UC San Diego

Over the last decade states have been increasing their involvement in the immigration process in the United States. In my dissertation I seek to understand the factors behind the growth of anti-immigrant legislation at the state level. I explore the influence public opinion has on state immigration policy and critically find that while legislatures are generally responsive to public opinion, there are important distortions. There is variation in both when opinion matters and whose opinion matters. I demonstrate that when immigration is most salient, politicians are responsive to the public, but when immigration is not relevant, the public will is largely ignored. Critically, I also show that majority- controlled legislatures only respond to the sentiment of their own party and largely ignore minority public opinion. Finally, I reconceptualize the role immigrants themselves play in shaping policy. Existing studies that do account for the size of the Latino population only see them as being a threat to native residents. I find that states with large Latino populations pass more restrictionist policy; however, as the population becomes significantly large and electorally relevant, the anti- immigrant legislative wave reverses. Latinos also play an important role in the passage of pro-immigrant policy, but have the most influence on symbolic legislation. This dissertation is the most complete study of state immigration policy to date and these findings have important implications for representative democracy. Politicians do respond to public sentiment under unique conditions; however, the majority will dominates and the welfare of immigrants is in question