| Review of: | Lobbying for Inclusion: Rights, Politics, and the Making of Immigration Policy by Carolyn Wong |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Debra L. DeLaet |
| Reviewed in: | Governance |
| Date accepted online: | 10/04/2008 |
| Published in print: | Volume 20, Issue 04, Pages 703-715 |
Book Reviews
In this important and timely work, Carolyn Wong explores the interest group politics that shape the making of immigration policy in the United States. In doing so, she elucidates the complicated ways in which identity politics and economic interests are intertwined in the public debate over U.S. immigration policy. Wong investigates three legislative case studies-the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, the Immigration Act of 1990, and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986-in order to examine the nature of interest group politics in the formulation of U.S. immigration policy. In addition to descriptive case studies, she completes a statistical analysis of roll-call voting on the three bills to assess the relative weight of economic versus ethnic interests on voting behavior in the realm of immigration policy.
One of the important contributions of the book is that it clearly and effectively demonstrates the ways in which interest group politics surrounding U.S. immigration policy are characterized by competition as well as cooperation. In some areas of immigration policy, for example, policies governing legal immigration, an unlikely coalition of interest groups coalescing around ethnic rights and interest groups representing business emerge, leading to expansionist pressure on U.S. admissions policies. In other policy areas, notably policy governing guest-worker programs, this coalition breaks apart leading to significant interest group competition in immigration policy according to divergent preferences. In such cases, ethnic rights organizations commonly play a moderating role in the debate, tempering demands by employer groups for unregulated access to migrant workers.
In addition to examining the details of the alternatively cooperative and competitive interest group politics that shape U.S. immigration policy, Wong considers the influence of ethnic rights organizations relative to the more powerful employer lobbying groups. Ultimately, she concludes that ethnic rights groups are able to significantly shape U.S. immigration legislation despite their relatively small size and limited economic resources. In particular, she finds that ethnic rights groups have been most successful in shaping policy when they have framed their preferences in terms of universal claims for rights and when they have cooperated with other civil rights and humanitarian groups involved in the debate.
Although extensive research has been done on the interest group politics surrounding the debate over U.S. immigration policy,
Although Wong very effectively documents the ethnic and economic politics involved in the debate over immigration policy, one of the weaknesses of her analysis is that she does not adequately consider the role of civil rights groups, churches, and humanitarian organizations that have been actively involved in the public debate over immigration. She identifies these groups as coalition partners of ethnic rights organizations, but, in doing so, she sometimes treats them as marginal rather than central players in the debate. Indeed, a glance at the book's index indicates that she treats ethnic lobbying groups as synonymous with civil rights groups in general and does not give churches or humanitarian organization prominence as autonomous interest groups in their own right. As a result, her analysis also tends to conflate ethnic
Despite this limitation, Wong's book is an informative work and makes an important contribution to the study of U.S. immigration policy. It should be of interest to immigration scholars working in a wide range of disciplines and might also be used in graduate-level coursework on immigration policy.