State Immigration Policies: Innovation, Cooperation or Conflict?

A Multilayered Jurisdictional Patchwork: Immigration Federalism in the United States

“…Similarly, Hopkins (2010) finds that the relative change in percentage of immigrants in a city is the most important predictor of local anti‐immigrant ordinances, whereas the partisanship of voters in the area is not significant. Newton and Adams (2009) analyze state immigration legislation passed in 2006 and 2007, and determine that, despite the widespread belief that state immigration legislation is about sending a message to D.C. , in fact, states usually pass laws designed to cooperate with, not conflict with, existing federal policy. And they pass these laws in areas that have been traditionally reserved for the states.…”

“…First, our survey results and case study research provide much‐needed empirical data on the devolution of immigration powers to the local level and the growing involvement of local police in immigration enforcement (see Lewis and Ramakrishnan 2007; Waslin 2007). Second, while the majority of the analytical literature on immigration federalism focuses on the relationship between the federal government and the states (Chavez and Provine 2009; Newton and Adams 2009; Filindra and Tichenor 2008), we highlight the central role that cities and counties are playing in this emerging landscape, with the states, in many cases, not playing a significant role at all. Finally, we shed light on an important phenomenon: the emergence of a multilayered jurisdictional patchwork, in which overlapping and neighboring jurisdictions can, and do, adopt conflicting policies and practices vis‐à‐vis their immigrant populations.…”

Anti-Immigrant Anxieties in State Policy: The Great Recession and Punitive Immigration Policy in the American States, 2005–2012

“…Policy making on immigration and immigrants in the U.S. states is not new, although the form it takes has changed based on the federal context. The state immigration policy making of the 2000s may simply be an extension of previous contemporary waves of state immigration policy making starting in the 1980s and 1990s (Newton and Adams 2009).…”

Reappraising and Extending the Predictors of States’ Immigrant Policies: Industry Influences and the Moderating Effect of Political Ideology*

“…The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act imposes a five‐year ban on access to a number of social programs for immigrants, devolving to the states the responsibility to decide on access to benefits after that period. Additionally, the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act includes provisions for the so‐called “287(g) program,” which opens to state and local police the opportunity to participate in federal immigration enforcement (Creek and Yoder, ; Hero and Preuhs, ; Newton and Adams, ). In both cases, states face a choice between passing policies that make life more difficult for immigrants (e.g., denying access to social benefits or deputizing state law enforcement officials to participate in federal deportation programs) and those that make life easier (e.g., opening up access to social programs or keeping state law enforcement officials out of deportation decision making).…”