Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-tdptf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-08T00:40:42.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A RETURN TO MORE BLATANT CLASS AND “RACE” BIAS IN U.S. IMMIGRATION POLICY?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 June 2008

Nadia Y. Kim
Nadia Y. Kim*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Loyola Marymount University
*
Professor Nadia Y. Kim, Department of Sociology, Loyola Marymount University, One LMU Drive, UNH 4314, Los Angeles, CA 90045. E-mail: nkim1@lmu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay explores the contradictions posed by states' efforts to exclude immigrants from south of the U.S. border on the grounds that they “burden” the economy, despite the same states' windfall revenue from the taxation of undocumented immigrants. Lawmakers' ongoing anti-immigrant sentiment yields a racialized contradiction in which mostly Mexican and Central American immigrants are derogated as economic burdens. In fact, they are unfairly taxed in addition to being indispensable to the U.S. economy. Based on these and other phenomena, such as racially coded preferences for higher-class immigrants and “antidiversity visas,” I contend that contemporary U.S. immigration policy has regressed toward more blatant class and “race” (albeit racially coded) discrimination.

Keywords

Immigration PolicyDifferentiated ImmigrationInstitutionalized Class and Race BiasesRace HistoryLatinos
Type
State of the Discourse
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , Fall 2007 , pp. 469 - 477
Copyright
Copyright © W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Auerhahn, Louise and Brownstein, Bob (2004). The Economic Effects of Immigration in Santa Clara County and California. San Jose, CA: Working Partnerships USA. ⟨http://wpusa.org/publications/complete/wpusa_immig.pdf⟩ (accessed February 5, 2007).Google Scholar
Bean, Frank D., Edmonston, Barry, and Passel, Jeffrey S. (Eds.) (1990). Undocumented Migration to the United States: IRCA and the Experience of the 1980s. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.Google Scholar
Capps, Randy, Henderson, Everett, Passel, Jeffrey S., and Fix, Michael (2006). Civic Contributions: Taxes Paid by Immigrants in the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Area. Washington, DC: Community Foundation for the National Capital Region.Google Scholar
Chang, Howard F. (1997). Liberalized Immigration as Free Trade: Economic Welfare and the Optimal Immigration Policy. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 5(145): 1147–1244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chávez, Leo R. (1996). Borders and Bridges: Undocumented Immigrants from Mexico and Central America. In Pedraza, Silvia and Rumbaut, Rubén G. (Eds.), Origins and Destinies: Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in America, pp. 250–262. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Cornelius, Wayne A. (1980). America in the Era of Limits: Nativist Reaction to the “New” Immigration. Working Paper No. 3, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego.Google Scholar
Cornelius, Wayne A., Chávez, Leo R., and Castro, Jorge G. (1982). Mexican Immigrants and Southern California: A Summary of Current Knowledge. Research Report Series No. 36, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego.Google Scholar
Espiritu, Yen Le (2003). Home Bound: Filipino American Lives Across Cultures, Communities, and Countries. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohut, Andrew and Suro, Roberto (2006). America's Immigration Quandary: No Consensus on Immigration Problem or Proposed Fixes. Washington DC: Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and Pew Hispanic Center. ⟨http://www.pewhispanic.org/files/reports/63.pdf⟩ (accessed February 5, 2007).Google Scholar
Legomsky, Stephen (1993). Immigration, Equality, and Diversity. Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, 31(2): 319–335.Google Scholar
Lipman, Francine J. (2006). The Taxation of Undocumented Immigrants: Separate, Unequal, and Without Representation. Harvard Latino Law Review, 9: 1–58.Google Scholar
McCarthy, Kevin F. and Valdez, R. Burciaga (1986). Current and Future Effects of Mexican Immigration in California. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation.Google Scholar
Muller, Thomas and Espenshade, Thomas J. (1985). The Fourth Wave: California's Newest Immigrants. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.Google Scholar
Olivas, Michael A. (1995). Preempting Preemption: Foreign Affairs, State Rights, and Alienage Classifications. Virginia Journal of International Law, 35: 217–236.Google Scholar
Park, Edward J. W. and Park, John S. W. (2005). Probationary Americans: Contemporary Immigration Policies and the Shaping of Asian American Communities. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pedraza, Silvia (1996). Origins and Destinies: Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in American History. In Pedraza, Silvia and Rumbaut, Rubén G. (Eds.), Origins and Destinies: Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in America, pp. 1–20. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Reardon-Anderson, Jane, Capps, Randolph, and Fix, Michael E. (2002). The Health and Well-Being of Children in Immigrant Families. Series B, No. B-52. Washington, DC: Urban Institute. ⟨http://www.urban.org/publications/310584.html⟩ (accessed February 5, 2007).Google Scholar
Reich, Peter L. (1991). Public Benefits for Undocumented Aliens: State Law into the Breach Once More. New Mexico Law Review, 21(2): 219–246.Google Scholar
Reimers, David M. (1992). Still the Golden Door: The Third World Comes to America. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rumbaut, Rubén (1996). Origins and Destinies: Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in Contemporary America. In Pedraza, Silvia and Rumbaut, Rubén G. (Eds.), Origins and Destinies: Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in America, pp. 21–42. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Simon, Julian L. (1989). The Economic Consequences of Immigration. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Simon, Julian L. (1995). Immigration: The Demographic and Economic Facts. Washington, DC: The CATO Institute and the National Immigration Forum.Google Scholar
Simon, Rita J. (1985). Public Opinion and the Immigrant: Print Media Coverage, 1880–1980. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Sykes, Alan O. (1995). The Welfare Economics of Immigration Law: A Theoretical Survey with an Analysis of U.S. Policy. In Schwartz, Warren F. (Ed.), Justice in Immigration, pp. 158–200. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar