Presidential politics of immigration reform (Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton)

This project explores the difference in presidential involvement in the formulation and implementation processes of the immigration reform. The dependent variable “the extent of presidential involvement” is operationalized through four cases examined between 1960 and 1996. Specifically, this project examines the Immigration Act of 1965, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, the Immigration Act of 1990, and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. The working hypothesis is that there is uneven presidential involvement in the immigration reform and the degree of involvement varies from one presidency to another because of a set of independent variables. The independent variables are: presidential interest, congressional and interest group involvement, the interest groups' pressure, and economic, political, and social environments of the country leading up to the passage of each of the bills evaluated in this study.