Summary and discussion of the two papers in this session: "U.S.-Mexican migration cooperation: obstacles and opportunities" by Marc R. Rosenblum; "Political implications of U.S. public attitudes toward immigration on the immigration policymaking process" by Valerie F. HuntEmigration and immigration ; International trade ; Public policy

Gary P. Freeman

English

Research Papers in Economics

139
Commentary on Session II 
The Politics of Migration 
and Trade
Gary.P..Freeman
T
he  field  of  political  economy  has  long  produced  theoretically  informed 
empirical research on the politics of international trade. For example, few 
books have enjoyed a better reputation than E. E. Schattschneider’s 1935 
classic study of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff (Politics, Pressures, and the Tariff). Since 
that early date, trade politics has developed into a major subfield in political science. 
Immigration, on the other hand, hardly attracted the interest of political scientists of 
Schattschneider’s generation. The Immigration Act of 1924 did not inspire a book 
capable of launching a new field of study as did Schattschneider’s investigation 
of the tariff. Indeed, it took well over a half century for political scientists to turn 
to the analysis of the politics of immigration, and the literature is not nearly as 
strong empirically or theoretically as that on trade in goods, services, and money. 
Most work on the politics of immigration does not treat the movement of people 
across borders as a factor of trade at all. Whether ideas, methods, hypotheses, and 
analytical techniques employed by political economists of trade can be applied to 
the political economy of immigration is a question a disconcertingly small number 
of political scientists have asked. 
Summary of the Papers
Trade theory predicts that an open migration system increases efficiency, 
productivity, and wealth but that “politics” rears its ugly head and imposes restric-
tions. Most political science models developed to explain why politics confounds 10  Gary P. Freeman
the adoption of open immigration regimes focus either on material interests (the 
costs and benefits of migration, who wins and who loses from the competition 
and redistribution of income that migration always entails) or on cultural factors 
(the ethnic, religious, and other differences between migrant and native popula-
tions).
Both by the subjects they investigate and by implication, if not explicit argu-
ment, the papers on this panel provide interesting evidence on the question of 
the political dynamics of trade and immigration policies. Valerie Hunt investigates 
the development and evolution of mass opinion on immigration. Marc Rosenblum 
presents, in the context of a North American case study, an analysis of oppor-
tunities for and obstacles to multilateral agreements on immigration that, since 
Smoot–Hawley, have been a regular feature of international relations. Mexico, 
the United States, and Canada adopted a free trade agreement in 1994. Why 
have those same countries had such difficulty agreeing on a common migration 
regime? 
Both Hunt and Rosenblum document how “politics” in the guise of security 
concerns in the wake of 9/11 derailed a process that appeared well on its way to the 
achievement of a migration agreement between Mexico and the United States.
Paper-by-Paper Comments
Valerie Hunt
Hunt’s paper, “Political Implications of U.S. Public Attitudes Toward Im-
migration on the Immigration Policymaking Process,” has two objectives: to 
tell us how and when the public cares about immigration and how and when 
what the public thinks matters. We are in a novel situation, as was indicated 
by the November 2006 midterm elections. The American public is thinking 
about immigration policy; what the public thinks about it appears to be af-
fecting vote choices in congressional and gubernatorial races; and it is at least 
possible, as Hunt predicted, that the immigration records of public officials 
affected a few marginal races. This is unusual, to say the least, because public 
opinion on immigration in the U.S. normally has only the most insignificant 
effects on electoral outcomes. Immigration typically falls far down the list of 
voter concerns, and it rarely determines vote choice (Gimpel and Edwards 
1999). The Tarrance Poll results (in Table 2 of Hunt’s paper) show that about 
one-third of respondents say they would not vote for a candidate who stands 
for most of the issues they support except immigration. This is really quite a 
strong finding. 
Hunt’s paper deals directly with the effect of 9/11 and heightened concerns 
