Lobbying For Inclusion

Download or read book Lobbying for Inclusion written by Carolyn Wong and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2006-03-17 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In every decade since passage of the Hart Cellar Act of 1965, Congress has faced conflicting pressures: to restrict legal immigration and to provide employers with unregulated access to migrant labor. Lobbying for Inclusion shows that in these debates immigrant rights groups advocated a surprisingly moderate course of action: expansionism was tempered by a politics of inclusion. Rights advocates supported generous family unification policies, for example, but they opposed proposals that would admit large numbers of guest workers without providing a clear path to citizenship. As leaders of pro-immigrant coalitions, Latino and Asian American rights advocates were highly effective in influencing immigration lawmakers even before their constituencies gained political clout in the voting booth. Success depended on casting rights demands in universalistic terms, while leveraging their standing as representatives of growing minority populations.