Debating the Bottom Line

In 1996, the U.S. Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Individual Responsibility Act, marking a general shift away from the liberal philosophy that had characterized American immigration policy since the mid-1960s. The act’s provisions included increases in funding for border controls, as well as restrictions on access to government services for illegal and many legal immigrants. The bitter partisan divisions that accompanied the legislation reflected how contentious an issue immigration had become in the 1990s. What explains the hostility sparked by this issue within Congress? Had immigration policymaking always been so divided along party lines? It is these questions that the authors James G. Gimpel and James R. Edwards, Jr. attempt to answer in their book The Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform.

Relying on congressional voting records, floor and committee debate transcripts, and personal interviews, the authors trace the history of immigration policymaking and successfully show that the issue of immigration has become more partisan in recent years. The backbone of their argument is a detailed analysis of congressional voting patterns on immigration-related policy. The authors use regression techniques to measure the level of partisanship for each roll-call vote on immigration policy since 1965 and compile these values to show an overall rise in partisanship in immigration policymaking. In addition to party affiliation, they consider several other factors that have historically influenced immigration voting. Among these factors are a congressional district’s geographical region, racial and ethnic composition, and economic status. Gimpel and Edwards conclude that none of these factors can explain the recent divisions within Congress as effectively as partisanship can.

The authors reinforce their quantitative analysis with a discussion of how and why partisanship has played a growing role in modern immigration policymaking. In this discussion, Gimpel and Edwards focus on the costs associated with immigration. They argue that costs have become the central issue in the immigration debate within Congress, prompted both by a specific concern over increasing government outlays for immigrants and by a more general preoccupation with fiscal discipline in the wake of the deficit spending of the 1980s. Indeed, beginning with the 1980 Refugee Act, which gave refugees access to a variety of government services, government expenditures associated with immigration have escalated. Rising expenses per immigrant combined with an increase in the number of immigrants admitted to the United States in recent years has forced the government to devote greater resources to immigration-related programs.

Gimpel and Edwards contend that the rise in these expenditures has fueled long-standing partisan differences over the size and scope of the federal government. The authors’ contention rests on the premise that the Republican Party, as the party that favors limited government, is more cost-conscious than a Democratic Party still imbued with New Deal thinking. Based on this premise, Gimpel and Edwards assert that Republicans have grown increasingly uneasy with fiscally expansive immigration policies, thus intensifying the rancor between the parties.

The greatest strength of Gimpel and Edward’s book is its highly detailed and impressively researched historical account of the legislative process with respect to immigration—an account which follows every major congressional immigration proposal since 1965 from committee room to the respective floors of the House and Senate. This point by point approach is highly effective in familiarizing the reader with the key legislative efforts and legislators of the past three decades. The analysis even includes brief biographies of members of Congress who have been most involved in the immigration debate since the 1960s. The authors are also skillful at providing readers with an understanding of the different interests within Congress and how they interact, especially in terms of coalition building. Their analysis of North-South differences is particularly cogent, aptly describing how Southern Democrats have often sided with Republicans on immigration issues.

While the book succeeds in providing clear details, it is less successful at placing these details in a larger analytical context. Its emphasis on the nitty-gritty of legislation...