Varied Responsiveness to Immigrant Community Growth among Local Governments

Abstract

Immigration policy remains a hotly debated issue nationally in the United States, but the interaction of legislative gridlock on comprehensive reform and the actions of policy entrepreneurs push policy innovation into the arena of state and local governments. This article examines the intersection of immigration and local policy making, examining basic patterns of local responsiveness and apparent factors driving the response. Using the insights of existing research, including Rubaii-Barrett and Brenner, this article highlights political incorporation (e.g., Ramakrishnan and Gulasekaram) and bureaucratic incorporation (e.g., Marrow) as competing explanations in the literature. As an exploratory effort to evaluate the relative claims, this article reports the results of a document analysis of the local government Web sites for seventeen localities in the Richmond, VA, Metropolitan Statistical Area looking first at how localities are responding, second at indications of why and finally assessing whether initiative for responses occurs more at a bureaucratic or elected official level.

Keywords

local responsiveness new immigrant destinations local immigration policy immigrant integration

Introduction: Navigating the Crosscurrents of Immigration and Local Government

Formulating local responses to recent immigrants is an essential and complex task for an increasing number of local public administrators. Since 1970, the immigrant population in the United States grew from 5 percent of the population to more than 13 percent (Steil and Vasi 2014) and dispersed more widely across the United States. This dispersion created hundreds of “new immigrant destinations” (NIDs)—communities that historically had few immigrants but saw rapid increases since the 1990s (Suro and Singer 2002). Local governments in these NIDs had little prior experience providing services across multiple languages and cultures and hence faced new challenges in such sectors as education, health care, and public safety (Steil and Vasi 2014; Zuniga and Hernandez-Leon 2005).

Over the same period, immigration became increasingly controversial in the national political arena, resulting in federal gridlock on the issue (Tichenor 2009; Rosenblum 2011). State and local governments faced choices about whether to wait on federal reform or to create their own local policies. At the same time, political entrepreneurs expanded the policy debate to these same levels of government, arguing for state and municipal action to include or exclude immigrants. Together, these forces led to increased experimentation by state and local governments (Rubaii-Barrett 2009; Williamson 2011; Varsanyi 2010b; Mitnik and Halpern-Finnerty 2010; Rodriguez 2008; Benavides 2008; Ramakrishnan and Gulasekaram 2013). Today the task of responding to recent immigrants in local contexts requires officials to navigate the choppy waters created by the interaction of these two streams—the changing demands for local services and the polarized political debate at the national level.

A growing literature examines how and why localities respond to immigrants in different ways (Marrow 2009; Williamson 2011; Ramakrishnan and Lewis 2005; Ramakrishnan and Wong 2010; Winders 2012; Rubaii-Barrett 2009; Steil and Vasi 2014; Hopkins 2010). This article contributes to this literature by asking the same two broad questions—“How are localities responding?” and “What causes the variation in responses?” It does this by analyzing responses by the seventeen localities that make up the previously unstudied new immigrant destination metro area of Richmond, VA, via a content analysis of locality Web sites, news articles, and targeted interviews. This article also compares patterns in responsiveness to the variation in the demographic and political context of each locality, testing several claims of the existing literature about what drives local responses to immigration.

This article reviews existing literature, highlighting three possible explanations for variation in policy responses—demographic pressures, the political balance of power, and finally the professionalism and advocacy of local bureaucrats. The methodology used is explained before results are reported and discussed. Summary conclusions and implications for practitioners form the final sections of this article.

Local Policy Responses to Include or Exclude

As noted above, the dispersion of immigrants within the United States to “NIDs” forced a large number of local governments to the foreground of the immigration debate. A developing literature examines how and why state and local governments are dealing with immigration issues.

How Are Localities Responding?

Research has identified policies and actions by localities such as Hazleton, PA, and Farmers Branch, TX, where local officials drafted laws that sought to exclude immigrants (Steil and Vasi 2014; Brettell and Nibbs 2011). Other researchers highlight localities pursuing policies to promote inclusiveness, for example, by providing information in multiple languages (Rubaii-Barrett 2009; Benavides 2008).

