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1/I just finished "The Politics of Immigration", by Tom K. Wong.
I don't think I'd recommend this book in general, but it had some interesting stuff in it.
amazon.com/Politics-Immig…
I don't think I'd recommend this book in general, but it had some interesting stuff in it.
amazon.com/Politics-Immig…
2/The book is split into two parts. The first part is a description of U.S. immigration policy, and of some attempts to reform it, with some history thrown in. This will be interesting if you don't know that stuff already.
3/The second half of the book is basically two political science papers mashed together, purporting to show that immigrant voting power can make U.S. politicians more pro-immigration.
4/I definitely buy that this is true (witness California!), but the studies described in the book don't really make the case very convincingly.
5/The estimated impacts of demographic change are so small that they don't even result in a major policy shift by 2065. 
6/Additionally, the studies find only a very small effect of the foreign-born vote on Republicans' behavior, even at the level of pure correlation.
7/The book does something I don't like, which is to cite non-statistically-significant point estimates as evidence for a hypothesis.
Statistical significance is *such* a weak filter that if you can't even clear that hurdle, you really haven't found anything.
Statistical significance is *such* a weak filter that if you can't even clear that hurdle, you really haven't found anything.
8/Finally, the studies neglect the issue of correlation vs causation. Districts with more immigrants might have more pro-immigration representatives because of a bunch of stuff, not just because of the immigrant vote.
9/BUT, though the studies were disappointing, the history part of the book had some interesting tidbits.
For example, here's a graph showing how Obama shifted his deportation efforts toward criminals (warning, truncated y-axis):
For example, here's a graph showing how Obama shifted his deportation efforts toward criminals (warning, truncated y-axis):
10/And there are lots of relevant details about the difference between Bush's immigration enforcement regime and Obama's.
11/Anyway, if you're looking for an explainer of the forces driving current immigration politics, this isn't it. But if you need a concise history of recent immigration policy on your shelf, this is a good one.
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