"We Were Strangers Once, Too": Why Immigrant Policy Attitudes & Voting Patterns Matter for the Future of Immigration in America

Abstract

This thesis investigates how differing demographic characteristics and personal experiences shape immigrants’ opinions of U.S. immigration policy and voting behavior, and proposes a normative framework for altering U.S. immigration policy to more effectively address moral claims of rectificatory justice. By highlighting national patterns in immigrant voter turnout, and then focusing on how demographic differences in the heavily immigrant-populated Southwestern states of Arizona, California and Nevada affect these patterns, I argue that immigrant voting behavior is not uniform across different generations, age categories, racial groups, or regions of origin. The descriptive analysis is supplemented with a series of interviews with first and 1.5-generation immigrants in Los Angeles, CA, which investigate how different groups’ experiences with immigration and assimilation have impacted their political attitudes and voting behavior. Ultimately, I suggest that the political contentiousness of immigration policy will only intensify as the immigrant population constitutes an ever-increasing and important portion of the electorate.