Rubaii-Barrett (2008, 2009), based on survey responses from the local administrators in 500 communities, argued that local actions could be captured within four categories running along a spectrum from exclusionary to inclusionary: (a) anti-immigrant (targeted crackdowns on undocumented immigrants that may violate federal equal protection guarantees), (b) neutral or laissez-faire (no action), (c) community cohesion (strategies targeted toward immigrant integration), and (d) pro-immigrant (e.g., sanctuary designations where localities refuse to assist federal immigration enforcement authorities). She also argued that, despite media attention on extreme anti- or pro-immigrant actions, most local actions fall in the laissez-faire or community cohesion categories.

Other researchers found evidence for more specific categories than those proposed by Rubaii-Barrett. Brenner (2009b) focused on the question of how localities seek to include immigrants. Based on data from the officials in 100 new Latino immigrant destinations, she found six general strategies in use for promoting what Rubaii-Barrett termed community cohesion:

Economic development: locality sees Latinos as economic revitalization assets,

Public safety (inclusion): locality sees Latinos as crime victims,

Community building: locality sees Latinos as local citizens with particular access barriers and provides targeted outreach and multilingual access to services,

Employment diversity: locality hires Latinos to have more representative staff,

Partnership focus: local government forms links with Latino-trusted nongovernmental organizations to facilitate service delivery, and

Advisory councils: local government officials recruit Latinos as volunteer brokers between elected officials and the community.

Brenner notes only one strategy that could be termed exclusionary. In discussing public safety strategies, she notes that some localities saw Latino immigrants as likely criminals and took steps such as signing enforcement agreements with federal immigration officials. Yet there are other local strategies that are exclusionary. Steil and Vasi (2014) highlight a list that includes (a) mandating that local businesses use e-verify to confirm employee’s documented status, (b) English-only provisions, (c) restrictions on soliciting work in public, and (d) laws discouraging immigrants from accessing housing by capping allowable family sizes. Because none of these policies explicitly target the immigrants, some may argue they don’t fit as clearly within Rubaii-Barrett’s anti-immigrant policy category, instead constituting what Varsanyi labeled immigration policing “through the back door” (2010a, 135).

The categories reviewed above are used as a starting point for coding in the content analysis described below. Observing the response patterns provides a way to test if Rubaii-Barrett’s prediction—that most of localities engage in either laissez-faire (inaction) or the community cohesion policies—holds for the Richmond metropolitan area.

What Causes the Variation in Responses?

We now turn to the question of why some localities respond with exclusionary policies while others focus on inclusion. Existing research proposes several factors as drivers of this variation—demographic pressures, political balance of power, and the activity of local bureaucrats. We briefly review each in turn while a more detailed table of relevant citations is available in Online Table S1.

The early dominant narrative (e.g., Rodriguez 2008) in explaining what drives local responsiveness in NIDs was that the recent dispersion of immigrants to new localities and a lack of federal innovation forced NIDs to experiment in their responses. Those facing very rapid increases in the immigrant population, it was argued, tended to respond with exclusionary policies to stop follow-on migration.

More recently, several authors argue via multivariate regression analysis that demographic pressures are not a sufficient explanation, but that partisan imbalances are more accurate predictors of either local ordinance consideration or adoption with strongly Republican areas adopting exclusionary policies (Steil and Vasi 2014; Hopkins 2010; Walker 2014; Ramakrishnan and Wong 2010). This literature also consistently finds that larger localities respond more often than smaller ones.

This explanation, dubbed the Polarized Change Model by Ramakrishnan and Gulasekaram (2013), places a clear emphasis on the elected political arena and top-down policy change. Yet this stream of inquiry is also limited by its focus on legislated change at the local level—much of the inclusionary responsiveness found by Rubaii-Barrett and Brenner would not be picked up in a study of proposed or passed ordinances. In fact, a key study by Ramakrishnan and Wong (2010) looked at 25,622 observations and found attempted or successful action on ordinances in only 178 (0.7 percent) of the localities over the time period. What then explains local responses to immigration that are not ordinance based?

