Kavya Chaturvedi – Immigration Politics, Policymaking in the U.S.

Author: Kavya Chaturvedi

The Florida Immigrant Coalition’s Role After Florida’s Ban on Sanctuary Cities

May 16, 2019 / Kavya Chaturvedi / 3 Comments

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 24^th 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.

FL-24 Media Content Analysis

May 14, 2019 / Kavya Chaturvedi / 0 Comments

My research investigates whether population demographics affect the likelihood of positive coverage of immigration. This research tests the theory that Branton and Dunway (2009) present in their analysis of media coverage on immigration. One of the lesser emphasized results of their study is that when the Latino population exceeds 25%, the coverage of Latino immigration declines. I will apply this theory to FL-24, which has a Latino population of nearly 40% by comparing media coverage of immigration in South Florida (where FL-24 is located) with that of Jacksonville, where the Latino population is just 8%. In addition, the percentage of foreign-born population in FL-24 is 44%, and the foreign-born population in Jacksonville is 8.44%.

I will test not just the amount of coverage, as Branton and Dunway’s theory covers. I will also survey the tone and differing focus areas of the two areas’ newspaper coverage. I predict that South Florida, with a higher Latino and immigrant population, will have both a higher percentage of pro-immigrant news stories. Based on Branton and Dunway’s research, FL-24 will have a decreased volume of coverage on immigration. However, I predict based on the high immigrant population, the South Florida newspapers will be more positive in tone when covering immigration issues.

The data that will be analyzed is articles pertinent to immigration during the 2018-19 federal government shutdown in two South Florida newspapers, The Miami Herald and The Sun-Sentinel, and the Jacksonville newspaper, The Florida Times-Union. Using the database Newsbank, I went through all three sources and searched for articles with the search term “”immigrant” OR “immigration” OR “immigrants”, border wall security shutdown” within the date range of 12/11/2018 and 1/31/2019. This allows us to find the relevant articles that mention immigration within the time period, so as to avoid articles that are just about the government shutdown but have no perspective on immigration. Then, all relevant articles were downloaded, excluding editorials, as the focus of the research is how the immigration issue is covered in news articles, not how the readers who write in to the newspapers feel about immigration.

The selected articles are then coded for their tone and focus area and for all articles, the results are recorded in an Excel spreadsheet. To perform the coding for the articles, I analyzed how immigrants are characterized or what context they are described in within the articles. Articles are coded as positive in tone if immigrants are characterized as hard-working, contributing to society, being “legal” or living legally. In addition, if immigrants are mentioned in the context of the DREAM Act, humanitarian issues (such as immigrant deaths), families, or ‘vulnerable’ populations (young, old, or women), the article is coded as positive. Lastly, articles that are specifically for the purpose of helping immigrants with legal challenges are coded as positive. On the other hand, articles are coded as negative if they describe immigrants as illegal or living illegally, describe immigrants in the context of crimes (including gangs or smugglers), or describe immigration as a problem or crisis. Neutral articles are those in which immigration is only mentioned in one or two lines of the article or where the article reports only series of events and all opinions are quoted from other sources, such as political party leaders.

The results of the analysis show that in South Florida, with a large immigrant and Latino population, the coverage of immigration is much more positive than the coverage in Jacksonville, with a low immigrant and Latino population. The Miami Herald and the Sun Sentinel both have greater than 50% positive articles. The Florida Times Union, however, has primarily neutral articles solely covering the series of events during the government shutdown, and only has 15% positive articles. In terms of focus area, for all three sources, partisanship (primarily stories about national politics) is the majority of the articles, which makes sense due to the coverage of the national debate over the government shutdown. However, the South Florida newspapers have a much broader range of coverage for different focus areas, including international politics (mostly stories about Venezuelan politics) and news within the local immigrant community.

