Taking Local Control

by Varsanyi, Monica W.

• ISBN13: 9780804770279
• ISBN10: 0804770271
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-07-23
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

With the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States at an all-time high and Congressional immigration reform seemingly at a standstill, cities and states across the nation have leapt into the fray, creating a wide range of policies--some more controversial than others--to address illegal immigration within their jurisdictions. These policies, both anti- and pro-immigrant in nature, run the gamut. Some call for the involvement of city police in immigration enforcement, debates over day laborer markets, the establishment of employer sanctions laws, and the implementation of anti-immigrant ordinances. Other policies call for cities and states to declare themselves "sanctuaries" for undocumented immigrants, passing laws to extend locally-funded health care and social services, offer English language training, and improve wages and working conditions. While these state and local immigration policies continue to receive wide coverage in the popular press, they have received very little attention in the scholarly literature. This volume aims to fill the gap by offering perspectives from political scientists, legal scholars, sociologists, and geographers at the leading edge of this emerging field. Drawing on high profile case studies, the contributors seek to explain the explosion in state and local immigration policy activism, account for the policies that have been considered and passed, and explore the tensions that have emerged within communities and between different levels of government. This timely entrant into the study of state and local immigration policy also illuminates the significant challenges and opportunities of comprehensive immigration reform, highlights the range of issues at stake, and charts a future research agenda that will more deeply explore the impacts of these policies on immigrant communities.

Author Biography

Monica Varsanyi is Associate Professor of Political Science in the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. ix
Immigration Policy Activism in U.S. States and Cities: Interdisciplinary Perspectives	p. 1
National Overview
Legal Limits on Immigration Federalism	p. 31
Immigration and Local Governments: Inclusionary Local Policies in the Era of State Rescaling	p. 51
Partisanship, Not Spanish: Explaining Municipal Ordinances Affecting Undocumented Immigrants	p. 73
From Devolution to the Grassroots
Immigration Enforcement by State and Local Police: The Impact on the Enforcers and their Communities	p. 97
The Public Policy Implications of State-Level Worksite Migration Enforcement: The Experiences of Arizona, Mississippi, and Illinois	p. 115
City Ordinances as "Immigration Policing by Proxy": Local Governments and the Regulation of Undocumented Day Laborers	p. 135
Tracing the Evolution of Local Policy Activism
Neoliberalism, Community Development, and Anti-Immigrant Backlash in Hazleton, Pennsylvania	p. 157
Localized Immigration Policy: The View from Charlotte, North Carolina, A New Immigrant Gateway	p. 173
Growing Pains: Local Response to Recent Immigrant Settlement in Suburban Washington, DC	p. 193
Local Immigration Policy and Global Ambitions in Vancouver and Phoenix	p. 217
Exploring Tensions at the Local Scale
All Immigration Politics is Local: The Day Labor Ordinance in Vista, California	p. 239
The "Law-and-Order" Foundation of Local Ordinances: A Four-Locale Study of Hazleton, PA, Escondido, CA, Farmers Branch, TX, and Prince William County, VA	p. 255
"Tired of Illegals": Immigrant Driver's Licenses, Constituent Letters, and Shifting Restrictionist Discourse in California	p. 275
Index	p. 296
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