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Introduction xv political party competition (LeMay 2017: 105–108). They do not have to consider how their position on an immigration bill will impact their par- ty’s chances in national electoral politics. As a result, they see an immi- gration “problem” differently than does the executive. Executives, especially the president, view those same matters through the prism of foreign policy how will immigration policy making affect the relations of the United States with other countries, or impact ongoing treaty negotiations, or impact the overall economy, and so on? The presi- dent, as the only elected offi cial of all the people residing in the United States, responds to a far wider array of interest groups. The president, as the titular head of a political party, must consider how immigration pol- icy making will infl uence the electoral prospects of the party. As a result, a president views the problem through a different lens. Rather frequently presidents of both political parties have had adversarial relations with the Congress over immigration policy making, on occasion even with con- gressional members of their own political party. As will be seen, presi- dents have exercised executive powers—the veto, proclamations, executive agreements, executive actions, executive authority over admin- istrative departments and bureaus, establishing presidential study com- missions, and so on—to promote their position on immigration policy matters. The most recent and obvious example is President Trump’s travel ban, opposed by many and ruled by federal district and appellate courts, as an unconstitutional Muslim ban. The judiciary frequently acts as the arbiter in clashes between the exec- utive and legislative branches, and federal district courts and the U.S. Supreme Court, on occasion, do so between the national and state gov- ernments, sometimes upholding the actions of the other branches, some- times overturning such actions. As will be seen in these chapters, the Supreme Court has sometimes held laws to be constitutional or not, and those decisions have always infl uenced subsequent immigration policy making and implementation. What has been referred to as the “religious right” has been especially vocal in pursuing judicial policy making to further their goals. Then too, factors other than the laws enacted often have a more pro- found impact on the total number of immigrants coming to the United States than do laws designed to do so. For example, there are dramatic drops in the number of immigrants arriving during the years of the American Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Depres- sions, severe recessions, and wars profoundly infl uence people’s decisions whether or not to emigrate.