Policy Lessons from the Past: Dr. Sarah Coleman on the politics of immigration in modern America

[00:00:00] Intro: This podcast represents the views of the hosts and not the University of Texas at Austin.

[00:00:09] Bill Shute: This is Policy on Purpose, a podcast produced by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. At Austin, We take you behind the scenes policy with people who are shaping and have helped shape it. For more, visit lbj.new texas.edu/podcast.

I’m Bill Shute executive director of the LBJ Washington Center, and I’ll be your host for this series as we hear from four Texas based experts and historians who will frame today’s political environment with the health of lessons learned in the past.

Our second episode features a conversation with Dr. Sarah Coleman, assistant professor and historian at Texas State Univers. Who’s recently authored the Walls Within the Politics of Immigration in Modern America. It’s an insightful look at [00:01:00] how the immigration policy doesn’t stop at the border. Thank you for joining me here Sarah.

[00:01:06] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Thank you so much for having me, and I really appreciate this warm welcome from the LBJ School.

[00:01:10] Bill Shute: Well, we’re thrilled to have you enough. I really enjoyed your conversation at the Washington Center and, and it was clear that this wasn’t your first visit to dc. I mean, in fact, you’ve worked on front lines of federal government.

So let’s start by telling us about your previous work and what drew you to immigration policy.

[00:01:30] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Right. So, um, like many people I was interested in, I grew up in a political house in hold, and I was, had always been interested in politics. And, um, after I got my master’s degree, I’m back to the United States.

I’d been in England and I moved to DC and I interned for my congresswoman, a woman named Theia Velasquez. And I became incredibly interested in working on the Hill, um, and in politics. And so I ended up working at the time for then Senator Joe Biden from Delaware, uh, first in his [00:02:00] personal office and then on his Senate subcommittee staff.

Um, and I ended up working for him for about five and a half, six years. And I loved how, I loved seeing how politics influence policy and kind of how the day to day politics played out, um, in dc. And it’s an invaluable experience that, uh, I certainly, um, think is very important to this day in framing how I think about political issues.

[00:02:27] Bill Shute: I think that’s a great opening for this conversation that you have at the center. So Dr. Coleman and I will return at the conclusion of our recorded conversation, but let’s get started. Thank you for joining

[00:02:38] Dr. Sarah Coleman: us

[00:02:49] Bill Shute: tonight. It’s my pleasure to have our, uh, special guest, Dr. Sarah Coleman, who is assistant professor and histor. From Texas State [00:03:00] University and current author of the Walls Within the Politics of Immigration in Modern America. I’d also like to welcome the assistant director for research at LBJs Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, Dr.

Sergio Garcia Rios, who will be moderating our panel tonight. So please join me welcoming them to the stage.

[00:03:31] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: Everyone. It’s gonna be a fantastic, um, conversation. I’m very excited to be here and to be here to discuss this fantastic book. Thank you so much. Um, I feel, I feel somewhat, um, intrigued to ask, uh, about a book that’s, you know, uh, on, on a topic that I obviously care so much about on, on a topic that seems to be, um, very relevant.

Today, but as we will discuss hopefully, um, not just today. And so the very first thing that I wanna hear from [00:04:00] you is, uh, why write this book? Uh, what motivated you to write this book? Uh, or spend And maybe, and maybe, yeah. And maybe you can tell us more of course about, about the book. Yeah,

[00:04:10] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Yeah. Um, so what motivated me to write this book is, um, I think much of, sort of the debate that you see about immigration in the public sphere today is about the Southwest border, right?

If you look at the sort of newspaper coverage, it’s mainly focuses on the Southwest border, But I think that sort of is only one piece of the puzzle. And to me, what’s sort of been interesting is to think about how immigration impacts so many areas of policy in the United States, right? And when you have 24 million people in the United States who are living here without, um, who are non-citizens, right?

About 12 million without authorization status, right? What, how do we sort of have immigration policy within the United. Through domestic policy. Um, and sort of how does that play out? Like I felt like that’s part of the battle. And I, and what sort of interested me is sort of the anti-immigrant movement in the United States, right?

Has some effort at the border, right? Significant effort, but there’s also a huge [00:05:00] movement to um, to, um, marginalize immigrants who are living within the United States. There’s 24 million, um, people living in the United States. And sort of that’s the story that interested me sort of not just this sort of national sort of border story that gets sort of the front page of the New York Times, but kind of what’s the story behind it, right?

And how has policy shifted over the last 50 years in terms of what we think of the rights of immigrants in the United States.

[00:05:25] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: So you just mentioned that this is, um, an over an overview of a look at what happened, what has happened in the last 50 years. And, um, the way that I’ve always thought about, um, the US and the history of the US is that.

I, I guess we like to think of this countries a country for immigrants and a country where immigration is important. Um, whoever you, you start later, you don’t necessarily go all the way back in, in time and you still go, you know, some, some years back. You start around 60, 65 to be precise. Why start at this point?

What happened? What’s so important about this timeframe?

[00:05:59] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Well, it [00:06:00] would not be appropriate to start talk at the LBJ School without talking about the 1965 Immigration Act . Um, right. So the 1965 Immigration Act, also known as the Heart Seller Act, right, is passed at this moment in 1965, and it sort of can be seen as this element of, um, a combination of at this civil rights moment, right?

So it’s passed in the same year as the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. Um, it’s actually pictured right there for being on Ellis Island. Um, right. So it’s passed at this very specific moment, and it’s sort of at this moment of civil rights and saying, we need to rethink our nation’s immigration laws.

And one of the things that it does is it dramatically diversifies the immigrant population in the United States, and it shifts the demographics drastically. Um, both, uh, opens the US dramatically to immigration from southern and eastern Europe groups that had pre previously been capped. Right. Uh, and for the first time puts into place a cap on western hemispheric admissions.

Right. So for the first time, much of this [00:07:00] sort of, uh, migration patterns from Mexico and Central and South America now are sort of capped for the first time and sort of creates, uh, sort of the, under the underbelly of this sort of pro civil rights immigration bill. Right. Is that it, um, basically creates a lot of the illegal immigration to previously legal migration patterns.

Yeah. And so it’s sort of this moment that the demographic profile of immigrants really dramatically shifts and sort of the, the profile that we see today sort of emerges over the next decade.

[00:07:32] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: Will you say that we have maintained this trend since then? Uh, in terms of the demographic demographics and the composition of the immigration?

