Summary:
On May 2, the Republican-controlled legislature sent a bill to the governor’s desk that would ban sanctuary cities state-wide. In sanctuary cities, the county police declines federal requests to hold undocumented immigrants in jail due to their undocumented status. While interest groups including the Florida Immigrant Coalition have fought long and hard against this legislation, these harsh immigration policies can present a unique moment of political opportunity for voter mobilization going forward, especially in areas like South Florida that are made up of such a large percentage of non-white and foreign born residents. Research conducted by Ariel White shows that policies that specifically target undocumented immigrants can lead to a 2-3 percentage point increase in Latino voter turnout. Further, the results of this study are directly applicable to Florida’s new sanctuary cities legislation. In addition, there is also evidence of the powerful impact that such racially targeted policies can have on white voters as well. Shaun Bowler, Stephen P. Nicholson, and Gary M. Segura study how even though individual partisan changes are infrequent and difficult to force, racially charged policies that specifically target immigrant communities can have the effect of creating partisan change within the white racial majority. Lastly, interest groups such as the Florida Immigrant Coalition is a unique position to create this partisan change. García-Castañon et al show that mobilization can be through repeated, more intense contact, co-ethnic contact from those within the immigrant community, and through non-partisan actors.
Full text:
On May 2, as Florida’s 60 day legislative period was drawing to a close, the Republican-controlled legislature sent a bill to the governor’s desk that would ban sanctuary cities state-wide. In a state where 1 in 5 residents is an immigrant, Florida will soon enact one of the strictest sanctuary city laws in the country. The final governor’s signature is all but certain, given that Florida’s new Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, made banning sanctuary cities a key campaign promise.
In sanctuary cities, the county police declines federal requests to hold undocumented immigrants in jail due to their undocumented status. One of Florida’s largest sanctuary cities was, for a long time, Miami, which makes up a large portion of Florida’s 24th congressional district, a district that is 44% foreign born and 39% Latino. The final version of the bill passed by the Florida legislature requires local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, making it so that detained undocumented immigrants would need to wait for ICE to begin the deportation process after being detained for a crime, instead of being released after their criminal proceedings finish.
While interest groups including the Florida Immigrant Coalition have fought long and hard against this legislation only to be faced with a disappointing and disheartening result, these harsh immigration policies can present a unique moment of political opportunity for voter mobilization going forward, especially in areas like South Florida that are made up of such a large percentage of non-white and foreign born residents.
Research conducted by Ariel White shows that policies that specifically target undocumented immigrants can lead to a 2-3 percentage point increase in Latino voter turnout. This study is unique, as it shows a direct link between policies that only directly affect undocumented immigrants on the political actions of citizens, who by definition cannot be deported for undocumented status. Further, the results of this study are directly applicable to Florida’s new sanctuary cities legislation. White studies the effects of the Secure Communities program, which also increased local-federal immigration cooperation over undocumented immigrants. She identifies two mechanisms to explain increased voter turnout. First is feelings of personal threat, where Latino citizens feel threatened because deportation impacts the Latino community as a whole, not just the individuals. Second, activist mobilization grew in the wake of these policies. Interest groups similar to the Florida Immigrant Coalition used the Secure Communities policies to target Latino voters and encourage turnout. Both of these mechanisms are present in a Florida that just passed legislation that will increase deportations and making immigrant communities less safe, and interest groups such as the Florida Immigrant Coalition should turn these political threats into political action.
In addition, there is also evidence of the powerful impact that such racially targeted policies can have on white voters as well. Shaun Bowler, Stephen P. Nicholson, and Gary M. Segura study how even though individual partisan changes are infrequent and difficult to force, racially charged policies that specifically target immigrant communities can have the effect of creating partisan change within the white racial majority. In this study, three propositions during the 1990s in California restricting the rights of undocumented immigrants have the effect of violating the norm of racial equity and creating backlash within the Republican party, resulting in greater Democratic party identification. This research calls into question the long term strategy of the GOP in Florida. The ban on sanctuary cities may fit the short-term political needs of a highly politicized issue, often referenced by President Trump to stoke fear of immigrants within his base. However, similar to the case that Bowler et al studied, it is possible that the GOP will not benefit in the long term from raising the salience of immigration with such clearly racialized policies.
