Paul Krueger
        Willard Spiegelman
        David Son
        Virginia Dupuy
        Alan Brown
        Wayne Shaw
        Evelyn Parker
        Valerie F. Hunt
        Dan Orlovsky

Monitoring The Decision-Makers

In politics, whoever frames the issue best wins. Valerie F. Hunt, assistant professor of political science and an immigration scholar, studies how divisive issues are addressed in a democratic system. New political ideas attract new democratic institutions to the debate, she says, and thus access to more decision-makers – legislatures, the courts, or the executive branch.

America’s immigration policy is experiencing similar boundary changes. When immigration policy was concerned with national origin, Congress held complete sway over who was allowed in and who was restricted, Hunt says. But because the policy has grown more complex with the introduction of variables such as economics, security, and border relationships, the locus of decision-making is now in flux. Courts have encroached upon congressional jurisdiction when immigration and immigrant policy is framed or understood as a matter of rights of persons, in particular, immigrants’ rights.

“Immigration status of an individual can change quickly, and because it can, immigration status bucks up against Congress and the courts as to who should be the ultimate decision-maker,” she says.

While living in California during the passage of Proposition 187, a controversial law that restricted some government services to undocumented workers and their families, Hunt became fascinated with the interplay between state legislatures, the courts, and the national legislative branch over immigration issues. She discovered that policy and legislative scholars in political science have largely ignored the way different government institutions shape U.S. immigration policy. This discovery led her to research the subject on public policy processes and inter-institutional dynamics. She is working on a book manuscript with the tentative title Courts, Congress, and the Politics of U.S. Immigration Policy Reform.

Hunt, who joined SMU in 2003, has served as a fellow of several national centers, most recently the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Conversant in Arabic, Hunt is an expert on Middle East affairs, in U.S. immigration, U.S.-Mexico relations, media and politics, and media strategies of political participants within the U.S. policy arena. Hunt received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Washington.

For more information: vhunt@smu.edu