Who Speaks for the "Shadow Immigrants?" Established Intermediary Organizations and Political Advocacy for the Undocumented

Abstract

Democratic societies offer considerable opportunities for political participation to their citizens and, to a lesser extent, their legal residents, but the distinctive legal status of undocumented immigrants means that they have essentially no opportunity to join in

most forms of conventional political activity in these societies. Nonetheless, the undocumented have experienced a curious and very limited form of political incorporation in many democracies, in part because intermediary organizations have become active advocates for policies beneficial to these immigrants. This study

examines these organizations' involvement in political advocacy for undocumented immigrants in the developed democracies of North America and Northern Europe. In particular, the study investigates why we find certain key intermediary organizations --

i.e., established immigrant-serving and labor institutions -- involved in political advocacy to a much greater extent in some settings than in others. It considers this question through the lens of a comparative-historical analysis focused on Germany, the United

Kingdom, and the United States between the 1970s and the present. Germany and the United Kingdom both constitute full cases within the analysis, while the United States functions as a "shadow case." This study's principal finding is that, in those contexts in which a substantial undocumented population exists, a given intermediary organization will likely become involved in political advocacy if its officials perceive the political and social fate of their

constituents as a whole to be connected to the political and social fate of the undocumented. Two factors strongly influence the likelihood that an organization's officials will adopt this view in a given context. The first is the apparent nature of the

undocumented population, while the second is the organization's overarching political role. These two factors interact to generate particular advocacy outcomes at the level of the individual organization. In turn, we observe distinctive advocacy outcomes at the societal level during different periods of time because of differences in the apparent characteristics of the undocumented population, as well as differences in the overarching

political roles played by immigrant-serving and labor organizations.