Uh, or, uh, do we still see the same trend since then to now?

[00:07:45] Dr. Sarah Coleman: We definitely see similar trends, right? Uh, over time, Asian immigration has started to play an even bigger role. Um, but much of what we see beginning in 65, I mean, you’re the pollster, but um, much of what we see beginning in 65 sort of shifts back and forth, but remains largely what we [00:08:00] see today.

Yeah. Yeah.

[00:08:02] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: Um, and, and of course debates to, um, immigration and sort of the weather we discuss, uh, immigration, um, has changed over time, but there’s constant reminders. I was, um, telling Sara earlier that one of the things that I love about her book, and everyone should really read it, uh, invite everyone to read it, is that as I was reading this historical account of immigration, kept thinking of, uh, Contemporary moments and things happening, um, as, as even as, as I was reading it, some things were happening, right, like yesterday, the week before, the month before.

Um, but one thing that recently happened and, and, um, is relevant to, uh, I think to your book, um, one of the very important moments that you discussed is, um, prior versus, uh, do and, and, uh, so this 1982 Supreme Court case that plays a very important role toward your book, but then especially in one of the chapters and not [00:09:00] very long ago, um, our very governor, uh, Greg Abo was talking about this and sort of proposing that maybe Texas should, um, challenge this.

And so he told more about this case and, and, and you make the case. This is a very important moment, uh, for the course of immigration. Yeah.

[00:09:17] Dr. Sarah Coleman: So beginning in 1965, right? What we see is as in sort of the wake of these starting to see demographic changes in across Texas and other places. Um, there’s a move within Texas to start charging, uh, tuition to undocumented students.

Yeah. And so the state legislature begins, uh, by amending the state education code in 1975. Um, and then in 1977, uh, a town on the east side of Texas and Tyler decides that they’re gonna be, begin charging a thousand dollars tuition, uh, to any undocumented student in the school. Um, and that’s about three to $4,000 in today’s, uh, in today’s dollars.

So it’s incredibly cross, cross prohibitive. Um, and so, uh, [00:10:00] these, uh, actually about eight families decide to challenge the case. Um, and they reach out to a local, uh, civil rights lawyer who’s there as part of. of, uh, of, uh, legal aid. And he’d actually come to work on some, um, some voter, some voting cases for the NAACP in the region.

And they reach out to him and they say, You know, we need, through a Catholic outreach worker, they, that we, you know, we want to challenge this policy. Um, and they’re connected with, through him, uh, with Mal death, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, who basically at this point was working in California.

Mm-hmm. , they had just started a education, litigation, um, program, and they were waiting for a case to come up, uh, in Texas because, uh, they knew that there was this judge, Judge, uh, William Wayne Justice, which wins the prize in my mind for like the, the best judge name ever. They were waiting for Judge Justice, right.

The, to they knew they wanted a case in Judge Justice’s, uh, [00:11:00] Uh, and so the, the case comes up, Maldef hears that there’s this case they fly in to, to Eastern Texas. Um, and they take this case all the way, uh, first to fifth Circuit and then to the Supreme Court. And sort of what’s interesting to me about the case, in addition, there’s a couple things about it, but sort of as it goes through its iterations, the government and sort of what I outline has this political debate over what position the federal government’s gonna take in the case, Right?

Cause we always think of, now Texas is not a swing state, right? It’s, it isn’t, Um, it won’t be in, in, in two years. Um, it still isn’t. Uh, but in 1980 it was right. It was a considerable swing state. And both the Carter and the Reagan administration really waiver back and forth about which position to take in this case.

Right? And the Carter administration sort of backs the students before the Fifth Circuit, uh, the Reagan administration waivers and then backs away when it makes it to the Supreme Court. And it makes it all the way to the Supreme Court. And in a five four decision based on [00:12:00] 14th Amendment, um, equal protection and due process, they rule, you know, you cannot, undocumented students are allowed equal, uh, protection and equal access, uh, to education, which is a huge victory moment.

And I think what you see is you have all this immigration rights activism coming out of 65, looking out sort of how like Brown v Board of Ed has happened. They sort of cease these students as like the forefront. Mm-hmm. of this larger immigrants rights movement. Right. Here’s, here’s our vessel. This is our first moment.

This is like the first step. And they, and they have this big victory in 1982, and then they suddenly, and they have these in their internal memos, This is our moment. Where can we extend rights in various ways? And what’s our next moment? And then it’s certainly what we see from there is this peak. And then we sort of start to see this decline throughout the eighties and nineties.

[00:12:51] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: Yeah. I, I’d recommend for everyone here who hasn’t, uh, had the opportunity, I like to tell my students to, uh, watch the debate between, uh, Bush [00:13:00] and Reagan, uh, where they actually, they get a question from a concern, a student Yeah. About, about this. And their responses are always like, I want spoil it. I want people to sort of hear their responses.

But it, they’re always surprised to sort of hear the, the take from both, from Butch and and Reagan on, on education to, uh, immigrants. And ultimately sort of, that has, uh, an impact on leader, uh, legislation. But I wanna go back, you mentioned something about, um, uh, Texas being a swings state. Yeah. And, um, and just like now, I think it’s hard for some to think of Texas as a swings state.

It might be hard for, uh, us to think of California as a swings state at some point. And, um, there’s another important piece of legislation that happened, didn’t quite make it to the Supreme corporate, still was monumental. And that was the Prop 1 97 in California. And, uh, whether you can tell us, so how this impacted in a way, uh, the, the way that we think now about, um, politics and, and, and immigration.

[00:13:59] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Yeah. [00:14:00] So Proposition 180 7 in California, um, one of the things that’s sort of interesting that I trace over the trajectory of my book is sort of the access to the social safety net. Yeah. Right. Um, and so most people in this room, probably, unless you’re deep experts in this, would find it surprising. Right?

Until 1971, most, uh, anyone in the United States, regardless of immigration status, had access to social security. To unemployment, to, um, oaa to what’s, uh, aid to dependent children, which is now known as a fdc, right? All of this sort of social and safety net that we nowadays sort of consider up until 1971 never asked a question about citizenship status or um, or immigration status, right?

And in the 1970s, we start to see an attack on undocumented immigrants access to these programs. And what we see in the 1990s is a move to sort of attack, uh, uh, legal permanent residents access to these programs. And that kind of rises out of prop 180 7. So Prop 180 7 is in California. [00:15:00] Um, there’s a huge rise in anti-immigrant sentiment in 19 92, 19 93 in California, right?