A second portion of the literature argues that this variation is due to a process of bureaucratic incorporation where administrators make numerous decisions that affect the lives of immigrants and that these decisions rarely rose to the notice of elected officials (Marrow 2009, Jones-Correa 2008; Winders 2012). Drawing on prior research on representative (Meier, O’Toole, and Nicholson-Crotty 2004; Meier, Stewart, and England 1991) and street-level bureaucracy (Lipsky 2010), these researchers found that once the needs of immigrants are known within existing administrative decision-making structures (Winders 2012), a bureaucratic professional commitment to serving citizens often resulted in inclusionary responsiveness to the identified needs (Marrow 2009; Jones-Correa 2008). If localities are responding at a bureaucratic level as well as at the level of elected officials, an important question is which type of responsiveness is more common.

Taken together, the literature provides several expectations that our analysis tests by comparing the number of responses exhibited by a locality on their Web site to demographic and partisan data about that locality. First, the Polarized Change Model suggests that larger localities will be most responsive to immigrants, providing our first hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: Localities with a larger population will utilize a greater number of strategies in responding to immigrants in the community.

Second, the Polarized Change Model suggests that a higher percentage of the population being immigrants within a community is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a local response. Once a significant foreign-born population exists, partisan balance in the locality is a key deciding factor in determining whether policy responses are inclusionary or exclusionary. This provides four additional hypotheses:

Hypothesis 2: Localities with a larger percentage of immigrants will utilize a larger number of strategies in responding to immigrants in the community.

Hypothesis 3: Localities with a similar percentage of immigrant residents will differ in the number of response strategies utilized.

Hypothesis 4: Localities with strong Republican margins will produce more exclusionary responses.

Hypothesis 5: Localities with a strong Democratic margin will produce more inclusionary responses.

As noted above, the literature offers two different explanations of what drives responsiveness—political decisions by elected officials or bureaucratic incorporation—and raises the question of which type of responses dominate. Because most government decision-making occurs at the administrative level, we expect greater evidence of bureaucratic level initiative:

Hypothesis 6: Local initiatives observed will be predominantly bureaucratic in nature.

With these hypotheses in mind, we turn to an explanation of site selection and the content analysis process utilized as the primary method of data collection.

Research Design and Data

Richmond Metropolitan Area—Defining the Context

Other research on migration patterns shows that flows are affected by common legal factors at the state level and economic factors that agglomerate at the metropolitan level (Light 2006; Sassen 1996). We control for these state policy and metropolitan economic factors by studying the variation among localities in a single metropolitan statistical area (MSA) contained in one state.

The Richmond MSA, made up of seventeen localities, is an NID that meets these requirements and contains significant partisan variation. Individual localities returned a margin for 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney that ranged from +45.8 percent in Powhatan County to −80.2 percent in the City of Petersburg (Leip 2015). The Richmond MSA also exhibits variation across the localities in the share of the foreign-born population from 0.5 percent to 11.2 percent (see Table 1), making it a good site for inquiry (U.S. Census Bureau 2014).

Table 1.

Localities in the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area (Sorted by the Percentage of Population That Are Foreign-born).

Localities	Total Population	Foreign-born (N)	Foreign-born (%)	Romney 2012 Margin
Henrico County	307,576	34,492	11.21	−11.8
Chesterfield County	316,895	25,266	7.97	7.8
Richmond City	205,348	15,243	7.42	−57.3
Colonial Heights City	17,426	917	5.26	39.4
Hopewell City	22,501	868	3.86	−15.9
Petersburg City	32,226	1,234	3.83	−80.2
Prince George County	36,013	1,326	3.68	11.7
Hanover County	99,964	3,307	3.31	36.6
Caroline County	28,510	754	2.64	−8.2
Powhatan County	28,003	687	2.45	45.8
Goochland County	21,496	525	2.44	28.3
King William County	15,861	340	2.14	23.8
Amelia County	12,674	267	2.11	26.6
New Kent County	18,460	326	1.77	33.7
Dinwiddie County	27,926	485	1.74	2.4
Sussex County	12,095	197	1.63	−24.5
Charles City County	7,226	36	0.50	−32.5

Sources: Demographic data from 2000 Census and 2008–2012 American Community Survey Five-year Estimates and Partisan data from Dave Leip (2015).

