ABSTRACT
The 1990 law remains the centerpiece of US legal immigration policy. It emerged from a potent pro-immigration coalition of business and grower interests, ethnic and human rights groups, political entrepreneurs, pro-immigration mass media, and other social elites. The first challenge to the new law came from Pat Buchanan's populist presidential campaign in 1992, which charged that the law betrayed US sovereignty and threatened its political identity and ethnic cohesion. Those who insist that America has turned its back on immigrants point to the 1996 welfare and immigration reforms. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), which Congress enacted quickly and with little debate, is the most radical reform of immigration law in decades. Recent immigration trends have presented restrictionists with much political ammunition for their struggle to reduce admissions, especially of nonwhites. The feisty Republican debate over immigration seems particularly favorable to its continuation.