The US is just, for those of you who don’t remember, 1992, , like deeply. Um, right? The, we’re starting to have, uh, we’re in a, in a recession, right? California’s unemployment rate is skyrocketing. Um, and California is particularly being hit hard cuz of the defense industries. Um, and there’s a rise in sort of a grassroots anti-immigrant movement in California and they basically try a state level pro proposition 180 7 to remove unauthorized immigrants from basically and authorized, uh, legal permit resident from almost basically all state services minus emergency medical.

Yeah. Um, medical care, it gets, uh, approved resoundingly in 1994. Uh, at the state level. It goes, it is immediately challenged, um, by the governor in the court system and it ends up being invalidated. [00:16:00] Um, but what’s interesting to me about the ca about sort of this is while it’s eventually invalidated, the Clinton White House sees what’s happening in California and California’s a swing state, right?

They’ve just won it in 1992 for the first time in since lbj mm-hmm. . And they’re very concerned about what this means, right? And how that is going to sort of shift the narrative, um, in terms of immigration and how they’re getting hit. They say, Look at what’s happening in California. Look at this policy, Right?

It’s very popular. It wins big, right? And they’re like, Well, we have this problem and we have an, like, literally they call it the immigration problem. And we need to pivot and we need what, uh, one internal White House advisor says at the time, A new Democrat solution. Yeah. Right. This is the

[00:16:50] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: dlc. It’s, it’s, it’s highlighted in the evidence that you present.

It’s like highlighted the new problem, right? The new problem in case they don’t see it.

[00:16:56] Dr. Sarah Coleman: We need to, we need to shift. Yeah. And so what you [00:17:00] see emerge between 1994 and 1996 is a massive shift in the Clinton administration and federal policy about immigrants access to the social safety net. The Clinton White House prior to 180 7 passing in their welfare reform drafts.

Have no mention of immigrants. Right. In the, eventually in 1996, all legal, permanent residents are being cut from large swaths of the social safety net. And that changes in this two year period as the White House sort of tries to sort out the electoral politics of how do we win California, Right. And how do we take out hard line immigration stance at this moment?

I mean, it’s sort of this, this sort of, And at the end of 96, Clinton wins reelection, right? But immigrants are totally removed from most of these programs, including food stamps. Yeah.

[00:17:52] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: And, and if I, if I might just follow up on this same line, this also has implications beyond immigrants to the welfare system [00:18:00] and the safety net.

Oh, yeah.

[00:18:02] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Yeah. I mean, the removal of immigrants funds about 40% of Clinton’s welfare reform plan, right? So if you wanna look at what this does for the population, large, right? The. The two ideas of the social safety net for immigrants. Yeah. And the social safety net, um, for, I should say for non-citizen immigrants, uh, and the, the social safety net for citizens Right.

Is deeply entwined. Yeah.

[00:18:26] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: Um, and, and, and it’s so much so that, um, we continue to see it and just, you know, uh, this was a big part of also Trump’s, um, reforms and proposals and the so-called, uh, public charge rule, uh, that, uh, ultimately by then sort of, uh, overturn head and, but it’s still in the debate and just, and just today, a few minutes ago or a couple of hours ago, um, uh, Biden, uh, sort of [00:19:00] talks about marijuana and, and charges to, um, um, um, marijuana charges that he’s basically, uh, Getting rid of those, but not, not to immigrants.

Yes. And so, and so what, where your book is telling us in a way is these conversations of immigrants and the safety net and the way that immigrants interact with benefits. And it’s, it’s constantly changing and, and, and present. Yeah. Uh, um, to what, to what extent these efforts and, and, and what we have seen in the past and today tells us about what we might see in, in, in, in, in the next few years.

And sort of the way that, uh, immigration continues to be a, a debate.

[00:19:40] Dr. Sarah Coleman: So I think what’s interesting to me is I think, as you know, anti-immigrant effort in the seventies and eighties, really, when they try and focus on militarizing the border, Right. And they try and sort of ramp up border enforcement, but they realize that they’re unsuccessful.

Yeah. And so they start to think about, okay, so what other ways can we sort of minimize [00:20:00] immigrants access to rights in the United States? Right. And I think we’ll see that again. Right. If we see increasingly the anti-immigrant sentiment. has some effort at the border, right? But if they get frustrated, right, that they don’t see the border being shut in any significant way, they just look to how else can we minimize this population and sort of relegate them to second class citizenship in the United States.

So I think we’ll see continued efforts to try and minimize immigrants rights in the United States at a state and local level in particular, um, and at a federal level. But I think in particular, I mean, you look at the question of, um, of daca for example. You know, how can we remove immigrants access to education?

Right? Or so how can we sort of, or to labor sort of that question.

[00:20:43] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: But, but it goes beyond borders, right? Because, um, it, as someone who follows elections closely and who follows the debates on immigration closely across elections in the country, one thing that we see is that, um, immigration is a threat and it’s [00:21:00] a problem, uh, goes well beyond border states and you have.

You know, states well in the middle of the country saying we need to be stronger at the border, and like, kind of wonder what border they’re talking about. If you don’t like your neighboring state or, um, uh, yeah, what is it? So I see that this, uh, almost, um, movement of, of, of immigrants beyond border states is now sort of taking these, the ways that you talk about, uh, beyond border states and into the center and, and, and, and is.

Is this gonna continue? Yeah,

[00:21:38] Dr. Sarah Coleman: do it. So I think, I think it is in the sense that, so one of the things that happens after Reagan’s amnesty, like one of the big demographic shifts is that people start moving, right? They have freedom of movement once, uh, they have authorization. And so we see sort of a, um, a wide sort of de sort of spreading out of immigration in the United States post 86, like demographically.

The other thing that we start to see sort of over the [00:22:00] nineties is that certain states in the Rocky Mountain, West in the southeast right to work states in particular, see, while it’s still not a massive percentage of the nation’s immigration, they are seeing their immigrant populations almost double.

Yeah. Right. So I think that sort of brings, will bring these states, continue to bring these states into the conversation. I think when I think back historically, right, the question about Plyler in Texas in 80, when it’s a swing state. The question about California in 96 when it’s a swing state, right? How are the politics of, say Nevada gonna play out in two years?

Or the politics of immigration in North Carolina. Right. How does the sort of the immigrate this, what are the swing states that we’re gonna start to see this sort of shape, the national debate, right? Obviously Texas and California still play a role, but I think sort of looking at how these non border states influence the debate is gonna sort of play out over time.

Yeah.

[00:22:56] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: You mentioned, um, you mentioned, uh, the dreamers in the Dream Act and [00:23:00] you know, Paul, after Paul chose that, um, uh, there’s great approval for, for, for, for these l just, you know, uh, pass and become an actual law. Yeah. And, and, um, and yet, uh, we don’t, we don’t really see the momentum at Phillip. Um, I was telling earlier about this project that I’m working on right now where we see, uh, an interesting take from dreamers on, on citizenship.

And, and, and one of the things that we learned in your book is sort of like the way, the way in which citizenship has been redefined in the last 20 years. Yeah. And there’s almost been a repa, and I see it clearly on, on the way that dreamers see it. But why you tell us more about how this, uh, the concept of citizenship and how we see citizenship has changed in the last few years.

Right.

[00:23:49] Dr. Sarah Coleman: And I think this is one of those things I think about how history Right. Can provide us with an idea of how things haven’t always been this way. Right? And they can provide us a guide of some, you know, we we’re not deemed to [00:24:00] repeat ourselves and maybe we can go a different direction. So, uh, right. I think in the 1960s and early seventies, right, we had a much more expansive notion of immigrants rights.

And as we’ve seen, my education rights are starting to be attacked. We’ve seen, uh, like the social safety net, we’ve seen labor rights through employer sanctions and verification. We’ve seen all these sort of internal enforcement efforts sort of ramp up. And this notion of citizenship that we have now is much, it’s much more, right, Are you a citizen or are you not?

Right. And citizenship takes a much sort of hard line in the stand. And I think most of our popular notion of this, right, if you think about the last couple years is sort of under the Trump administration, this kind of thing. But one of the things I really point out is that this happened in the nineties, right?

It happens under Clinton. And a lot of the framework of what we’re taught dealing with today is sort of these changes that happened in the nineties, sort of at this, during this like supposed, you know, democratic president and sort of creates these, um, [00:25:00] not supposed he is a Democratic president, uh mm-hmm.

uh, these like very hard line sort of policies and frameworks that we think

[00:25:07] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: about. Yeah. So, so it’s, so people I hear sometimes this argument when I talk to reporters about, well, immigration is not brought to the forefront because Trump started talking about, or he did all these things. It’s, it’s really always been there.

I mean, the way that we talk about immigrants and, and you mentioned that, you know, sort of history tells us that we just have to repeat itself and, um, we’re. Talking briefly about this, uh, before we came, uh, in here, but, uh, I tend to have a more pessimistic, uh, view on this. Um, so as, uh, you know, researchers as students, uh, policy makers, uh, of immigration, what, what can, um, history tell us so that we can really not repeat the same mistakes?

[00:25:52] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Right. I think there’s, um, a couple ways to think about it. So there’s one, which is, my work talks a lot about the activism of individuals, [00:26:00] right? And the ways in which certain people at key times have made sort of huge actions in you think about someone like the Alvarez family and, and Tyler, right at the very local level, how you can challenge sort of these restrictive policies.

I think the other thing that sort of can be a guide for the future and that I think about is, um, and this is not a sexy answer, right? But your bureaucracy is messy. Mm-hmm. , right? And the anti-immigrant movement pushes very hard and has been very, uh, aggressive throughout the seventies and eighties. , but they fail.

Yeah. Right. And let’s look at why they failed. Right. And then they failed because state and local efforts and federal efforts have kind of gotten in this, the, the gunk of bureaucracy. Right? And they sort of push back in these like very sort of concrete ways. Um, and then I think the, the final thing that it can teach us is, um, if you’re an immigration pro-immigration activist, right?

We can look at how anti-immigrant activists have really harnessed state and local politics. Right. And you can [00:27:00] respond in kind. We see that in California now, right? California has some of the most expansive, uh, immigrant inclusion efforts. Right. And I think you can look at how states, right? If we are more and more, it seems right.

There’s no, there’s no large scale DACA program gonna happen. There’s no large scale immigration reform is sort of dead, you know, for at least the next two years. Mm-hmm. , right? How can state, state and local governments we see more and more and go. Right. Play a role in sort of shifting the policy.

[00:27:32] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: Is that because California is a safe, uh, non, um, swing state?

[00:27:38] Dr. Sarah Coleman: I don’t think that’s, cuz California’s, I think, you know, I think tell, I think immigration and I’d love your perspective as someone like who deeply studies Texas. I think immigration is more complex in many states than most people give it credit to. I think Texas has the potential to go there. Um, I think, uh, the policies that Governor Abbott currently pushes are not [00:28:00] necessarily as, um, as widely popular as the national press would help make you think they are in Texas.

I think at a state level, there are many people in Texas who are quite critical of Governor Abbott on, on immigration. Yeah,

[00:28:14] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: I think that’s a helpful perspective, right? For, especially for those that don’t live in Texas who have never been into Texas, might listen to, uh, this podcast, uh, at some point, this conversation.

Um, it’s a helpful, uh, reminder that. Um, the way that things are in Texas aren’t necessarily the way that can be seen through, um, national politics for the way that they’re reflected. And there’s, um, there’s, um, in your book, there’s uh, also this story of, um, mobilization, a story of, uh, those beyond the powers that be Right.

That also push for, for that. And, and, and, and I think we can see those movements in Texas happening too. Yeah. Where immigrants tend to also try to have a voice.

[00:28:58] Dr. Sarah Coleman: And I think we need to complicate [00:29:00] the anti-immigrant narrative mm-hmm. in the United States. Right. I think, you know, the twenties and thirties, you think about the sort of anti-immigrant nativist, sort of eugenics movement sort of fear of takeover, like sort of replacement theory sort of population.

Right. That sort of anti-immigrant sentiment has been there for, for a very long time. What sort of layers in, during the 1970s that I think is somewhat. easier to refute in like a, to to the average voter. And I don’t know if this is true, right, But what layers in, in the 1970s is this argument that immigrants, right at this moment of economic downturn, they’re a burden on state and, and they’re taking sort of benefits and sort of the social safety net away.

