Protecting New Gains with Institutional Politics: Immigrant Driver Licenses in New Mexico and California

• In Event: 463 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 08. Immigrant Activism

Abstract

Given the Federal government’s impasse on issues of immigration, new rights for immigrants have largely been incorporated at the state and local level, in the form of access to institutions of higher learning and driver licenses. Yet in this context, new gains are highly volatile and subject to numerous rounds of repeal efforts in state legislatures. Protecting newly won rights does not only occur in the courts—as is usually implied by the term “legal mobilization”—but in legislative committees and assemblies. The role for social movements in staving off repeal attempts, however, has largely been overlooked because of scholars' tendencies to view policy outcomes as discrete, onetime events. This paper uses the fight for immigrant access to driver licenses in New Mexico and California to examine the social movement tactics that protect newly won rights for immigrants. I find that movements can leverage elite support by also providing ongoing and timely information, but that tactical effectiveness varies depending on the presence of a viable countermovement.

Author

• Jessica Garrick, University of Michigan