Assessing the Resonance Potential of Immigration Decarceration: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach to Pre-Mobilization Conditions In Public Opinion

Background/Purpose:

Immigration detention has expanded dramatically over recent decades, despite disputed legitimacy as a governance tool and extensive evidence of physiological, psychological and economic harms. Yet, community-based alternatives centered on case management services, a more humane and cost effective form of what advocates term immigration decarceration, remain underutilized and politically contested. Drawing on the three core framing tasks of Benford and Snow’s Collective Action Framing Theory (CAFT), this study introduces the concept of resonance potential to assess whether immigration decarceration reform contains the elements necessary for effective collective action framing, before initiating direct advocacy campaigns.

Method:

A national sample of eligible U.S. voters (N = 1,535) was recruited via a national online panel and stratified to align with the 2019 American Community Survey estimates along gender, age, race, education, and political party affiliation. Instrument development involved expert panel review, focus groups (n=5), and a national pilot study (N=120). All seven items were measured on a 4-point scale. Two latent constructs were specified: Issue Alignment, consisting of 3 items measuring problem identification and solution agreement, and Activation, consisting of 4 different items measuring motivational readiness, operationalized as intentions to vote for a reform-oriented candidate, promote the issue on social media, sign a petition, or join an advocacy mailing list. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) assessed dimensionality, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) evaluated the measurement model, and structural equation modeling (SEM) tested directionality. Multigroup SEM was used to assess measurement and structural invariance across political ideology.

Results:

EFA revealed a dominant factor structure (𝛂= .86) and CFA supported a two-factor solution with all loadings statistically significant (p<.001). The final SEM demonstrated excellent fit after following a multi-stage approach, prioritizing conceptual consistency and statistical fit χ²(9) = 24.84, RMSEA = .034 (90% CI [.018, .050]), CFI = .997, TLI = .994, SRMR = .016. Mediation analyses indicated that Issue Alignment strongly predicts Activation (β = .96, p < .001) and indicated that the effects of Issue Alignment on all four civic intention outcomes operated exclusively through Activation, with all structural paths being statistically significant. Multigroup invariance testing confirmed the model performs equivalently across ideological subgroups, suggesting that the attitudinal structure observed is not specific to any single political ideology.

Conclusions/Implications:

Findings indicate that immigration decarceration possesses measurable capacity to mobilize civic intentions, suggesting broad-based potential for frame resonance across the ideological spectrum. For practitioners and immigration advocacy organizations, these findings suggest that a collective action framing campaign may be particularly effective in mobilizing the latent support already present. Further, resonance potential may offer advocates, policymakers, and social work practitioners a replicable framework for assessing whether a social issue is well-positioned to sustain collective action framing efforts before large-scale resource expenditure. Theoretically, the study extends CAFT into migration politics by demonstrating how diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framing logics can be captured in public opinion data. Future research could examine how resonance potential, measured as civic intentions, translates into observable civic action and whether the framework generalizes to other policy domains relevant to social justice aspirations.