And I think that’s a sort of argument that in some ways it’s easier to like, uh, if that gets layered on, maybe we can, we can remove that layer, right? I think there’s some people who, you know, uh, are anti-immigrant. [00:30:00] Uh, there’s this very like, racist anti-immigrant argument and they will never sort of subscribe to that, but they’re like, Oh, but I can kind of understand the other argument.

Yeah. But maybe if we invalidate that other argument effectively right, Then they can sort that sort of, might have some Well,

[00:30:15] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: does that make Yeah, the way, the way that you’re talking about around, um, is uh, very focused on states and sort of things happen at the state level. Um, you know, someone who didn’t go to high school in this country and had sort of had to learn how this country worked, um, uh, in college, um, I, I found it very interesting the way that immigration sort of really supposed to rely, uh, at the federal level, right?

That’s, but that, that didn’t quite happen that way and is the way that we’re talking about it now doesn’t seem to be that way. But this is something that you are talk about in your book that that was sort of a shift and it seems like

[00:30:50] Dr. Sarah Coleman: we’re still there. Yeah. So up until, for like, from basically the colonial times through 1880s, right?

Immigration was largely a state and local matter, [00:31:00] right? Most of the state level immigration is happening in Massachusetts and New York and restriction. It’s sort of a state level sort of restriction, and it’s only with Asian immigration on the west coast that we start to see for the first time federal immigration policy and through a series of court cases in the late 1880s, we basically cement federal jurisdiction over immigration policy.

that remains somewhat unchallenged, right? There’s a little bit of challenge in the twenties and thirties, but largely unchallenged until the, until the seventies. And I think, um, what you start to see, particularly in the nineties, is this shift to state and local and to, uh, away from the federal. And I think, um, you know, it happens, you know, I think in my mind it, it was a, it was a negative shift.

Yeah. Right. I think, um, for better or worse, I think, you know, it, it, I, that’s sort of how I think about it. Um, and, but I think if we accept the fact that it has happened, that the shift has happened. Right. I think that there’s a ways to think forward in music creatively. Right. [00:32:00] But most of the federal, what’s interesting to me about the federal sort of shift to the local is that sometimes, like in California states shift national policy, even if their state policy fails.

Right. But they, their policy and the failure at 180 7, like the, the electoral success of 180. Shifts the national policy. Another case that I talk about is Iowa, right? Mm-hmm. , I mean, I think a lot of people sort of often think of just talking about California or Texas or that kind of thing, but in the mid 1990s, um, Iowa because of right to work laws and the shifting and meat packing right, becomes sort of, um, a case where there’s a sort of, uh, immigration becomes this more hotbed issue.

And there is a murder, um, in a small town. Um, uh, and it sort of plays out that they realize that the, um, that the person who committed the crime, uh, was undocumented and had been identified by local police is undocumented a year before and had returned to town. And these local [00:33:00] politicians basically make an issue out of it saying, you know, we don’t.

you know, we need the authority to do immigration enforcement because we don’t have, the nearest CVP is in Nevada, right? We’re nowhere near 100 miles from the border. We don’t have, like, so it puts this, it sort of leads to the state level effort that nowadays we see in states far from Iowa, right? But it’s creates this program called 2 87 G, which allows for the federal government to delegate, uh, immigration enforcement to state and locals.

And so I think that’s sort of another place where you see sort of that away from the border. You see literally the delegation of federal authority to states in the nineties.

[00:33:41] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: So as you talk about, um, not so far away from the board there. Um, so I, uh, I live many, many years along the border there. Um, I, I could see the borderer fence or wall from, um, my backyard.

Um, and [00:34:00] so I wanna give the opportunity, uh, For the audience to ask questions, but I want to close with two questions. And so the, the first one is, um, the title. So what is the role with him and, uh, uh, with how Outs arrived to the title Uhhuh. And so you can tell us sort of about the technical part of it.

Like Oh, so there like, thought about it, like someone suggested it and then what it means for the book. Yeah. And as you talk about what it means for the book, maybe, um, if you can close by telling us, um, why is this book important for, you know, uh, LBJ alumni and police

[00:34:36] Dr. Sarah Coleman: makers? Yeah. Um, so the, um, how I came to the book title, um, I had a much longer title that got rejected by the publisher,

Initially it was something. Something, something something. I don’t wanna get semi, I don’t wanna something, something something. And they were like, Not gonna work. Why don’t you come email us back with like five [00:35:00] options next week. So I spent a weekend running and thinking a lot about titles. Um, and I started to think about, and for me with Walls Within is right, there’s so much focus on the border wall, right?

But we have created these walls to American society and to the American dream very effectively over the last 30 years, right? We as a society, and I think we need to think about how we can remove those walls, right? For the 24 million people who are living here, who don’t have citizenship status.

Beautiful. In love way. Um, and then, uh, I forgot the second half. Uh, why, why, why, why is it important? Why’s important? Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think it’s really important and I would suggest, you know, I think people to think about, um, like history, as I said, does not have to repeat itself, right? And we’ve seen this massive denigration of immigrants rights in the United States.

Over the last 50 years, and I think we need to think about how can we get back to that place we were in the seventies and what does it mean, right? That our citizen, that our [00:36:00] notion of rights is so tied to citizenship, right? And how can we sort of, how can we sort of work back to a place where we think about rights more expansively that aren’t necessarily tied to citizenship status Very much.

Thank you.

[00:36:22] Bill Shute: Questions? Okay. Good. Can I have one ready? I was.

[00:36:30] Guest: everybody thought that the browning of America would, uh, would kind of make immigrants, uh, more and more powerful. And it really hasn’t happened even though America is becoming much more immigrant. Um, and one of the things is that, that Hispanics themselves are really often very anti-immigrant. Um, I mean, half of, uh, half of ice is, is Hispanic, [00:37:00] and I don’t really, you know, I don’t understand how a lot of these people sleep at night, be honest.

Uh, but, but it, it really, it doesn’t seem like that’s changing at all. And, um, That, that’s so much of this, this like negative and racist kind of, kind of behavior and treatment I is, is still going and now it’s, now it’s an absolute watch word, uh, uh, you know, an absolute anchor of the Republican, uh, position.

And that wasn’t always the case at all.

[00:37:35] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Yeah. So I think it’s sort of a, and you raise this, uh, quite eloquently, right? That, that I think it’s a mistake to think of, right? And this is exactly what Dr. Garcia Rios is like polling data will show you, right. That he does excellent work on, Right? That, that the Latino population in the United States is very diverse, right?