Conducting a Document Analysis of Richmond MSA Locality Web Sites

A content analysis of external communications (in this case the public Web sites of each locality) is appropriate for developing insight on “official perspectives on programs” (Bogdan and Biklen 1998, 137). Web sites are ideal for their uniform accessibility (all seventeen localities examined have an official web portal) and their frequent use for external government communication (Tat‐Kei Ho 2002). Moreover, they represent the aggregate knowledge of a local government where an interview with key informants may provide insight into only that informant’s area of the local government.

At the same time, not all localities provide the same depth of information through their Web site. While no consistent bias is expected for the selected localities (factors identified by Huang [2007] as influencing content depth are countervailing for the Richmond MSA) triangulation from other data sources (described below) strengthens the reliability of insights developed from the analysis of Web sites.

A consistent set of documents was examined for each locality: a key word search of the full Web site domain, a review of a recent budget, the current organizational chart, and the frequently asked questions page. Conceptually, these selections are justified because they represent the digital face of each jurisdiction (Web site), whether immigrant-related work is a visible priority financially (budget), in terms of personnel (organizational chart), and in terms of questions that come up frequently (FAQ page).

Search functions were used in examining longer documents and the Web site as a whole, in each case looking for six key words that represent a variety of language choices that localities might use—immigrant, foreign-born, alien, Hispanic, Latino, and multicultural. (The first five terms were chosen before coding began while multicultural was included when preliminary searches showed several localities using the term in relation to outreach to immigrants.)

Finally, two data triangulations were utilized to increase reliability. First, a similar key word search reviewed news articles from the metro area’s newspaper of record, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, between June 1, 2005, and June 1, 2015. This proved important in three localities, providing greater background to a failed attempt in Chesterfield to affirm English as the official language (Walker 2007a, 2007b) and a zoning change that capped the number of residents allowed in a single family dwelling (Hester 2009). Also surfaced were English as the official language resolutions in Dinwiddie and Prince George Counties (Remmers 2013).

Second, after the content analysis was complete, brief interviews were sought with a knowledgeable informant in a purposeful sample of seven of the seventeen localities (Hanover, Hopewell, Colonial Heights, Sussex, Dinwiddie, Amelia, and Charles City). Localities that exhibited little to no response on their Web site were the focus of the sample, but care was taken to include urban and rural localities that also offered a range of population sizes. Five of the seven localities responded to the inquiry. In none of the five interviews were any additional strategies identified.

Data Analysis

Development of latent codes followed principles outlined by Holsti (1969) and coding decisions, using an iterative process to ensure consistency, were tracked in an Excel spreadsheet. When a local response strategy toward immigrants was identified, the author made a judgment about whether it fit in one of the expected categories found in existing literature (e.g., English-only provision, community building) or whether a new category was needed. A value of 1 was assigned to each strategy category if at least one initiative was identified and a value of 0 if there were no indications found that the locality was using that type of strategy. For example, a compiled listing of local nonprofits that provide assistance to immigrants found on the Richmond Web site was coded as a partnership focus strategy. To minimize possible bias in the depth of Web site content, single mentions of a strategy were given the same weight as multiple initiatives that utilized the same strategy.

