Rebekah Ninan – Immigration Politics, Policymaking in the U.S.

Author: Rebekah Ninan

Assignment 3: AZ-4 Public Opinion

May 17, 2019 / Rebekah Ninan / 0 Comments

Slide One

In this assignment, I study whether or not public opinion in Arizona-4 actually differs from the rest of Arizona in the way that the literature would predict. My prediction is that public opinion data will reveal that AZ-4 residents have more restrictive immigration policy preferences than other residents in Arizona. There are several factors that lead to this prediction. First, the district is less Hispanic than the state of Arizona overall (19.2% in AZ-4 vs. 31% in AZ). Wong (2014) predicts that this leads to people being in favor of more restrictive immigration policies. Next, the district has fewer foreign-born individuals than the state as a whole which Wong (2017) identifies as a predictor of restrictive immigration policy. Next, the district is more republican than the state as a whole. The state of Arizona does lean right, but AZ-4 is more Republican by a much wider margin. Furthermore, the district’s representative is Republican and highly conservative, whereas one of Arizona’s senators is a Democrat. Based on Casellas and Leas’s 2013 study, this should predict more votes for restrictive immigration policy at the national level. Ramakrishnan and Wong (2010) also find that this leads to more support for restrictive immigration policy at the local level. Finally, while the Pew Research Center finds that Hispanic population is growing in Arizona as a whole, it also identifies that the rate of growth is among the fastest in AZ-4 in recent years, with Maricopa County having the 2^nd largest increase of Hispanic population of any county in the US in 2016. Multiple studies predict that such demographic shifts in a Republican district leads to public support for restrictive immigration policies. I articulate these predictions as four hypotheses.

Slide 2

This slide provides details about the data used in this project. I used provided data from the CCES 2016 to study public opinion in Arizona’s fourth congressional district versus the rest of the state. The data is from a consortium of universities using the YouGov Survey to study questions of interest on research on “Congress, Representation, and Elections”. The survey asks hundreds of questions, surveying 64,600 individuals nationwide. The sample size for the state of Arizona is 1507 people and for my district it is 187 people. I am attempting to see if the district has an impact on attitudes on immigration expressed by individuals. I focus on particular questions from the survey that are related to attitudes on immigration. This includes questions that measure support for a pathway to citizenship, support for border patrol, support for DACA, and support for deportations. The exact wording of these questions are detailed on the slide.

Slide 3:

This slide provides the results of my research in the form of descriptive statistics. I analyzed what percentage of people answered “yes” for the four specified research questions in the CCES survey. I use this percentage to measure the level of support for various policies both of people in the district and people in the state as a whole. I find that the district has lower levels of support for the pathway to citizenship, lower levels of support for DACA, higher levels of support for increased border control, and higher levels of support for deportation than the state of Arizona as a whole. These four findings provide evidence for my four hypotheses. This illustrates that public opinion in AZ4 is more in favor of restrictive immigration policy than Arizona as a whole. The exact percentages are written on the respective slide.

Slide 4:

In this slide, I provide some overall conclusions and limitations of the project. Overall, the descriptive statistics revealed in this project illustrate that in line with the literature on partisanship, latino born populations, foreign populations, and demographic shifts, Arizona-4 has more restrictive views on immigration that the state of Arizona as a whole. This confirms the prediction I articulated, which I confirm through four hypotheses. While this project provides interesting evidence in favor of my prediction, it does not illustrate through which causal mechanism the relationship between the district and public opinion is shaped, though I have theoretically identified four possible pathways. Future research could address this through regressions or other forms of statistical analysis. Another limitation is the survey data itself as it systematically underrepresented the Latino population, which may skew the results. Future research could use other survey data to correct for this issue.

AZ-4: Population Changes and Impact on Immigration Politics

May 6, 2019 / Rebekah Ninan / 0 Comments

Slide 1:

This slide summarizes the demographic shifts in Arizona’s 4^th Congressional District in the time span of five years. The district was created in 2010, using parts of the former 1^st, 2^nd, and 5^th districts of Arizona. The current AZ-4 is considered to be the most Republican congressional district in all of Arizona. The district is predominantly white, with a higher white population and lower Latino population than Arizona as a whole. However, between 2012 and 2017 there was a two percentage point decrease in the white population, a 1.7 percentage point increase in the Hispanic population, and 4.8 percentage point increase in the foreign born population. I interpret this as a moderate increase in both the Hispanic and foreign-born population in the district. I also include data from 2007 in Arizona’s 5^th congressional district at the time as it partially comprised what is now AZ-4. We can see that the Hispanic population has increased relative to what it was in AZ-5 in 2007. However, this is not an entirely accurate comparison as the two districts comprise different areas and AZ-4 is significantly more rural.