My research contradicts the findings of Branton and Dunway, who argue that coverage of immigration will decrease with a greater than 25% Latino population. In fact, in terms of the volume/quantity of coverage, the number of articles that fit the search terms are not dependent on location; the Miami Herald and Sun Sentinel produced 71 and 49 articles respectively, while the Florida Times Union has 62 stories that fit the search terms and date range. However, the tone of the coverage differed substantially between the two different areas of Latino and immigrant concentrations. Additional research can focus on determining which of the two factors contributed to the positive coverage of immigration – the Latino population or the immigrant population. Overall, these findings suggest that although the amount of coverage is not based on population – especially for a politically contentious issue like immigration during a politically contentious period like the government shutdown – the tone of that coverage in media varies significantly based on the population demographics.

FL-24 Demographic Analysis

April 15, 2019 / Kavya Chaturvedi / 0 Comments

Slide 1: District Demographics: Naturalized Citizens and Hispanics Increase Over Time

This slide compares two different sets of bar graphs over time, in the same area, from 2009 to 2017. The 2009 column is data from the former FL-17 to account for redistricting that occurred in 2010. The current 24th district is composed of 82% of what was the 17th congressional district before redistricting. The top row of bar graphs, in navy blue, compares the number of native, naturalized and non-naturalized foreign-born population within the district. As can be seen from this data, the percentage of native born citizens in the district decreases over time by approximately 8 percentage points, from about 64% to 56%. Conversely, the percentage of naturalized foreign-born citizens has increased by this amount, going up 8 percentage points from 2009 to 2017. The percentage of non-naturalized foreign-born population remained the same, around 20%, throughout this time period.

The second row of graphs illustrates the racial makeup of the district over time. The previous FL-17 had a large black population of 59%, which has decreased 10 percentage points over time to 49% in 2017. While the white population has always been far lower than the national average, the white population decreased by 5 percentage points after redistricting, and was 12% in 2017. The notable increase in racial groups is the steady increase of Hispanic or Latino over time, by 15 percentage points over time. In 2017, the district was 39% Hispanic or Latino.

Slide 2: Effects of Latino Population Growth

Much literature exists describing the effects of both a rising immigrant population and the percent Latino population on a variety of dependent variables. First, for immigrant experiences, Hopkins (2010) argues that rising numbers of immigration reduces support for these immigrants and for immigration in general. Further, he argues that this immigration growth also affects policy outcomes. A growing number of immigrants greatly increases the probability of a locality considering anti-immigration legislation. Hopkins even states that the probability of an anti-immigrant proposal being considered doubles from 34% to 66% as the share of immigrants increases by 8 percentage points. Second, looking at the effect of public opinion, two studies examine the effect of living in a high Latino growth area on different aspects of public opinion. Newman et al. (2018) show how the marginal effect of Latino growth increases significantly after inflammatory comments about Latino immigrants, suggesting that support for Trump increased when citizens had lived experience with Latino growth. Brader et al. (2008) similarly find that Latino immigrants lead to anxiety and feelings of threat in a way that European immigrants do not.

Finally, for the media coverage on immigration, Branton and Dunaway (2009) show that news organizations closer to the border publish more articles about Latino immigration that focus on the negative aspects of immigration, and this also correlates strongly with the percentage Latino population. However, these authors do note that as the percentage Latino population exceeds 25%, the volume of coverage on Latino immigration declines, most likely because news networks do not want to alienate the local demographics.

Slide 3: Literature’s Predictions May Not Extend to FL-24

Based on the research presented above, the recent growth in the Latino population and immigrant population within FL-24 should predict less support for immigration almost entirely across the board. First, in terms of the immigrant experience, there should be less support for incoming immigrants and a stronger consideration of anti-immigration legislation. This is especially true because FL-24 had an increase of the immigrant population of 8 percentage points, the same number that Hopkins cites as leading to an almost doubling of anti-immigrant proposals being considered. In terms of public opinion, the Latino growth should have a large positive impact on support for Trump and increase anxieties about these Latino immigrants. Lastly, according to the predictions from Branton and Dunway (2009) about media coverage, because the immigrant population is well above 25%, coverage of Latino immigration will decline. Thus, with FL-24’s nearly 40% Latino population, Latino immigration will most likely not be heavily covered in the news media.

Most of the existing research does not account for unique situation that FL-24 is in. While there has been growth of the Latino population and immigrant population within the past 10 years, the district has remained a majority minority district, in which the white population is never more than 20%. In addition, the Hispanic and Latino population started very high in 2009 compared to national averages, at 24%. Further research thus needs to analyze whether existing research holds up in a majority black district and whether the anti-immigrant sentiment is as strong with such a large Latino/Hispanic population.

Slide 4: Analysis of How Hispanic Population Affects Media Coverage on Immigration

My research plan will test the application of the findings of Branton and Dunway (2009) to FL-24 – that at the point at which the Latino population exceeds 25%, the coverage of Latino immigration declines. To do so, it will be necessary to study more than just FL-24, which has a Latino population of nearly 40%, but also the media coverage of the area to another area with a Latino population of less than 25%. I have chosen Jacksonville as this area, because Florida’s 4^th district, the district including Jacksonville, has a Latino population of just 8%. However, Jacksonville is a large enough city to have its own media to study. Thus, my research will compare the coverage of South Florida newspapers, The Miami Herald and the Sun Sentinel, with the prominent Jacksonville Newspaper, the Florida Times-Union. For South Florida, I have chosen to look at both The Miami Herald the Sun Sentinel because together these newspapers cover both Miami-Dade and Broward County, both of which are included in FL-24.

With these sources, I will compare media coverage surrounding the January 2019 federal government shutdown and border wall debate. Given that the government was shut down from December 22, 2018 until January 25, 2019, I will examine the time period from December 1, 2018 to January 31, 2019. I will compare these sources on three metrics: framing, tone and salience. To measure framing, I will assess whether the issue of immigration is associated with Latinos, crime, or the economy. To categorize tone into positive, negative, or neutral, I will assess whether the individual news stories discuss the benefits or problems of immigration, or whether no preference is given. To measure salience, I will measure the volume of immigration coverage throughout the time period and see if there is repeated coverage of the same issues. Finally, the following will serve as my search terms: immigration, immigrant, Latino immigration, Hispanic immigration, government shutdown, border wall, Trump AND immigration, illegal immigration, undocumented immigration.

“Trump Crackdown Unnerves Immigrants, and the Farmers Who Rely on Them”

April 3, 2019 / Kavya Chaturvedi / 0 Comments

Link to New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/nyregion/ny-farmers-undocumented-workers-trump-immigration.html

Summary:

In Chapter Four of White Backlash: Immigration, Race, and American Politics, Abrajano and Hajnal explore what is causing the response of white America to immigrants. They argue that a racial threat narrative has emerged in areas with larger Latino populations, and this higher Latino population in the area makes white Americans feel a “potential threat to white power and resources” (p.153). Abrajano and Hajnal also explore how feelings about immigration have a partisan context and can uniquely spill over to affecting views on other political issues, such as crime, healthcare, and welfare.

A recent New York Times article offers a different perspective of how white Americans respond to local immigrant communities. Specifically, the article focuses on the reaction of white Americans who depend on undocumented workers for their low-cost farm labor. Many of these white farmers are distancing themselves from President Trump’s anti-immigrant calls because without the labor of undocumented immigrants, there may not find a replacement. Interestingly, farmers who once supported Trump are now seeing the economic effects of anti-immigration policies and changing their position, stating:

“I still agree with Trump in a lot of ways, but I’m more on the fence about him now,” Ms. Raby said. “I don’t want to lose the immigrants who are working here and growing our food.”

White Americans seem to be realizing that they have become economically dependent on immigrant labor, and this could predict a future change of political opinions to a less exclusionary immigration position going forward.

