Immigrant Franchise and Immigration Policy: Evidence from the Progressive Era

Arbeitspapier

What is the role played by immigrant groups in shaping migration policy in the destination country? We address this question exploiting cross-state variation in U.S. citizens' access to the franchise, due to the presence of residency requirements. First we document that naturalized immigrants were more geographically mobile than natives. Second, congressmen representing districts with large numbers of naturalized U.S. citizens were more likely to support an open migration policy, but this effect is reversed once we account for residency requirements. Our results indicate that electoral accountability of U.S. congressmen to naturalized immigrants was a key factor in explaining this outcome.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 13195

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; International Migration ; Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
• Subject: immigration policy ; political economy

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Biavaschi, Costanza ; Facchini, Giovanni
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2020

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/223637
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET