Bridging the Gap: Legal Doctrine and Immigration Detention Public

Abstract

Does learning about legal violations in immigration detention affect U.S. public approval of the practice? If so, does awareness of violations of U.S. constitutional law or international law have a greater effect? Despite increased emphasis on domestic politics in the legal community and on immigration attitudes in the field of political science, scholars remain divided over whether and how legal criticism of a country’s practices affects public opinion and behavior. Moreover, while public support is essential to the legitimacy of policies in a democracy, research remains largely observational and only recently have experimental studies tested why some citizens seek to narrow the “rights gap,” while others “backlash” against criticism. In the real world, proponents of immigration detention often defend the need to protect national security and domestic sovereignty, but reformists argue that immigration detention is unjust when the U.S. breaches its legal obligations. Upon employing a Lucid survey experiment, I predict that referencing a U.S. constitutional violation will decrease public approval for immigration detention and increase action for reform. I hypothesize that referencing an international violation will have the same effects, but to a weaker extent than a U.S. constitutional violation. My findings carry important implications as to how legal norms could bridge the gap between rights and reality, and whether immigration detention policy truly reflects the will of the American people.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 1

Literature Review ............................................................................................................................. 7

Citizens’ Responses to Rights Violations ............................................................................................ 7

Information About Rights Violations ................................................................................................ 11

Balancing Confounding Variables ..................................................................................................... 15

This Study’s Contributions ............................................................................................................... 17

Theories and Hypotheses ................................................................................................................. 19

Rights Gap Theory ........................................................................................................................... 19

Backlash Theory .............................................................................................................................. 21

Experimental Design ....................................................................................................................... 24

Study Population and Survey Platform .............................................................................................. 24

Experimental Variables .................................................................................................................... 26

Power Calculations .......................................................................................................................... 27

Methods ......................................................................................................................................... 28

Survey Instrument ........................................................................................................................... 29

Strengths and Limitations ................................................................................................................ 34

Results ............................................................................................................................................ 38

Descriptive Statistics ........................................................................................................................ 38

Covariates and Balance ..................................................................................................................... 41

Rights Gap Hypotheses ..................................................................................................................... 42

Assessing Statistical Significance ...................................................................................................... 48

Backlash Hypothesis ........................................................................................................................ 48

Interaction Effects ........................................................................................................................... 50

Discussion and Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 57

Works Cited ..................................................................................................................................... 65

Appendices ...................................................................................................................................... 73

Appendix A ...................................................................................................................................... 73

Appendix B ...................................................................................................................................... 75

Appendix C ...................................................................................................................................... 76

Appendix D ...................................................................................................................................... 79

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Political Science
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Political Science, General Political Science, International Law and Relations Law
Mot-clé	Survey Experiment Immigration International Law Political Science Law Constitutional Law
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Reingold, Beth, Emory University
Committee Members	Browne, Irene, Emory University Davis, David, Emory University

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