Immigration: Shaping and Reshaping American Politics Essay Example

the United States as children to avoid deportation for two-year periods and obtain work permits. This program, operated by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, began accepting applications on August 15th. It was President Obama's most ambitious action on immigration after Congress failed to pass the Dream Act that he supported. While its main goal was to appeal to Latino voters, it successfully accomplished that objective. The aim was to regain support from disillusioned Latino voters who were unhappy with his administration's deportation of around 1.2 million immigrants over three years, mainly Latinos.

However, only 72,000 individuals had applied for temporary relief one month after launching the program—much lower than officials' expectations of 250,000 applicants. Many young immigrants couldn't afford the $465 application fee or lacked necessary documentation.

The question remains: why hasn't Congress passed immigration reform when leaders from different political backgrounds agree on it? The answer lies in Washington's partisan divide. Both President Obama and Republican Mitt Romney have differing opinions on immigration, which is a common disagreement between Democrats and Republicans.The formation of a coalition to support reform is further complicated by internal conflicts within each party.The US economy has benefited from the presence of low-cost, low-skilled foreign labor through illegal immigration, which has boosted productivity. However, US employers who have benefited from this situation are hesitant to support reform and rely on Congress for improvement. The role of public finance also plays a part in immigration politics, as seen in California and Texas' histories. In the mid-1990s, both states had fiscally conservative Republican governors - Governor Pete Wilson for California and Governor George Bush for Texas. These governors were potential Presidential

candidates facing challenging fiscal situations specific to their states. California dealt with a severe recession caused by reduced defense spending after the Cold War while Texas faced repercussions from the savings and loan crisis along with fluctuations in oil prices. Both states experienced an increase in immigrants settling there, but Bush and Wilson had differing views on immigration despite initially seeming to have similar political beliefs supporting free trade like NAFTA.While Wilson supported Proposition 187 in California, a measure that sought to restrict public services for undocumented immigrants, Bush took a different stance and embraced the immigrant community in Texas. In fact, he actively pursued Latino voters and even campaigned in Spanish. This strategic approach proved successful as Bush secured 49 percent of the Latino vote (and 69 percent overall) during his victorious gubernatorial campaign in 1998 - an unprecedented feat for a Republican candidate running statewide among Hispanics (Varsanyi 296).