Structuring Migration, Mobility, and Citizenship

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel highlights fresh research on how the politics and governance of migration, mobility, and citizenship in the United States are profoundly shaped by significant institutional and historical dynamics. The development of modern states brought with it the ambition of public officials to gain control over the movement of people across boundaries. That ambition has remained to the present day, as the push for entry by migrants and asylum-seekers has only grown, yet domestic publics have become mobilized against these newcomers. How have governments navigated these tensions? We explore this question as a means of exploring foundational questions in the study of American Political Development. Scholars have long acknowledged that the construction of state power in the U.S. context differs from that of many other countries, owing to its history of settler colonialism and enslavement; the federal system; and governing institutions that give significant and independent powers to the Congress, Presidency, and the courts. Our panel examines conflicts over migration, mobility and citizenship through the lens of these distinctive features of institutional dynamism in American political development, investigating how they have shaped the struggles to define who can enter, stay, and be included in American society.

We do so with papers that cover a vast sweep of history and explore how institutional features of U.S. politics shape the politics of migration, mobility, and citizenship. Anna Law’s paper takes us back to the 19th century, and examines how the practices of different state and federal actors affected the right of movement, as well as the right to remain, of white people, Native Americans, and both enslaved and free Black people. The paper investigates both state practices and capacities for resistance by different populations. Kimberly Morgan then picks up the story from the late 19th century, recounting how the plenary powers doctrine gave Congress preeminent power over immigration policy, and the consequences this would have for the construction of enforcement capacities ever since. Institutional features of Congress – its porousness to organized interests, lugubrious decision-making, yet also rootedness in state and local contexts and frequent elections, result in enforcement policies marked by both incapacity and ferocity towards those who lack powerful champions in politics. Another feature of Congress, especially in recent years, is polarization and gridlock, which has left immigration policy in the hands of the executive branch. Daniel Tichenor’s paper highlights similar developments from an executive-centered perspective, focusing on the changing relationship between the American presidency and immigration and refugee policy over time. He shows that most administrations of the 19th- and 20th-centuries were unable or averse to exercising strong leadership and independent leadership in this policy realm because of resistance from voters, movements, parties, Congress, the courts, and states. Yet his research also underscores how these patterns dramatically changed during the past two decades, placing the White House center stage in migration politics due to two key developments: the growth of the national administrative state and the rise of formidable movement-parties. Another consequence of congressional paralysis on immigration has been the expansion of immigration policies at the state and local levels. Allan Colbern brings a fresh lens to immigration federalism in exploring media representations of the groups seeking to influence state and local policies, and the target populations of these initiatives. Much like Tichenor’s paper, he emphasizes the importance of social movement activism in shaping immigration politics and policy.

Sub Unit

• Division 52: Migration & Citizenship

Chair

• Daniel Tichenor University of Oregon

Discussant

• Janice R Fine Rutgers University-New Brunswick

Individual Presentations

• The Right to Remain: Migration and Citizenship in the Antebellum US - Anna O. Law, CUNY Brooklyn College

• Congress, Immigration Enforcement, and the Construction of State Power - Kimberly J. Morgan, George Washington University

• Presidents, Movement-Parties, and the Transformation of Migration Politics - Daniel Tichenor, University of Oregon

• Immigration Federalism, the Nation-State, and Immigrant Rights in US News - Allan Colbern, Arizona State University; Shawn Walker, Arizona State University