ABSTRACT
A rise in neo-isolationism in the United States has given encouragement to a new fiscal politics of immigration. Growth in the refugee population helps to explain some of the rising proportion of immigrant households receiving welfare. Declining economic prospects and a growing sense of disquieting demographic change have produced in the United States a new form of isolationism, one that has both domestic and international elements. Anti-immigrant sentiment and fiscal conservatism intersect in a new “fiscal politics of immigration.” Neo-isolationism is also reflected in increasingly nativist attitudes that US residents hold about foreigners. Several factors help explain the failure of restrictionist public opinion to have greater impact on policy or judicial reforms. Prior to the federal reforms of 1996, state efforts to recoup or limit the costs imposed by immigrants were sporadic and largely unsuccessful. Federal courts have since relied on the Welfare Reform Act to lift the injunction against the efforts to deny benefits to illegal immigrants.
