Black Elites and the Racial Politics of Immigration

这个项目解决了以下问题：黑人领袖如何应对移民问题？他们是将移民视为劳动力市场的竞争对手，还是将其视为主要选民的潜在盟友？他们倾向于支持限制性的移民政策还是更自由的移民政策？主要调查人员以两种方式回答这些问题。首先，他们利用2005年至2020年有关州移民法和立法行为的新的全面数据，分析黑人议员是否以及在什么条件下反对或支持特定类型的移民法案，并将他们的立场与白人和拉丁裔同事的立场进行比较。其次，他们将大数据统计方法应用于黑人媒体、西班牙语媒体和普通受众媒体上的8万多篇与移民有关的文章，以检查黑人媒体报道中表达的主题和情绪是否与其他媒体报道的主题和情绪有很大不同。这两种分析是为了考察政策制定和媒体报道是否相辅相成。他们认为，黑人政治和媒体精英并不认为移民是一种非此即彼的选择；相反，他们将对群体间竞争的担忧与对跨群体共同利益的看法结合在一起。这项研究通过提供大量关于黑人对移民反应的新数据，通过对这些反应的动态提供新的见解，并通过将两个重要机构部门与移民相关的发展联系起来，促进了学术研究的发展。更广泛地说，这项研究揭示了随着民主机构对快速的人口变化做出反应，美国政治中的“种族问题”是如何发生的。这项研究解决了种族如何影响移民政治的问题；特别是黑人精英可以支持限制性移民并减少来自移民的劳动力市场竞争的社会政治困境，或者他们可以反对限制性移民并加强与拉丁裔的政治联盟。它通过两个制度领域来研究种族对移民政治的影响：国家立法、政策制定和媒体。为了分析黑人精英参与移民政策制定的情况，私人投资机构构建了一个关于2005-2020年间州移民立法的投票和赞助的数据集。根据这些数据，他们估计了将黑人立法行为与白人和拉丁裔代表的立法行为进行比较的分层模型。他们调查了立法者的种族及其选区的种族构成如何不仅影响对移民政策的支持，而且影响在发起新的移民政策提案方面的领导作用。为了分析种族是否以及如何与媒体对移民政策的论述有关，他们创建了一个数据库，其中包括2005-2020年发表在黑人媒体、普通受众媒体和西班牙语媒体上的移民文章。使用大数据程序(主题建模和情感分析)分析这些来源产生的框架和主题的比较；这些数据和措施被用来评估立法行为和媒体关于移民的话语之间的关系。这项研究提供了一个新的理论和经验模型，以捕捉种族、立法行为和媒体话语之间跨越空间和时间的动态关系。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project address the following questions: How do Black leaders respond to immigration? Do they view immigrants as labor-market competitors or as potential allies for their primary constituents? Do they tend to support restrictive or more liberal immigration policies? The principal investigators answer these questions in two ways. First, using new and comprehensive data on state immigration laws and legislative behavior from 2005 to 2020, they analyze whether and under what conditions Black legislators oppose or support particular kinds of immigration bills, and compare their stance to that of their white and Latino colleagues. Second, they apply big data statistical methods to over 80,000 immigration-related articles in the Black, Spanish-language, and general-audience press to examine whether the themes and sentiments expressed in Black media coverage differ substantially from those in other outlets. These two kinds of analysis are linked to examine whether policy development and media coverage reinforce each other. They argue that the Black political and media elite does not view immigration as presenting an either/or choice; instead, they combine concerns about inter-group competition with perceptions of common interests across groups. This study advances scholarship by providing extensive new data on Black responses to immigration, by offering new insights into the dynamics of those reponses, and by connecting immigration-related developments in two important institutional sectors. More generally, this research sheds light on how "race matters" in American politics as democratic institutions respond to rapid demographic change. This study addresses the issue of how does race influences the politics of immigration; specifically the sociopolitical dilemma that Black elites can support restrictive immigration and decrease labor market competition from immigrants, or they can oppose restrictive immigration and strengthen political alliances with Latinos. It investigates the influence of race on immigration politics by looking at two institutional arenas: state legislative policymaking and the media. For the analyses of Black elite participation in immigration policymaking, the PIs construct a dataset on votes and sponsorship of state immigration legislation between 2005-2020. With these data, they estimate hierarchical models comparing Black legislative behavior with the legislative behavior of white and Latino representatives. They investigate how the race of the legislator and the racial composition of their constituency influence not only support for immigration policy, but also leadership roles in the initiation of new immigration policy proposals. For the analyses of whether and how race is related to media discourse on immigration policy, they create a database of immigration articles from 2005-2020 published in the Black press, the general audience press, and the Spanish language press. The comparison of the frames and themes that emerge from these sources is analyzed using big data procedures (topic modeling and sentiment analysis); these data and measures are used to assess the relationship between legislative behavior and media discourse on immigration. This research provides a new theoretical and empirical model to capture the dynamic relationship between race, legislative behavior, and media discourse across space and over time.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.