Discussion question: As mentioned above, Abrajano and Hajnal argue that opinions on immigration affect other political issues. Do you predict that the changing opinions on immigration that the article discusses will lead to a broader shift in political attitudes in the reverse direction?

FL-24: Frederica Wilson

March 7, 2019 / Kavya Chaturvedi / 0 Comments

Since 2008, FL-24 has changed for a toss-up of a district to a solidly democratic district with the same representative for the past seven years. From 2008-2010, Suzanne Kosmas, a democrat served in Congress after the defeating the incumbent Republican representative, Tom Feeney. She won this election by a margin of 15.8%, after capturing 57.2%, compared to her opponent’s 41.4%. However, in the very next election the district flipped parties. Sandy Adams, a Republican, defeated Kosmas, the incumbent Democrat, by obtaining 59.65% of the vote while Kosmas obtained only 40.32%. The makeup of the district changed significantly when the area was redistricted. What was previously FL-17, a heavily Democratic district, was mostly redistricted into FL-24, changing the demographics of the district greatly. Frederica Wilson, the incumbent representative of FL-17 ran unopposed in the 2012 election. After being contested in the 2014 election and winning by a margin of 76.1%, it became clear that the makeup of the district had changed significantly in favor of the Democrats. Wilson ran unopposed in the 2016 and 2018 election and now remains the incumbent representative.

The literature on what predicts immigration policymaking is largely based on the demographics of the electorate and on the party of the representative themselves. The qualities that are shown to lead to voting for more restrictive immigration policies are Republican partisanship, as Casellas & Leal 2013 argue that partisanship is the only consistent factor across votes, and Wong 2014 argues that Republican partisanship correlates with support for strict enforcement bills/amendments. In addition, Casellas & Leal show that representatives who are first-term representatives or worried about re-election are more likely to vote in favor of more restrictive immigration policies. In terms of what may cause voting in favor of less restrictive immigration policies, Wong 2017 shows that as the size of foreign born population and size of naturalized citizen population increases, the likelihood of representatives voting for restrictive immigration policies decreases. The percentage of the Latino population increasing as well as non-white representatives from a district also decrease the probability of voting for immigration enforcement (Wong 2014).

Most characteristics of FL-24 point to the district being strongly pro-immigrant. First, for the demographics of the electorate, 41.77% of the population is foreign born and 22.65% are naturalized citizens. This relatively high foreign-born population suggests less restrictive immigration stance. However, because the foreign-born population does not include that high of a percentage of naturalized citizens, immigration decisions may be more balanced. In addition, there is a relatively high Hispanic/Latino population, and an even higher black population. Because there is a minority white population in the district and a higher percentage of Latinos, there is a lower probability of Rep. Wilson voting for strict immigration enforcement. Second, for the representative, she is a Democrat who is known to be loyal to her party in voting behavior, suggesting that she will remain partisan and vote against strict immigration measures with other Democrats. However, she is extremely unconcerned with re-election, as she has been running unopposed in 3 out of last 4 elections. According to Casellas & Leal’s theory, this means she may be more emboldened to defect from the rest of the party on certain votes. Lastly, she is a non-white representative, which also suggests she is less likely to vote for restrictive immigration measures.

Representative Wilson is not very involved in the immigration issue in general. The only immigration related bill sponsorship of her career was to extend temporary protected status for Haitian nationals after 2010 earthquake, which is a topic that is directly related to her district, as there are many Haitian immigrants in South Florida. Her website has only a few sentences about immigration without going into any specific policy details (however this is true for all issues on her website), and her tweets on the subject of immigration are mostly recent, criticizing decisions of President Trump. However, interestingly, she has abstained in many seemingly non-controversial votes or even voted against the party on the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015, a bill that would terminate visas for citizens of Visa Waiver Program countries who are dual nationals of Iran, Syria, Iran, or Sudan. In keeping with the theory from Casellas & Leal, because Rep. Wilson is under no electoral threat, it makes sense that she sometimes differs from the rest of her party on some issues.