Lastly, interest groups such as the Florida Immigrant Coalition is a unique position to create this partisan change. A wide collection of research focuses on the unique role that interest groups can play in voter mobilization. Marcela García-Castañon, Kiku Huckle, Hannah Walker, and Chinbo Chong offer methods through which interest groups allow these voter mobilization efforts to be successful. The research shows that a key difference in the impact of the mobilization process between political parties and interest groups is the focus on organization. Interest groups often teach immigrants not just to be politically active, but rather teach how to participate and build a framework for sustained civic engagement. This can be achieved, they show, through repeated, more intense contact, co-ethnic contact from those within the immigrant community, and through non-partisan actors. The Florida Immigrant Coalition can utilize these strategies to have a tangible impact on voting behaviors in the wake of the sanctuary cities ban.
The legislation passed by the Florida legislature is disappointing and cruel for undocumented immigrants and their communities. However, going forward, the Florida Immigrant Coalition should use this political moment to rally support for the immigrant community. By using targeted voter mobilization efforts and reminding voters of the attacks on immigrant families from Florida legislators, we have an opportunity to fight back in the future.
This is a nice advocacy report to the Florida Immigrant Coalition active in Florida’s 24th Congressional District. Currently, the Florida Legislature is currently very likely to sign in a bill banning sanctuary cities. She argues that while this is cruel and disappointing for undocumented immigrants and their communities, going forward, the Florida Immigrant Coalition should use this upset to build political momentum to rally support for the immigrant community via targeted voter. I appreciate Kavya’s effort to argue for hope in a very dismal situation.
She establishes that given the governer’s proposals during his campaign, he is very likely to sign this bill into law. She frames this loss for immigration advocates as a new opportunity. White shows that policies that target undocumented immigrants can lead to an increase in Latino turnout and activist mobilization is one of the major. Similarly, a Bowler et al. study, partisan changes for white voters can sometimes be provoked by radical policies. Kavya argues, that in light of prior research, interest groups can lead this charge. As shown in Garcia-Castañon et al study, they can teach immigrants not just to be politically active, but to build a framework for sustained civic engagement. She establishes this point well, but she could have also drawn on studies by Anderson and De Graaw on work of nonprofits. Overall, I found this pretty convincing and I hope that advocacy organizations are able to extend their work to targeted voter mobilization.
The main argument of this advocacy report is that, given that Florida is on the verge of banning sanctuary cities, the Florida Immigrant Coalition should view this not as a defeat, but rather as a political opportunity to increase mobilization. On the first point (that enforcement policies tend to lead to increased Latino voter turnout), I strongly agree that this is an opportunity to mobilize immigrant/minority voters as much as possible. However, on the second point (that harsh enforcement could flip the partisanship of white voters), I am unconvinced. While in the past (such as the example of California) this may have been true, the Trump era of politics is notably different. Newman et al. specifically mentions how, despite the fact that Trump has consistently violated norms of racial tolerance, his poll numbers throughout his campaign actually improved (2018). Following the conclusions of this study (namely that growth of immigrant/Latino populations coupled with elite cues led to greater salience of immigration), I would warn that the opposite effect might occur. If immigrant/Latino populations mobilize in greater numbers than before, coupled with the constant stream of inflammatory immigrant rhetoric coming from political representatives, White populations in FL-24 may actually be incensed against immigrants. Finally, on the last point, I agree that the Florida Immigrant Coalition is in a good position to mobilize voters, especially if they can utilize co-ethnic contact. Overall, I agree with the premise that this loss, while disappointing, presents a good opportunity to mobilize Latino/immigrant populations, and I agree that the Florida Immigrant Coalition is in a good position to do so. My only reservations are about the (admittedly small) White population.
This presentation’s main takeaway is that the Florida Immigration Coalition (FIC), a nonprofit based in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area, should leverage the state’s imminent sanctuary city ban to make targeted voter mobilization efforts with immigrant voter bases. I agree with Kavya, and I think her recommendation provides a hopeful silver lining for a negative legislative proposal. She provides a lot of good evidence from the literature to back up her claims. First, she shows that policies that target undocumented immigrants can lead to increased Latino voter turnout (White 2016). She shows that the South Florida area has a large base of immigrants (it is 44% immigrants and predominantly Black and Latino) available to be mobilized. Finally, she argues that nonprofit organizations like FIC have unique power and positionality in their communities to conduct effective immigrant outreach (García-Castañon et al. 2019). Kavya’s presentation highlighted to me that pro-immigrant organizations can still find opportunities for positive policy change when negative, regressive immigration policies are passed.