xiv Introduction that law was enacted as a result of the political agitation of Protestant evangelicals who feared the infl ux of “heathens” who they felt could not or should not mingle with Christian Americans. Religious-based fears of the “Yellow Peril” contributed signifi cantly to the push to ban them. In 1883, only 8,031 Chinese immigrants came to the United States, and by 1885, a mere 23 arrived (LeMay 2013, v. 2: 11). A second example concerns the enactment of the national origins quota act. In the decade before it was passed, nearly 8.8 million immi- grants came, the largest number in a single decade up to that point in history, and among them more than 70 percent were from Southern, Cen- tral and Eastern European countries. The Protestant majority in America feared what they saw as a “fl ood” of Greek and Russian Orthodox adher- ents, of Eastern European Jews, and of Roman Catholics from Italy and other southern Europeans. In stark contrast, in the decade following enactment of the quota system, the United States received the smallest number of immigrants in history (just more than one half million), and those coming from South, Central, and Eastern Europe fell from 70 to 37 percent of that far smaller total amount of immigration. Of course, the intended results of a change in immigration law are not always achieved nor last for a very long time. In 1986, for example, Con- gress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which imposed employer sanctions provisions designed to reduce the fl ow of illegal immigration by “de-magnetizing” the draw of the U.S. economy through law by making it illegal to hire an illegal immigrant (aimed at undocumented immigration from Mexico) and imposing fi nes on employ- ers who did so. It reduced the fl ow of illegal immigration, as measured by apprehensions at the southern border, but for less than two years before the fl ow resumed to equal and then exceed the pre-IRCA level (LeMay 1994: 112–116 Crane et al. 1990 White, Bean, and Espanshade 1989). An unanticipated consequence of IRCA was simply to be a spur to the fraudulent documents industry (GAO 1988a). Immigration policy making is an excellent lens through which to view the interaction of the branches and levels of government in the federal system. Studying immigration policy making enables one to see in action the checks-and-balances system established by the constitution. The leg- islative branch—both the U.S. Congress and state legislatures—view problems, issues, and often proposed solutions to immigration as domes- tic policy matters how will my district be affected? Legislators, represent- ing smaller geographic areas often with fairly ethnically homogeneous populations, respond to a few vested interest groups important to their district. The majority of legislators come from “safe” districts in terms of
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