Why do nonprofits representing immigrants participate (or choose not to participate) in electoral politics, and what forms does their participation take? In his new book, Immigrants and Electoral Politics: Nonprofit Organizing in a Time of Demographic Change (Cornell University Press, 2016), Heath Brown (Assistant Professor of Public Policy, John Jay College and The Graduate Center, CUNY) analyzes the contexts shaping the political behaviors of immigrant-serving nonprofit organizations, and the activities of these nonprofits in response to these conditions. In doing so, the book examines the complex relationship between immigrants, nonprofits, and electoral politics in the United States. This conversation between Brown and the US Federal Government and Politics class at Beloit College explores the political situation for immigrants in the US, the role of immigrant-serving nonprofits in immigrant politics, and the future of immigrant politics under a Trump administration.

John McMahon is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Beloit College. He is the co-host of New Books in Global Ethics and Politics and of the Always Already critical theory podcast.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices