A Nation of Laws: The Perception of Choice and Unauthorized Migration

Previously the domain of the right, even left-leaning parties are shifting their rhetoric to focus on the threat of unauthorized migration, rather than promoting on the positives related to migration and the wellbeing of migrants. Indeed, deportation and enforcement were key policy issues in the 2024 US election, with both leading candidates attempting to look tough on unauthorized immigrants. What explains this consensus against unauthorized immigration? Most existing literature focuses on immigrant identities and empathy among natives, but we believe that this literature falls short in explaining this recent shift to the right. We theorize that most Americans, even those who genuinely support and value immigration, do not like law-breakers. They associate unauthorized migraiton with "bad" choices, and they are comfortable in asserting that those choices deserve punishment. We conduct novel survey experiments in the immediate aftermath of the American election, in which we examine causal mechanisms related to immigrant choices. We also use an original pairwise comparison experiment to develop a new measurement of punitiveness. Our findings suggest that American punitiveness comes down to perceptions of choice, and that perception pushes even migrant-friendly natives to support draconian enforcement policies.