The Obama Era and Black Attitudes toward Undocumented Immigration Policies

In this chapter, we examine African American attitudes toward immigration given the policy context of the Obama administration. What the editors of this volume call an “inverted Black linked fate” with Obama and his administration may or may not have indirectly affected Black attitudes on immigration. In President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, he made promises to the immigrant community, but especially the Latino immigrant community, to deliver comprehensive immigration reform. Reform advocates and activists were sorely disappointed when, for various reasons, these promises were not fulfilled and more punitive immigration enforcement led to activists dubbing Obama the “deporter in chief.” How might immigration affect Black politics? We examine what factors shape Black views toward often racialized and politicized policy issues such as immigration in order to provide insight on the prospects for coalition formation and sustainability beyond the Obama administration. We examine the extent to which factors such as economic attitudes, linked fate, neighborhood context, and sociodemographic factors influence Blacks’ views toward undocumented immigrants already living and working in the US. In this sense, we examine the standard conception of group linked fate but consider, to a limited degree, what it says about this volume’s notion of “inverted linked fate.”