Eddie Ashbee considers US immigration policy
Eddie Ashbee has contributed a chapter to the latest edition of the very long-established series surveying US political processes (Developments in American Politics 10) just published by Palgrave Macmillan.
The chapter considers US immigration policy and, in particular, the shifts within the Republican Party. In the aftermath of their defeat in 2012, when Barack Obama was re-elected, the party’s ‘autopsy’ attributed the loss to their failure to secure sufficient minority votes, particularly amongst Hispanics. Next time around, it was concluded, the party had to become ‘kinder’ and ‘gentler’ towards both immigration and immigrants.
The rest of the story does not need telling. With Donald Trump at the helm the party did just the opposite. And yet, paradoxically, if the 2024 presidential election is considered, the Republican vote share across minorities increased markedly. Eddie Ashbee seeks to explain the reasons for this.