Political Research Quarterly 2014, Vol. 67(3) 615–627 © 2014 University of Utah Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1065912914534074 prq.sagepub.com Article The intractability of comprehensive immigration reform is reflected in the Congress’ inability to successfully pass leg- islation to address this issue for more than a decade. One reason for the lack of legislative action on this issue, besides the obvious partisan dissension regarding the appropriate remedies for undocumented immigration, has been the absence of widespread public pressure for con- gressional action. Undocumented 1 immigration was not perceived as a major issue in the United States until the spring of 2006. Prior to that spring, undocumented immi- gration was far down the list of salient issues on the pub- lic’s agenda (Brader, Valentino, and Suhay 2008; Dunaway, Branton, and Abrajano 2010). It did not even make the top five ranking of problems among Latino immigrants, who are arguably the segment of the population most closely associated or affected by undocumented immigration (Pew Hispanic Center 2004). However, the lack of public atten- tion would change with the protests of 2006. This paper examines the impact of temporal and spa- tial exposure to the immigration rallies on Latinos’ per- ceptions of undocumented immigration as the most important problem (MIP) for the Latino community. In addition, we consider the conditioning effect of political awareness, generational status, and media sources. We combine data from the 2006 Latino National Survey (LNS) with Bada et al.’s (2006) protest data to predict undocumented immigration as the perceived MIP facing Latinos. The results indicate that temporal and spatial exposure to protest activity influenced the likelihood of perceiving undocumented immigration to be the MIP facing the Latino community. Furthermore, there is a conditional relationship between exposure and the aforementioned individual-level characteristics. Substantively, the findings indicate that foreign-born Latinos, politically knowledgeable Latinos, and Spanish- language media users were more likely to perceive the issue to be the MIP facing the Latino community. Furthermore, this effect is elevated among those with temporal and spatial exposure to protest activity. We believe the continued relevance of our findings is evi- denced by the lingering debates over immigration reform. Our results suggest that efforts to impose more restrictive immigration reforms might incite further social protests and, in turn, raise Latinos’ awareness of the potential threat posed by such reforms. Salience of Immigration Issues among Latinos While many Latinos viewed immigration as an important issue before the protests, it was not a priority or even a concern for the vast majority. In fact, the 2004 Pew Hispanic Center’s National Survey of Latinos (NSL) revealed that Latinos perceived education, the economy, and health care to be the most important issues facing the nation. Immigration was ranked eleventh in the list of issues identified by NSL respondents as most important 534074PRQ XX X 10.1177/1065912914534074Political Research QuarterlyCarey et al. research-article 2014 1 University of North Texas, Denton, USA Corresponding Author: Tony E. Carey Jr., Department of Political Science, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle, #305340, Denton, TX 76203-5017, USA. Email: Tony.Carey@unt.edu The Influence of Social Protests on Issue Salience among Latinos Tony E. Carey Jr. 1 , Regina P. Branton 1 , and Valerie Martinez-Ebers 1 Abstract Much of the protest literature has examined the policy consequences of social protests. Few studies focus on the effect of social protests on public opinion. We examine the impact of the 2006 immigration protests on the saliency of immigration among Latinos. The 2006 Latino National Survey was in the field before and after the protests began, creating a natural experiment. Using these data, we discover protests increased Latinos’ perception of undocumented immigration as the most important problem facing Latinos. Furthermore, our analysis shows that the effect of protest was not uniform across the population but rather contingent on individuals’ characteristics. Keywords Latino politics, protest, salience, natural experiment at UNIV NORTH TEXAS LIBRARY on February 15, 2015 prq.sagepub.com Downloaded from