And their perspective on, um, on immigration is not uniform. Um, it hasn’t historically been uniform either, right? When you think [00:38:00] about, I talk about these mal death activists in the seventies who take up undocumented children’s, uh, access to education. If you looked at Mal death five years earlier, they were working, I mean, uh, uh, uh, lulac, sorry, five lulac five years earlier.

Um, Right. LULAC joins in the case as a, in an amicus brief, um, five years earlier. Right. They’re opposing undocumented immigration to the United States. Right? And so I think either it’s sort of a misnomer and sort of mis, it’s a misconstrued to think that historically this population has been united on a perspective on immigration and, and that that’s gonna change necessarily.

I mean, you should,

[00:38:35] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: and yeah, and, and, and in a way, um, we tend to think that there’ll be natural, um, um, um, uh, supporters of one way or another, but he choses that. Um, and, uh, it seems to be a human condition really, um, that people sort of embrace policies that, uh, seem to go counter to their own interests, um, on.[00:39:00]

on, on, on ice and border enforcement being actively Latino. This is a very interesting question that researchers have looked at. And, um, um, one of the things that they find is that ultimately, uh, it’s, you know, a job opportunities and just the same way that, um, heavily police, um, black neighborhoods are policed by black coms.

Um, and ultimately people have to take, have to take the, you know, job opportunities that they have. And sometimes they’re not ver uh, available widely. And do they like what they do? Not always. And, you know, works of, uh, colleagues, which is, um, another Texas, US native, uh, David Cortez has shown this and he has done extensive interviews, uh, with, with, uh, border patrol enforcers and, and yes, um, uh, Latino diverse, uh, population.

And they, they tend to show these diverse attitudes, but the browning of America, Um, I [00:40:00] think, um, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s given more power to brown voters. It’s just not uniform. So, just like, uh, voters, uh, Latino voters in Arizona, uh, we’re able to vote ar pa out, Uh, voters in Florida, Latino voters in Florida, were able to give Florida to Trump.

So the voting power is there. It’s just not uniform. And

[00:40:25] Dr. Sarah Coleman: it’s also, remember, right, that they vote on many different issues, right? And immigration may not be the number one issue for many of these voters, and

[00:40:31] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: it has to be for many years. And lately it’s, it has actually been right now, and, you know, possible show is the economy jobs, uh, surprise.

Surprise, right? Just like everyone else. Uh, inflation. It’s also top of the mind. And so,

[00:40:50] Guest: Hi, uh, my name’s Roy Potts and I just came back from doing a council on Farm Relations Fellowship in Canada, where I was looking at [00:41:00] migration and, and their approaches. Um, one of the things that I wanted to ask about is these linkages between, um, groups that are, um, uh, in support of, let’s just say fair immigration.

And, um, it, it’s, one of the obstacles is this is a very complex subject and it, it doesn’t seem as though, uh, the public has the desire to really , um, unpack some of these very complex issues. , do you think talking about the economic benefits, um, can cut through some of the challenges America has to be competitive.

It is going to be more competitive with talented immigrants. Um, I think that is a, a message that maybe resonates, but I’d [00:42:00] like to hear whether or not you think that will be enough to sort of cut through, um, some of the challenges, some of the hurdles about talking about this. And again, if you could just sort of talk about the groups that can possibly link up around this.

I’m very concerned that, um, uh, the narratives are very limited, um, particularly when it comes to people of color, like black people in this country are marginalized when it comes to this discussion. Why is that? And. Can there be some new linkage linkages, uh, uh, that can be made that have not been tapped before?

[00:42:39] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Right. So I think there’s a lot of interesting group, right? Uh, immigration lends itself to what, you know, what one would called strange bedfellows, right? To get sort of deals done. If you look historically right, much of it has to come through the sort of unusual alliances, um, groups such as the Urban League.

Um, and [00:43:00] others have come a long way from the 1970s when they were firmly on sort of the anti-immigrant restriction, uh, restriction side, right through the early 1970s. They’re pushing employer sanctions, they’re pushing a lot of that. So I think there’s, they’re, and labor unions, right, like the AFL CIO and others have dramatically shifted their position on immigration.

And I think we do need to make sure that we sort of bring these groups to the forefront of the conversation, right? That we’re not gonna sort of win this, uh, win these, these, the passage of these without bringing all these coalitions to the table. I think the economic argument is a strong one to make.

Mm-hmm. . I think the other thing I’d emphasize right is to say it’s not just about adding to the economy, and I sort of talk about this in the close of my book, but like, um, immigrant, uh, immigrant labor is essential to the solvency of the social welfare state, Right. And the social security and to all these sort of broader social safety net programs.

So it’s not just a boon to the economy, it’s literally upholding [00:44:00] our social safety net. And I think we need to sort of bring all these groups to the table and say, sort of think about like, how do we bring that into that, that conversation. It’s, if I

[00:44:08] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: can complicate this, is, is that complicated by what we have seen in histories?

You know, thinking about the Chinese exclusion Act that came after immigrants clearly were being helpful and needed and then operation went back. Yeah. Right. They clearly comes after bras are being helpful and, and, and, and, and solving a problem, but then their reaction then, Um, anti-immigrant after, after, after those helping hands sort of come around.

Yeah.

[00:44:36] Dr. Sarah Coleman: So I think we need to sort of think about how we, multiple narratives, right. To bring different groups in.

Great question though.

[00:44:46] Bill Shute: So I have one real quick, through this generational flux situation between local and national enforcement of immigration and how much of a role those different periods has, America’s tendency [00:45:00] towards isolationism been impacted by global events outside our borders.

[00:45:07] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Um, American isolationism and sort of foreign policy as a whole has played a significant role throughout history and shaping immigration policy. If you think about the 1924 Immigration Act, which sort of starts this massive period till 65, where we have among the most restricted immigration in the United States, it comes at this moment because of three things come together in the 1920s.

One is eugenics, right? Two is a rise in immigration that’s been happening over the last 10 years. And the third is World War I and the explicit sort of federal, uh, and sort of national political endorsement of anti-immigrant rhetoric when it be anti-German, right? And sort of the concern about hyphenated Americans that happens during World War I, right?

And so you see that in the twenties, right? Foreign policy plays a more expansive role in the opposite direction in immigration policy in [00:46:00] the sixties. So you think about, I talked about in a little bit about the signing of the 65 bill, right there at the start, right? This moment of civil rights, right? The US is also in the midst of the Cold War, right?

