… As Congress begins debating an overhaul of the immigration system, many in California sense that the country is just now beginning to go through the same evolution the state experienced over the last two decades. For a generation of Republicans, Gov. Pete Wilson’s barrages on the impact of immigration […] Read more »
How accents influence the immigration debate
When native-born Americans talk about immigration, language differences quickly come to the fore. … In one set of experiments, researchers Van C. Tran, Abigail Fisher Williamson and I show that people who are exposed to just a single line of Spanish in a survey or exit poll can become more […] Read more »
Overwhelming Hispanic Support for Obama Wasn’t Preordained in 2012
… Given the key role that Latinos had played in Obama’s 2008 win, this particular leg of his coalition looked pretty wobbly just a year and a half before Election Day. Little wonder that when pollsters, including Gallup, Peter Hart and Bill McInturff for NBC News and The Wall Street […] Read more »
Hispanics’ Approval of Obama 70%, Up 12 Pts. Since August
In January, 70% of Hispanics approved of the job President Barack Obama was doing, down slightly from 75% in December. However, the January measure still represents an increase of 12 percentage points since last August, just prior to the Democratic National Convention. [cont.] Jeffrey M. Jones, Gallup Read more »
Texas Immigration Politics: Enforcement First, Outreach Later?
Earlier this week a bipartisan group of eight senators announced their preliminary plans for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) legislation. Neither senator from Texas is among the coalition of legislators leading the effort to change the broken system currently in place. … The Texas senators are out of step not only […] Read more »
Where the Hispanic Voters Aren’t
… Regardless of what national figures say about growth of the U.S. Hispanic population, the numbers look a lot different at the local level – particularly congressional districts. There are some places that are far behind in the great Hispanic wave and over the past 20 years they have grown […] Read more »