Slide 2:

This slide summarizes the existing literature on how demographic changes affect the immigrant experience, media coverage of immigration issues, and public opinion. The literature I have presented in this slide implies that a growing immigrant, especially Hispanic immigrant, population can spur a “white backlash” and increased media attention. This is particularly true when there are sudden increases in the Hispanic or immigrant population, even if the shifts in the population are small. There is evidence that immigrants will experience negative reception, hostile rhetoric, and increased anti-immigrant policies when the population shifts (McDermott 2013, Hopkins 2010, Newman 2018). As the Latino population increases, newspaper coverage of immigration increases (Branton and Dunaway 2009). This happens particularly when the Latino population makes up between 18% to 30% of the overall population. Unlike Spanish media, English newspapers and other media coverage tends to negatively frame stories about immigration often sensationalizing or using narratives about a Latino threat (Abrajano and Singh 2009). This becomes particularly more evident and happens at a greater rate as one gets closer to the border (Branton and Dunaway 2009). Finally, an increasing Hispanic or immigrant population can impact public opinion of the majority population. Wong (2014) finds that a growing Hispanic population leads to support for more restrictive immigration policies in Republican districts, though it leads to support for more permissive immigration policy in general. Even small demographic changes can lead to whites in proximity of growing Latino populations to become more supportive of restrictive immigration policy and more likely to vote Republican (Enos 2014; Abrajano and Hajnal 2015).

Slide 3:

This slide summarizes the predictions of what we would expect to happen in Arizona’s fourth congressional district based on the presented research. The Hispanic and foreign born populations have both increased in the district. This is predicted to lead to increased negative rhetoric, hostile attitudes and strict policies that would impact the lives of immigrants in the district. Though the Latino population has increased, it still does not exceed 30% of the overall population, so we would expect to see an increase in newspaper coverage of immigration. Given that the minorities are primarily Latino and this is in a border state, we would expect to see the newspaper stories about immigration to be primarily negative, even more-so than national media coverage. This would be particularly true for English media sources compared to their Spanish counterparts. Finally, the area is highly Republican, so we would anticipate the growing foreign born population to actually increase support for restrictive immigration policy. Furthermore, white people in the district could be possibly become more in favor of restrictive policies and even more likely to vote Republican due to the increases in the Latino population.

Slide 4:

My research plan is to test the impact that the increasing immigrant and Hispanic population has had on media coverage. I want to see if in the timespan when the demographics were change if the media coverage of immigration has in fact increased and become more negative. I am focusing on the local newpapers in the district. Particularly, I would pull articles from January 2012 and compare them to articles written in January 2018. I would see if the newspapers wrote more about immigration issues in 2018 than in 2012, if the coverage is more negative, and if the focus of the articles draws attention to the immigrants being Latino. While this research method has its strengths, a possible drawback is that immigration politics might just be more salient everywhere in 2018 than they were in 2012. A possible way to combat this is to see if local newspapers in the district focus more on immigration issues than national media overall.

Trump’s Rhetoric and Latinx Turnout

May 2, 2019 / Rebekah Ninan / 0 Comments

Article: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/latino-vote-surged-2018-new-data-shows-n998481

This week we have studied the mobilization of the Latino community and the degree to which they can influence elections and in what circumstances that influence occurs. The anti-immigrant rhetoric that is being used to mobilize white, right-wing voters might actually have the opposite effect than intended an in fact lead to a surge of Latinx voting. Heightened anti-immigrant contexts can lead to increased political engagement of immigrants. Empirically, Berreto identifies the anti-immigrant policies used in California as explaining the switch of the state from a Republican to a democratic stronghold. As Latinos became increasingly frustrated with the anti-immigrant politics of California’s GOP, such as Prop 187, they mobilized and increasingly began to vote for democrats. White (2016) finds this trend more broadly, establishing that in communities where there is increased immigration enforcement and implementation of security policies, there is an increase in the political engagement and activism of the Latinx community in response.

