ABSTRACT
The focus of American permanent residence policy has changed dramatically in the last half-century. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, the first serious attempt to select immigrants on the basis of skill, introduced two innovations into US policy the preference system and the labor certification process. American immigration policies are generally formulated in the legislative arena. Immigration policy is laid out in statutes in highly specific language. Public opinion on immigration policy in the United States has been relatively stable for many years. The L-1 visa plays prominently in discussions of temporary skilled workers. As demand for skilled workers put pressure on the H-1B program, companies began to resort to the L-1 category to obtain foreign skilled labor. James Q. Wilson identifies four policy types based on their benefit/cost distributions that yield different modes of politics: concentrated benefits and costs/interest group politics, concentrated benefits and diffuse costs/client politics, diffuse benefits and concentrated costs/entrepreneurial politics, and diffuse benefits and costs/majoritarian politics.
