Emigrant Politics, Immigrant Engagement: Homeland Ties and Immigrant Political Identity in the United States

Immigrants are also emigrants, possessing social ties that link them to people and places left behind. Although this duality is inherent to the migration process, researchers typically separate the study of emigration from that of immigration. Using new survey data on Latino immigrant social and political engagement in the sending and receiving society, we assess how political attitudes and national allegiance are shaped by social and political ties acquired at home and abroad. We find that immigrants’ home country social ties yield modest political consequences, whereas the more important influences sustaining connections to homeland polities stem from premigration political experiences. Both cross-border social ties and premigration political experiences reinforce homeland national identities. Furthermore, the acquisition of U.S. citizenship tends to corrode homeland attachments and Latino immigrants are more likely to shift political allegiance from home to host state once legal status is obtained