In light of the policies of the Trump administration, this could have the implication of increased voter turnout in the Latinx community in ways that will change the American electorate and the outcomes of future elections. The article I have picked discusses how there has been a surge in Latinx votes in the 2018 midterm elections, that was greater than the increase in outcomes of other groups. Given the strong anti-immigrant context and the salience of the issue, this could possibly explain the increase in the Latinx share of the vote and mobilization, especially given that 70% of Latinos feel that Trump has spoken in a way that find personally offensive. However, this shift may not necessarily have the impact that we anticipate. First, the primary voting issue identified is not immigration, so they might be driven to vote by other issues, in which they may not align against the party that is pursuing more anti-immigrant policies. Second, Latinos who do not already strongly identify with the group, might not be mobilized to vote in the same way or become engaged in opposition movements as explained in the Perez reading (2014). This leads me to two questions:

Will this trend of increased voter turnout actually lead to better outcomes for the democratic party?
Do Latinos make up enough of the national electorate for this increase in turnout to actually change the outcome of the elections overall, especially given the way that the electoral college is structured?

Arizona-4: Assignment 1

March 8, 2019 / Rebekah Ninan / 0 Comments

Link to Slides

Slide 1:

This slide shows the shift in the district. Republican Paul Gosar has been the representative for this district since 2013. Prior to that, he served as the representative for Arizona District 1, where he ran as a tea party candidate. Prior to Gosar the district was served by Ed Pastor, the first Mexican American to represent Arizona. Pastor was a strong democrat who served the district from 2003-2013, winning with over 60% of the vote in each election. However, after the 2010 census, there was significant redistricting. The old district 4 essentially became district 7, and the new district 4 encompassed mostly Western Arizona. This district is now the most rural and the most republican district in Arizona. This district is also 19% Hispanic and 8% foreign born with a lower income than the national average.

Slide 2:
This slide summarizes the relevant literature of how local electorate context and the characteristics of a congressional member affects the support of a district’s representative for restrictive immigration policies. Two key factors: partisanship and demographics emerge as elements in the type of legislation that the representative ultimately supports. Republican representatives are more likely to support restrictive legislation than democrats, and those representing more Republican districts are also more likely to support restrictive legislation (Wong 2014; Casillas and Leal 2013). Casillas and Leal argue this is the only consistent factor. Additionally demographics matter. When a district has a higher proportion of foreign born individuals, Wong (2017) finds that the representative is less likely to vote for restrictive immigration policy. Additionally, an increased Latino population is associated with votes for less restrictive immigration policy (Wong 2014). However, when the Hispanic population is rapidly increasing in a republican district, this leads to more restrictive immigration policy (Ramakrishnan and Wong 2010.)

Slide 3:
This slide outlines based on the literature above, what might we expect the views of the representative of Arizona’s fourth congressional district to be on immigration. There are a few key findings. First, based on partisanship both of the representative and the district, since Paul Gosar is a Republican and the district leans heavily Republican, we would expect Gosar to support restrictive immigration policy. Only eight percent of the district is foreign born, so we would also anticipate more restrictive views from the district’s representative on immigration policy. The district is slightly more Hispanic than the national average (19.2% in AZ4 versus 17% nationally), so we would initially expect more moderate or permissive views on immigration policy. However, when we keep in mind that the Hispanic population is growing in an overwhelmingly Republican district, it follows that the representative for the district would vote in favor of restrictive immigration policy.

Slide 4:

This slide shows that not only does Paul Gosar support restrictive immigration as predicted, it is actually one of his central policy platforms. He has sponsored or co-sponsored 27 bills on the topics of immigrants and “aliens”, all of which seek to limit their presence in the country, harshen penalties, and limit their access to US resources. Almost half of his twitter use is about immigration, making references to crime and supporting the building of a wall. Immigration is also listed as one of the top three “priorities” that Gosar has on his website. These views are highly consistent with the current views of the Republican party. Additionally, Gosar’s support of these issues rely highly on language invoking national security and the interests of Arizonan’s who live near the border, implying it could be a highly salient issue for his constituency. It is unclear how these views impact his support among Hispanic voters in the district, but regardless, Gosar won every country in his district.