Welcoming the Outsider: Local Construction of the Law towards Immigrants

Abstract

This dissertation examines the local construction of law on the street regarding immigrants. Local agencies play a key role in immigration enforcement and in providing services to immigrants. They are increasingly the face of the state to immigrants, a face that varies across localities and regions and ranges from friendly to hostile. In the context of climate change, immigration to the United States is likely to increase and place greater pressure on public services in many areas. While much attention has been focused on punitive responses to immigration, this dissertation's basic thesis is that many local government agencies have adopted surprisingly welcoming policies toward immigrants. The dissertation develops this thesis in three phases. First, it develops the concept of welcomeness of public agencies toward immigrants. Welcoming policies are policies and practices that are designed to improve interactions between local administrative agencies and immigrants, encourage immigrants to settle in the community and protect undocumented immigrants from being victimized or harassed. Second, the dissertation develops a framework for measuring the degree of welcomeness of particular agencies. Third, it examines how widely local agencies are welcoming (or unwelcoming) to immigrants and what are the conditions that shape the degree of welcomeness. Drawing on nationwide surveys of local police departments and public libraries and interviews with department leaders and frontline employees, the dissertation shows that many agencies have consciously and deliberately developed policies and practices that are intended to develop positive relationships between the agency and immigrants, encourage immigrants' use of the agency and help immigrants integrate into the community. While libraries, as a service agency, might be expected to emphasize equality of service, police departments' mission is regulatory and they might be expected to adopt a more punitive (and thus less welcoming) orientation. The evidence that welcoming policies are widespread in both settings suggests that welcomeness is not confined to the service context. The dissertation shows that in both settings professionals are pulled between political pressures that are often hostile to immigrants and professional norms favoring equal service to all in the community. How much a local agency is welcoming or unwelcoming depends on the balance between these opposing forces. Professional norms help organizations resist political pressures. The dissertation suggests that welcoming policies and practices are likely to gain increased significance as climate change contributes to increasing immigration.