Abstract
Immigration, and especially illegal immigration, has been one of the most divisive and contested areas of US public policy during the last two decades. It stirs the passions of Americans across the ideological spectrum. This chapter focuses on a neglected but crucially important aspect of executive action on immigration matters: workplace enforcement. Around eight million people work illegally in the USA, representing about 5 percent of the total workforce. Obama rejected the worksite enforcement practices of the Bush administration, promising a new approach focused on punishing employers, not employees. This chapter compares Bush’s and Obama’s worksite enforcement policies to assess the extent of the change across administrations, and it contextualizes and explains these differences with reference to the political calculations of the principals.
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Marienbach, C., Wroe, A. (2017). Continuity and Change: Immigration Worksite Enforcement in the Bush and Obama Administrations. In: Ashbee, E., Dumbrell, J. (eds) The Obama Presidency and the Politics of Change. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41033-3_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41033-3_5
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-41032-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-41033-3
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