And we’re trying to win the hearts and minds of countries around the world. And yet we’re like, By the way, you can’t come in mm-hmm. , right? That doesn’t play that well, right? So, So an expansive immigration policy. So foreign policy certainly plays a role throughout history and sort of shifting our immigration policy.

at the border, and I think you wanna add anything? Sorry, .

[00:46:35] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: No, I mean, uh, I think I like how you talk about the circularity of, uh, you know, um, it, it seems to go hand in hand. Um, but, um, I don’t see this tendencies for isolationism, uh, going away. And so maybe that’s why I’m more, um, septic and pessimistic about the outlook of immigrants.[00:47:00]

Um, one right here. And then there’s some, there’s, Yeah. So go ahead and thank you both.

[00:47:06] Guest: Um, Sarah, I’d be curious, and you sort of started to get on this, uh, in the last answer about how much, how, um, or how little does the actual numbers of. Immigrants crossing the borders track with the anti-immigrant, uh, public dialogue over the last 50 years.

[00:47:36] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Well, go ahead.

[00:47:36] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: No, I mean, I just wanna offer, uh, set up data, data on this, but this is data specialties. , it, it, it tracks. We have, there’s, we have been asking this question in, you know, sociology and political scientists have been asking this question, uh, about, um, perception of, of immigrants.

And the question basically asked, uh, do you think there should be [00:48:00] more immigrants than what we have now or less immigrants? And then we track sort of, you know, correlations to this answer to, um, attitudes. And then at the same time, correlation to actual immigration. And so what, uh, FRAX is the perception of immigrants coming to the country tracks perfectly with.

Um, economic anxieties and, uh, levels of unemployment and, and then at the same time, um, feelings of, um, anti-immigration, but it, it doesn’t track actual rates of immigration. Um, and, uh, so, uh, narratives around, uh, numbers of immigrants actually coming, uh, seem to follow these fears rather than the actual numbers of people coming.

[00:48:48] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Yeah. The average American has no idea how the immigration numbers are going up and down monthly. Yearly have no, no real perception, but like this sort of what Leo Chavez calls like the [00:49:00] Latino threat narrative, Right. That sort of threat narrative really sort of ties very closely right. To sort of the economic situation.

[00:49:08] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: Yeah and just, uh, finally, um, say that it not only, um, , the average American don’t know, uh, sort of how many immigrants are coming or not, is that, uh, they also largely ignore that. Um, you know, there’s been a decline on the groups that they seem to fear the most, or that they seem to think that, you know, for, for a long time, uh, immigration, actually, Mexican immigration had a negative.

So people were leaving the country. Um, and, and yet the narrative was, we need to stop people coming to the border. Well, guess what? They’re actually leav you, you know, the price of your produce is going up . And so that’s maybe what you should be tracking. Yeah.

[00:49:54] Guest: Uh, thanks again for, uh, for the talk. I find it very, very interesting. I wanted to ask, um, [00:50:00] you mentioned a lot of sort of anti-immigrant movements that have occurred over time in California, in Arizona. Um, but I, but I’ve also, there’s al, there also seems to be a trend of. There being a, a push back against that. And California’s an example of that. Now, California is very, very Democratic, has a very strong Latino population that votes same in Arizona.

Arizona, the, the end, the Arpaio movement seemed to have a, a sort of a flashback. And now Latinos are organized and they’re moving in Virginia. Same thing happened in Prince William County. We had a huge, you know, anti-immigrant backlash not that long ago. And now in those same counties you have state senators and local legislators that are Latinos.

Uh, so can you talk a little bit about like sort of the success of the, sort of the countering. The narrative encountering those movements at the local level. I don’t know if your book covers that at all or not. And if, if you have examples of like today, good organizations to support, uh, in terms of, uh, [00:51:00] the back in, in terms of fighting back against Thea’s narrative?

[00:51:03] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Yeah, so I think one of the things that’s really interesting to think about in many of these places, like in, um, for example in Iowa, right? They work really hard to get this local, the ability for state and local law enforcement to do immigration enforcement. And then at the, when it comes, they start to, they’re like, Great, we’ve signed this agreement at the federal government, or we’ve got this, this, this model that we can use.

And then salt, um, Salt Lake City and uh, uh, um, Storm City, Iowa, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Storm City, Iowa then are like, Okay, we’re gonna try and do this. And locally right groups organize target the city council and there’s no agreement sign. Right? And for almost five years, not a single jurisdiction is able.

Right. As you said, there’s this huge anti-immigrant movement. People mobilize at a local level, the state council at the council, and sort of come and sort of turn it right in California. Na Like we see among, and you would know probably more specifically the data, but like massive naturalization rate.

People who largely in California in the [00:52:00] nineties hadn’t seen a reason to naturalize Right. Sort of move to naturalize incredibly after, after Prop 180 7.

[00:52:08] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: Yeah. This is, this is the chip that influence heavily political science and Latino politics. Sort of our response to that, I think, um, it’s builds on this narrative that we were talking earlier about how there’s gonna be Latino power built on threat.

[00:52:22] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Yeah. Yeah. Um, so yeah, groups are, are are, I mean, I can’t think, I mean there are lots of great organizations now that work in this space. Um, you know, there’s some, I don’t know the ones in Virginia, but I mean, I think there’s great groups and I think it’s an opportunity, right? When people sort of realize sometimes, unfortunately, right.

Really you need this sort of. big spurring moment to get people mobilized behind sort of the the pro-immigration effort.

[00:52:47] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: Let’s take one more question. Uh, this has been a conversation in the interest of time. Let’s take one more plus. So make the best question. This is, Okay. We’re closing with this.

[00:52:57] Dr. Sarah Coleman: No pressure.

[00:52:58] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: It better be great.

[00:52:59] Guest: Hi, I’m [00:53:00] Rihanna. Thank you so much for being here today. Um, so my grandparents immigrated to the United States from India, um, like over 50 years ago, and they came here in the hopes of kind of fulfilling the American dream, which like you talked a bit about, and I guess my question is like, do you think that that’s something that’s still achievable for like, for immigrants today or even just for American citizens with the policies that have been put in place with immigrant attitudes, like attitudes towards immigrants?

Um, or is that something that we have to give up on?

[00:53:35] Dr. Sarah Coleman: So I’m an optimist and I, um.

