Saying racism: calling anti-immigration policies racist as effective pro-immigrant politics in Arizona

Identifying anti-immigration policies as racist commonly features in political discourse in many majority-white countries. Both behavioralist studies of voter attitudes and studies of party positioning indicate doubts that this reduces support for these policies, or otherwise works politically. Against these expectations, this article conducts a process-tracing analysis of immigration politics the U.S. border state of Arizona, where labeling as racist the contentious 2010 “show-me-your-papers” law, Senate Bill 1070, was key in causing a longer-term stop to an established anti-immigration policy trend. Initially, some politicians who opposed such laws stopped talking about them as racist, after public support appeared unaffected. Later, when controversy peaked around SB 1070 amidst prominent criticism that it licensed racial profiling, this controversy captured major media attention and led to persistent boycott threats, prompting business lobbies to engage against anti-immigrant policymaking and center-right policymakers to withdraw their support for this policy trend. Despite few minds appearing immediately to change, charging SB 1070 with racism proved a successful tactic, leading to a major deceleration in anti-immigrant policymaking that was close to opponents’ aims. Analyzing political elites and political process – beyond observations of voter responses to these messages – is key to analyzing the success of such tactics.