Trade, Foreign Direct Investment and Immigration Policy Making in the US

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

This paper argues that immigration policy formation in the US after 1950 can only be understood in the context of the increasing integration of world markets. Increasing trade openness has exposed firms that rely on immigrant labor to foreign competition and increased the likelihood that these firms fail. Increasing openness by other states to foreign direct investment allowed these same firms to move production overseas. Firms’ choice to close their doors or to move overseas decreases their need for labor at home, leading them to spend their political capital on issues other than immigration. Their lack of support for open immigration, in turn, allows policymakers to restrict immigration. An examination of voting behavior on immigration in the US Senate