about terrorism on public attitudes toward illegal migration and the ways in 11  Commentary on Session II
which politicians and activists frame the issue. The direct connection of the ter-
rorist attacks with people in the country under various immigration statuses, legal 
or illegal, was, depending on your view, either a stunning wake-up call for those 
who had been too complacent about immigration or a golden opportunity for 
critics of U.S. immigration policy to attach immigration restriction to the war on 
terror. In both cases, security became more of a focus of research and political 
debate. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize how much resistance there was 
among academics and policy wonks to conceding the legitimacy of analyzing im-
migration from a security angle. 
Even after the terrorist attacks in the United States and Europe, resistance 
to a security focus persists, perhaps even growing in reaction to enhanced state 
policies to control and monitor migration here and abroad. A large literature in 
political science and related fields critiques the “securitization” of immigration, 
that is, turning an innocent economic and humanitarian phenomenon into a 
potentially criminal law enforcement matter. A popular line is that with the end 
of the Cold War, the police and intelligence services of Western states have noth-
ing to do now that they aren’t hunting down communist subversives. Dangerous 
immigrants, in this scenario, are a convenient pretext for maintaining and even 
expanding the budgets of security services (Bigo 2005).
A common criticism of trade-based interpretations of migration is that politics 
distorts the economic relationships trade theory predicts. This is because some 
groups that appear to be harmed economically by immigration support it anyway, 
and others that appear to gain nevertheless oppose it.
A book that relates to this problem is Mikhail Alexseev’s Immigration Phobia 
and the Security Dilemma. Hunt talks about the connection, or disconnect, be-
tween “real world” conditions and public perceptions of these conditions. This is 
admittedly a difficult issue for the analyst. Alexseev offers one promising frame-
work. He observes a number of cases he considers surprising or irrational—situ-
ations in which the negative reaction to immigration seems grossly dispropor-
tional.
How can such overreactions be explained? Alexseev employs the concept 
of the security dilemma, an idea developed in the international relations field to 
refer to the dynamics that emerge when state A decides to enhance its security by 
investing in defense, thereby alarming its neighbors, states B and C, which either 
expand their own armaments or launch a pre-emptive strike. As applied to ethnic 
conflict, it captures the competition that arises among proximate groups that ob-
sess over their relative power, especially when the central government authorities 
appear to have lost their capacity to maintain law and order.
Alexseev identifies four general factors that shape perceptions of ethnic inse-
curity. Each, I think, has relevance to specific contemporary U.S. attitudes toward 
Mexican immigration.12  Gary P. Freeman
Anarchy      (broken borders)
Intent      (reconquista, an invasion)
Groupness      (non-English speaking, refusal to assimilate)
Socioeconomic impact  (migrants  depress  wages,  take  our  jobs,  live   
           on welfare)
       Critics of illegal immigration from Mexico point out that the federal govern-
ment has failed to assert its right to regulate national borders; that the fact that 
Mexicans have a unique historical claim to the American Southwest makes 
migration from Mexico especially problematic; that because of their numbers, 
concentration, and contiguity with their homeland, they have fewer incentives 
to learn English and embrace American culture and identity; and finally, that 
they constitute a major threat to the livelihoods of low-income Americans.
An interesting datum in Hunt’s paper is found in Table 4, which reports 
Pew Research Center for the People and the Press survey results. These show 
stronger anti-immigrant sentiment in red counties than in blue, what you would 
expect. What is surprising and needs explaining is why negative sentiment is 
higher in counties with low proportions of immigrants and weaker in counties 
with more.
Alexseev’s model may help with this. It’s a pattern that will likely persist 
and become more prominent due to changing population patterns. Numerous 
observers have noted the growing tendency of Americans to cluster in residential 
areas where most of their neighbors share their socioeconomic and political char-
acteristics. The resulting homogeneity makes even small numbers of immigrants 
highly visible.
Marc Rosenblum
Rosenblum provides a smart, detailed review of the major characteristics of 
the contemporary U.S.–Mexico immigration context in his paper, “U.S.–Mexican 
Migration Cooperation: Obstacles and Opportunities.” His main question is what 
factors facilitate or impede cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico over im-
migration policy.
In his short theoretical discussion, he presents a lucid summary of the rel-
evance of bargaining models from international relations scholarship to immi-
gration regimes. He might have come at the problem a bit differently, and more 
directly linked the politics of immigration with the politics of trade, by asking why 
Mexico and the U.S. were able to negotiate a free trade agreement but not broker 
even a bilateral immigration deal, let alone a free movement regime. Does immi-
gration produce the same sorts of coalitions as trade politics? The raw materials 
of an answer are in the paper.
Rosenblum presents a thorough and authoritative summary of the factors that 13  Commentary on Session II
affect migration agreements between the two countries—national preferences, 
domestic politics, and so forth—but he concludes that the key factor determining 
whether cooperation succeeds or fails is the general political context, the broad 
bilateral, regional, and global setting. Impulses to cooperate over immigration get 
swallowed up in the larger context, which most likely has little or nothing to do 
with immigration per se. This was certainly how the plans of Presidents Fox and 
Bush were sidetracked by the attacks in September 2001. 
On first inspection, it would appear that the U.S. has little to gain from a bilat-
eral immigration agreement with Mexico. The U.S. is interested, at least officially, 
in reducing the scale of illegal migration across its southern border. Mexico, on 
the other hand, has little interest in stemming the tide; indeed, it has every incen-
tive to see it continue. Even if Mexican officials were more sympathetic to U.S. 
complaints, both human rights and civil liberties norms keep a democratic state, 
even a fledgling one, from preventing its citizens from exiting the country.
Unlike the U.S., Mexico has many concrete objectives in its cooperative agen-
da: a guest worker program, less enforcement at the border, fewer deportations, 
maintaining and facilitating the flow of remittances, and so on. All of these require 
politically costly concessions on the part of the U.S. government. (See the report 
of the Bilateral Commission [1989], which contains a laundry list of what the U.S. 
should do for Mexico and almost nothing that Mexico should do for the U.S.)
Rosenblum makes a strong case, however, that in the post-9/11 context, any 
immigration settlement between the two countries would entail substantial re-
forms on Mexico’s part. These might include agreement by Mexico to accept and 
facilitate long-distance returns of illegal crossers to the interior of the country, 
serious efforts to create security on the Mexican side of the border, and active as-
sistance in counterterrorism efforts. The bilateral relationship is still asymmetrical, 
with the U.S. facing the necessity of giving more than it receives, but it is more 
equitable than it has been in years, and that should support greater collaboration 
in the future.
References
Alexseev,	Mikhail	(2006),	Immigration Phobia and the Security Dilemma. Russia, Europe, and 
the United States	(Cambridge:	Cambridge	University	Press).
Bigo,	Didier	(2005),	Les nouveaux enjeux de l’(in)sécurité en Europe: terrorisme, guerre, la 
sécurité intérieure, sécurité extérieure	(Paris:	L’Harmattan).
Bilateral	Commission	on	the	Future	of	United	States–Mexican	Relations	(1989),	The Challenge 
of Interdependence: Mexico and the United States	(New	York:	New	York	University	Press).1  Gary P. Freeman
Gimpel,	James	G.,	and	James	R.	Edwards,	Jr.	(1999),	The Congressional Politics of Immigra-
tion Reform (Boston:	Allyn	and	Bacon).
Schattschneider,	E.	E.	(1935),	Politics, Pressures, and the Tariff (New	York:	Prentice	Hall). 

and the Tariff (New

Bigo, nouveaux enjeux de l’(in)sécurité en Europe: terrorisme, guerre, la sécurité intérieure, sécurité extérieure

Bilateral Challenge of Interdependence: Mexico and the United States Gary P. Freeman Gimpel, Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform (Boston:

Commentary on session II: The politics of migration and trade

http://dallasfed.org/assets/documents/research/pubs/migration/freeman.pdf

Commentary on session II: The politics of migration and trade

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Research Papers in Economics