book documents why this is the case by tracing the development of immigration and naturalization law, institutional practices, and the formation of the American racial hierarchy. Then, through a comparative analysis of public opinion among white, black, Latino, and Asian Americans, it identifies and tests the critical moderating role of racial categorization and group identity on variation in public opinion on immigration.
Synopsis
As the controversies surrounding President Obamaand#8217;s immigration enforcement policies demonstrate, we tend to examine the immigration dilemma from the top down. Reflecting their backgrounds in law and society studies, Doris Marie Provine and her coauthors instead examine conflicts from the bottom up, focusing on the interactions among local communities, local law enforcement officials, and immigrants and their advocates. For over a century, the federal government had virtually sole authority over immigrant admission and enforcement policy. But the adoption of two federal statutes in 1996 specifically delegated some federal immigration enforcement powers to the local level. and#147;Policing Immigrantsand#8221;is the first book-length study of the this ongoing, turbulent experiment in immigration federalism: its history, its consequences, and the problems it has created. Provine and her coauthors draw upon seven case studies of communities that vary in size, in their political leanings, their economies, and in their location (from Arizona and Texas to Oregon and Connecticut). These studies are integrated with data from three national surveys of local law enforcement executives: police chiefs in large cities, chiefs in smaller communities (suburban and rural), and county sheriffs. Their findings are both fascinating and disturbing--they show, for example, how the enforcement-based approach that the federal government has taken since the late 1990s conflicts with local law enforcementand#8217;s commitment to the principle of community-oriented policing. Tellingly, the intensity of local policies is best predicted, not by objective community conditions such as crime rates of demographic shifts, but rather by the degree of conservatism among local voters, leading to a and#147;race to the bottomand#8221; in enacting extreme measures. In brief, the authors find that the current system is neither just nor effective and that the community-engaging function of local policing is undermined by, and incompatible with, enforcing federal immigration law.
About the Author
Doris Marie Provine is professor emerita in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. She is the author of several books, including Unequal under Law and Judging Credentials, both also published by the University of Chicago Press.Monica W. Varsanyi is associate professor of political science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, and on the doctoral faculties of geography and criminal justice at the CUNY Graduate Center.Paul G. Lewis is associate professor in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University.Scott H. Decker is the Foundation Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University.
Table of Contents
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Conditional Welcome
Chapter 1and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Public Opinion through a Racial Prism
Chapter 2and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Development of the American Racial Hierarchy: Race, Immigration, and Citizenship
Chapter 3and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Pictures in Our Heads: The Content and Application of Racial Stereotypes
Chapter 4and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Perceptions of Belonging: Race and Group Membership
Chapter 5and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Racial Prism of Group Identity: Antecedents to Attitudes on Immigration
Chapter 6and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Framing Immigration: and#8220;Illegalityand#8221; and the Role of Political Communicationand#160;Conclusion: The Politics of Belonging and the Future of US Immigration Policyand#160;Notes
References
Index