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For You Were Strangers in the Land of Egypt: Clergy, Religiosity, and Public Opinion toward Immigration Reform in the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 August 2016

Kevin Wallsten  and
Tatishe M. Nteta
Kevin Wallsten*
Affiliation:
California State University at Long Beach
Tatishe M. Nteta*
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Kevin Wallsten, Department of Political Science, California State University at Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach, CA 90840-4605. E-mail: [email protected]; or to: Tatishe M. Nteta, Department of Political Science, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 408 Thompson Tower, Amherst, MA. 01003. E-mail: [email protected].
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Kevin Wallsten, Department of Political Science, California State University at Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Blvd., Long Beach, CA 90840-4605. E-mail: [email protected]; or to: Tatishe M. Nteta, Department of Political Science, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 408 Thompson Tower, Amherst, MA. 01003. E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

Recently, a number of influential clergy leaders have declared their support for liberal immigration reforms. Do the pronouncements of religious leaders influence public opinion on immigration? Using data from a survey experiment embedded in the 2012 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we find that exposure to the arguments from high profile religious leaders can compel some individuals to reconsider their views on the immigration. To be more precise, we find that Methodists, Southern Baptists, and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America leaders successfully persuaded respondents who identify with these religious denominations to think differently about a path to citizenship and about the plight of undocumented immigrants. Interestingly, we also uncovered that religiosity matters in different ways for how parishioners from different religious faiths react to messages from their leaders. These findings force us to reconsider the impact that an increasingly strident clergy may be having on public opinion in general and on support for immigration reform in particular.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , September 2016 , pp. 566 - 604
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2016 

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