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3. Contesting Illegalities: The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act
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67 3 Contesting Illegalities The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act In August of 1984, an in-depth article on immigration reform appeared in Newsweek along with a poll of American opinion on immigration and aspects of the proposed reforms. The results showed that Americans had “mixed feelings” about the policy proposals and revealed “ambivalence about all immigration, legal as well as illegal.”1 The poll had asked Americans to rank issues according to their perceived importance: unemployment ranked highest (84 percent), inflation was second (73 percent), and threat of nuclear war was third (70 percent). A majority of Americans (55 percent) also ranked immigration as a “very important” issue; still, Newsweek deduced that compared to the rancorous congressional debates that lay ahead, “the public’s view of all of this is somewhat less impassioned—but it is fair to say that immigration reform is a serious national concern.”2 In addition to ranking issue saliency, the poll asked respondents to assess a number of claims about immigrants, which are reproduced in Table 3.1. The poll did not ask that respondents differentiate between legal and illegal immigrants, but the findings reveal that Americans viewed immigrants as simultaneously injurious and beneficent. While nearly two thirds of Americans believed that immigrants took jobs from U.S. workers, 80 percent believed that immigrants were industrious and resourceful, taking Table 3.1 Public Evaluations of Immigrants, 1984 Do you agree or disagree with the following statements? Agree Disagree Immigrants take jobs from U.S. workers 61% 36% Many immigrants work hard—often taking jobs that Americans don’t want 80% 17% Many immigrants wind up on welfare and raise taxes for Americans 59% 33% Immigrants help improve our culture with their different cultures and talents 61% 35% Source: Newsweek/Gallup Poll, June 1984. The telephone survey (conduced between June 1 and 3) had 751 respondents and a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent. Newsweek did not report responses of “Don’t Know” in its write-up. Newton_pp067-136.indd 67 Newton_pp067-136.indd 67 5/3/08 3:53:33 PM 5/3/08 3:53:33 PM 68 Contesting Illegalities jobs that Americans didn’t want—even in a context in which unemployment loomed large for many. People believed that immigrants “wind up on welfare” at cost to Americans, but nearly the same amount of people viewed cultural contributions as favorable outcomes of immigration. The fact that Americans held ambivalent attitudes about immigrants meant that policymakers could pursue different avenues in justifying approaches for immigration regulation; there were different policy stories that they could expect to resonate with both their peers and the public. In the following analysis of congressional speeches on the IRCA, we can observe just how significant the social constructions of target populations are to the stories that politicians develop to explain why a particular course of action is preferable to an alternative one. Policy narratives are stories that rationalize policy outcomes; they not only sell solutions to problems, they assure us that target groups are getting what they deserve. The Narratives of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act The interplay of narratives and group constructions is particularly critical when policy dispenses benefits to new groups, or when policy channels benefits to very narrowly defined populations. Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram propose that policy tools will align with a group’s social construction : politically powerful and positively constructed “advantaged” populations receive resources and rarely punishments; politically powerful, but negatively constructed “contender” groups will receive sub rosa benefits; politically weak, but positively constructed “dependent” populations will receive symbolic policies, and benefits will be under-subscribed; politically weak and negatively constructed “deviant” populations will be targets for punitive and coercive tools.3 What the following discourse analysis reveals is that while various groups may have certain images ascribed to them already, much of the deliberative process surrounding the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act amounted to contests over these images and how they could be employed in justifying specific policy tools. But the analysis also reveals that larger recurring themes concerning the expansion (or contraction) of social membership, signifiers of immigrant contribution, and the expansion of federal power structured debates about specific policy measures. Meanwhile, narratives depicting private-sector efficiency, hard-working immigrants, greedy big business, and traditional Newton_pp067-136.indd 68 Newton_pp067-136.indd 68 5/3/08 3:53:33 PM 5/3/08 3:53:33 PM [54.165.248.212] Project MUSE (2024...