Circumventing deadlock through venue-shopping: Why there is not only talk in US immigration policies in times of economic crisis

Zaun, Natascha and Roos, Christof and Gulzau, Fabian (2015) Circumventing deadlock through venue-shopping: Why there is not only talk in US immigration policies in times of economic crisis. [Conference Proceedings] (Submitted)

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Abstract

This article addresses the question how the financial and economic crisis that hit the US in the late 2000s impacted on immigration policies. Drawing on Kingdon’s multiple streams model and combining it with the notion of two-level games, we find that while the policy stream and the problem stream would call for both restrictive and liberalising changes, the political stream impedes change: The fact that Congress is since long divided over a Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) impedes any restrictive or liberalising changes. With problems resulting from current policies being intensified through the global economic crisis, however, actors favouring either restrictive or liberal policy change look for alternative venues to pursue their policy aims. Through legislative changes on the state level or via executive orders by the president, policies can be changed on a lower level without a CIR.

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