What is the impact of new immigration on American politics? This the main question that political scientists Marisa Abrajano and Zoltan L. Hajnal (both at the University of California, San Diego) ask in their new book White Backlash: Immigration, Race, and American Politics. In the past fifty years, large-scale immigration has remade the face and the politics of America. Over the past fifty years, one million immigrants have arrived in the United States every year. One in four Americans is either an immigrant or the child of immigrants. Latinos are now the largest racial and ethnic group, displacing African Americans. Asian Americans, only 1 percent of the population in 1960, are now the fastest-growing group in the country. New immigration has impacted our schools, our economy, our culture, and our politics. As we head into the 2016 presidential elections, both the Democratic and Republican Parties are wringing their hands over the Latino vote.

But Abrajano and Hajnal are interested in studying an overlooked aspect of the electorate in terms of immigration. Despite the growing trend towards majority–minority states (Latinos now officially outnumber whites in California), they point out that native-born whites still represent 63 percent of the population, and, more importantly in terms of politics, around 75 percent of all voters. How has immigration affected the white vote, their political affiliations, and basic voting decisions?

Drawing on a broad range of longitudinal data, including several large national public opinion surveys, Abrajano and Hajnal make their case for how and why immigration matters. “Images of immigrants clandestinely crossing the US–Mexico border, committing crimes, and accessing public services heighten anxiety among those who may already be concerned about the nation's direction,” they explain. “Once aroused, that anxiety seeks a political home” (27). Chapter 1 offers a theory of immigration backlash politics to demonstrate how the rapid growth of new immigrants from Latin America and Asia in the past fifty years, combined with the immigrant-threat narrative that has dominated the media, has led to widespread concerns about immigration amongst white voters. Given the stories of how immigrants, particularly those in the US without legal status, rely on welfare, drain the health care and educational systems, fail to pay taxes, commit crimes, and do not assimilate, and as Latinos continue to increase in number (i.e. the sleeping “Latino giant”), this narrative suggests that immigration will lead to the end of America as we know it. This message casts immigration as a wide-ranging threat and these stories are repeated over and over again.

Chapter 2 connects the anti-immigrant sentiments amongst whites to their party affiliation to explain why so many whites have defected from the Democratic to the Republican Party. Chapter 3 extends the analysis to explore how these white voters actually vote in presidential, Congressional, and gubernatorial elections. Their findings  –  compiled over a thirty-year period  –  confirm a steady shift towards Republican candidates. The impact of the immigration backlash is not even across the United States, however. In chapter 4, Abrajano and Hajnal explore the geography of the immigration backlash. California, where Latinos are now the majority population, was the first state to actively target undocumented immigrants through voter-led policy initiatives like Proposition 187 (which sought to exclude undocumented immigrants from a range of public services) in 1994. Vermont, on the other hand, has the smallest Latino population, and the state has had almost no new policy initiatives related to immigration. The authors show that whites are more consistently supportive of the Republican Party in states where there is a sizable Latino population.

Drawing from content analysis of immigration-related articles over more than thirty years, Abrajano and Hajnal analyze the media coverage of immigration in chapter 5. They first explore how the media influence public opinion by setting the agenda and framing the issues. And then they focus on the immigrant-threat narrative of crime, unauthorized immigration, border security, and the perceived economic costs of immigration. The authors importantly point out that while there are several types of “immigrants,” including naturalized US citizens, legal residents, temporary workers, refugees, asylees, and undocumented immigrants, who come from all around the world, media images tend to conflate the negative effects of “immigrants” and “immigration” with Latinos. Conversely, Asian immigrants and Asian Americans are portrayed in more positive ways: as “model minorities” who contribute and enrich America. The authors’ analysis of media coverage shows that the dominance of stories on the alleged Latino threat correlates with white voters moving more towards the Republican Party and away from the Democrats.

Having convincingly illustrated how immigration affects voting behavior, the authors then turn to exploring the consequences of the white backlash to immigration in chapter 6. Based on data from state budgets and other sources, Abrajano and Hajnal show that states with large Latino populations tend to implement policies that punish Latino and other working-class groups. Public goods provisions drop, as do funds for welfare, health, and education. These policies do change, however, once the Latino population passes a certain threshold.

The data compiled and analyzed by Abrajano and Hajnal is impressive. The result is a timely and important study that convincingly demonstrates that white fear about immigration  –  reinforced by anxiety over the size and demographic change resulting from immigration and a media-cultivated and -disseminated threat narrative about immigration  –  has inexorably shaped white voting behavior. It has affected which political parties they affiliate with, which policy decisions they support, and who they vote for. One long-standing consequence has been the accelerated defection of whites from the Democratic to the Republican Party and the growing allegiance of racial and ethnic minorities to the Democrats. There is hope, the authors conclude, that immigration will foster cross-cultural understanding, acceptance, and cooperation. Unfortunately, the conclusion that Abrajano and Hajnal reach is much less optimistic. Immigration has resulted in fear, anxiety, and backlash. The United States is deeply divided, and the future of US politics is unclear. Will the Democrats retain the loyalty of immigrants? Could the Republicans gain additional support from Latinos if they embrace a more pro-immigrant stance? Or are we headed for more division, more backlash, and an expanding chasm amongst Americans? Whatever the future may hold, the stakes are high.