[00:53:37] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: I love how you looked at at first, like, oh no, say no.

[00:53:41] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Uh, I don’t think the immigrant, uh, the American dream is dead, right? And I, for immigrant populations, um, what I do hope that we can remind people is that for those people who say, Well, my grandfather came here in 1920 and, you know, achieve the American dream all on his own, right?

He had a very different, uh, situation, right? He [00:54:00] had access to a social safety net. He had sort of all these things that we’ve now tripped. So what I wanna sort of remind people who are multiple generations away from immigration, right? They say like, my, you know, my, my great-grandfather did it on his own, right?

Well, let’s talk about what that, what that was, what that on our own was, and like, how that has dramatically changed. Like, why can’t immigrants today, quote unquote do it on their own? Like, let’s change, let’s talk and sort of correct that narrative.

[00:54:29] Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios: Uh, I actually agree and I think, I think the, the American dream is the immigrant dream, and, and you know, many will say it’s the very came dream.

Yeah. And I think immigrants are the ones that are keeping the American dream alive. Yeah. So I’m actually, I’m hopeful to hear your response. Thank you.

[00:54:47] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Thank you guys so much.

[00:54:53] Bill Shute: So when we’d like to invite all of you to join us for a brief reception in the other room, to [00:55:00] continue this conversation, if you’d like personally, I’d like to invite you all to join us on our podcast series reflecting this entire series of Texas authors. More importantly, there’s a QR code out front for a discount on what the publisher decided would be the walls within

But thank you so much, Dr. Garcia Rios for moderating and especi. Sarah joining us this evening to talk about your wonderful research.

[00:55:32] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

[00:55:33] Bill Shute: Absolutely. Thank you.

[00:55:35] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Thank you so much.

[00:55:37] Bill Shute: As the beginning of the [00:56:00] conversation noted, your book focuses on how our modern framework, uh, for immigration policy begins with the passage of the Immigration Act in 1965. Though we tend to think of immigration policy as purely a federal. What has been the role of states influencing the national debate?

[00:56:17] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Right. So I think many people in the United States think of sort of Arizona’s SB 10 70 and Sheriff Joe Arpaio as sort of this new moment in 2010 of states shaping immigrants’ rights. But one of the things that I show in my book is that states actually have this much longer history of shaping I immigration policy and immigrants rights in various ways.

Um, nearly two decades before Sheriff Joe in Arizona, Right. The state at the nation’s Heartland, Iowa was shifting the nation’s immigration policy and in my book I highlight how a murder in a small town in Iowa combines with sort of the region’s broader changing immigration patterns and politicians like Senator Grassley and the for the creation of a program called 2 87 G in [00:57:00] 1996.

And this program, while it sounds like a bureaucratic sort of numbered program, is actually very important. It allows the federal government to deputize state and local law enforcement to do federal immigration enforcement. And 27 G effectively ended what had been nearly a century of exclusive federal legal, federal control over immigration enforcement.

And it sets into sort of a new wave of concerns about immigrants civil liberties in the United States. But I think not only is what we see in Iowa important because it shows us how sort of states begin driving immigration policy well before 2010. Right? But it also shows us that there’s a sort of different ways, sort different levers that you can think about how states are driving.

You have either direct delegation of authority like you see in Iowa in the nineties, or as I talked about with Dr. Garcia Rios a little bit. You have the ways in which state and local action forces immigration policy [00:58:00] to sort of conform to state preferences. And so that’s sort of how, So there’s two different ways that states begin functioning in the nineties to do this either directly, like Iowa.

Getting delegated authority for immigration or in the case of California with Prop 180 7, like Dr. Garcia Rios and I spoke about, right, The, what happens in California pressures, the federal policy to shift, to accommodate the pressures of sort of the electoral politics in California at the time. And so well before, you know, by 2010, we see states are shaping immigration policy in numerous ways.

We have states like Arizona and Alabama that are incredibly restrictive and sort of trying to put laws in the books that in a new sort of very restrictive regime into place. And we have states like California that are doing things like on their own, on driver’s license, sort of pushing immigrant integration, right?

And so that’s. This moment, You know, we see the results of it nowadays, but this moment in the nineties, we really start to see states working [00:59:00] in two sort of complimentary ways to get immigration power into their hands.

[00:59:06] Bill Shute: You also talk about historic examples of commonality or bipartisanship when it comes to immigration policy.

What’s it gonna take for us to get back towards another era of that type of discussion?

[00:59:21] Dr. Sarah Coleman: So, you know, I think it’s one of the things that’s important to remember and think the ports of history can remind us is that immigration does not have to be such a, um, polarizing topic. And throughout history we’ve had major reforms on immigration through bipartisan work.

I think right now the current climate makes imi, uh, sort of a comprehensive immigration reform package. Very difficult to foresee happening in the next year or two. Um, but I think when we look at sort of. Issues that are currently arising in immigration policy, we might see some potential for bipartisan work.

For example, the Fifth Circuit recently punted Texas v United States, um, [01:00:00] back to the, the district court for the Southern District of Texas for consideration of the Biden Administration’s final rule for daca. And I think if Judge Hannon and the Fifth Circuit rules for the state and against the DACA program, I think we might see sort of a potential for bipartisan support to get through some of the Dreamer bills, right when every other pathway has been closed.

The majority of people in America support these dreamer programs. And I think sort of that sort of situation, we might see sort of more bipartisan work on specific immigration issues. Even if we can’t get anywhere on comprehensive reform right now,

[01:00:38] Bill Shute: I can’t imagine how difficult that would be politically in this environment.

Well, Sarah, it’s been a real pleasure to chat with you. I’m so glad you could join me.

[01:00:47] Dr. Sarah Coleman: Thank you so much for having me, and I really appreciate the warm welcome from the Washington Center and the lBJ School.

[01:00:52] Bill Shute: Well, we were thrilled to have you, and again, the book is The Walls Within the Politics of Immigration in Modern America.[01:01:00]

[01:01:00] Dr. Sarah Coleman: And thank you for joining us. Come back to join me in our other historians in the coming weeks. For more insightful episodes of Policy on Purpose, please visit lbj.utexas.edu/podcast.

[01:01:20] Outro: This is Policy on Purpose, a podcast produced by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. We take you behind the scenes of policy with the people who help shape it. To learn more, visit LBJ dot u texas.edu and follow us on Twitter and Facebook at the LBJ School. Thank you for listening.