A Study of U.S. Immigration Policy Towards Latin America 2009-2022 - From the Realism Perspective

Abstract

The United States is the worlds largest recipient of immigrants, and due to historical and geographic reasons, the United States has a deep connection with Latin American immigrants. At the same time, the issue of immigration has become an issue of greater interest to Latino voters in U.S. elections. Since the end of World War II, the U.S. foreign policy-making process has been primarily tinged with offensive realism. Based on this, this paper will analyze the changes in the U.S. governments immigration policy toward Latin America during the Obama administration, the Trump administration, and the Biden administration (as of December 2022) in three different periods through realism theory. This paper finds that although the policies of the three periods mentioned above differ slightly in subtle aspects due to the leaders personal governing preferences, they all reflect realism in essence in terms of macro policies.