Finally, in order to get an exploratory sense of the relative influence of elected officials and bureaucrats, efforts by four localities found to be highly responsive (Henrico, Richmond, Chesterfield, and Petersburg) were assessed for whether each initiative likely rose to the notice of elected officials for approval or was a policy or practice developed within the bureaucracy. For example, a police neighborhood watch brochure being made available in Spanish was judged to be a bureaucratic level initiative, while the creation of a multicultural advisory council in Chesterfield was coded an elected level initiative.

After coding was completed and decisions were reviewed by the researcher for consistency, basic quantitative summaries (count of strategies utilized and percentage of bureaucratic initiative) were made. These measures are reported in the results section below.

Results

In Table 2, the summary results of the content analysis are compiled—a shaded box indicates that at least one initiative in that strategy category was identified. (Strategies not mentioned by any locality [e.g., e-verify mandate] are not included in this table.) After assessing where the localities’ responses fall on Rubaii-Barrett’s spectrum, we discuss the insights of these results in more detail by presenting tables highlighting the evident impact of the size of the locality, percentage of the population that is foreign-born, and partisan balance.

Table 2.

Strategies of Inclusion and Exclusion in the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Localities (Sorted by the Percentage of Foreign-born)	Exclusion			Inclusion
Localities (Sorted by the Percentage of Foreign-born)	Public Safety— Exclusionary	English Only Provision	Discourage Housing Access	Advisory Council	Community Building	Economic Development	Employment Diversity	Partnership Focus	Public Safety— Inclusionary
Henrico County
Chesterfield County
Richmond City
Colonial Heights City
Hopewell City
Petersburg City
Prince George County
Hanover County
Caroline County
Powhatan County
Goochland County
King William County
Amelia County
New Kent County
Dinwiddie County
Sussex County
Charles City County

Note: Dark box indicates strategy found.

Evidence for Rubaii-Barrett’s Argument for Most Action Being in the Moderate Middle

The analysis identified only five localities within the Richmond MSA with exclusionary initiatives and no sanctuary-style policies. In contrast, eleven localities had community cohesion strategies and six evidenced no initiatives toward immigrants at all. Rubaii-Barrett’s prediction that most communities operate in either the laissez-faire or the community cohesion portions of her response spectrum is supported by evidence from the Richmond MSA.

Evidence on the Impact of Locality Size, Greater Immigrant Proportion of Population and Partisanship

The results clearly show support for Hypothesis 1, which expected larger localities to be most responsive. By grouping the seventeen localities based on population (see Table 3), those localities with population above 200,000 averaged six response strategies, while localities with population below 50,000 averaged less than one strategy.

Table 3.

Variation by Population Size.

Localities Grouped by Population	Number in Group	Average Strategies
Large (>200 K)	3	6
Medium (50–200 K)	1	1
Small (<50 K)	13	.85

The findings also support Hypothesis 2, which expected localities with greater foreign-born populations to show greater responsiveness. Table 4 shows that on average, those localities with a larger foreign-born proportion of the population are more responsive. Those with a foreign-born population above 6 percent exhibited an average of six strategies, while the number was 1.6 for those with a foreign-born population between 3 percent and 6 percent, and 0.56 for those below 3 percent.

Table 4.

Variation by Percentage of Foreign-born.

Localities Grouped by Percentage of Foreign-born	Number in Group	Average Strategies
Greater than 6 percent	3	6
Between 3 percent and 6 percent	5	1.6
Less than 3 percent	9	.56
Selected Similar Localities	Percentage of Foreign- born (%)	Total Strategies
Colonial Heights City	5.26	1
Hopewell City	3.86	1
Petersburg City	3.83	3

Closer analysis of similar localities also supports Hypothesis 3, which expected localities with similar foreign-born populations to show different rates of responsiveness. A comparison of several highly similar localities shows variation that cannot be explained by a demographic pressure alone. Colonial Heights, Hopewell, and Petersburg are all small cities (population between 17,000 and 33,000) within several miles of each other. Our analysis finds greater responsiveness in Petersburg (three strategies compared to one in each of the other localities), even though it has a smaller percentage of foreign-born population than Colonial Heights and a very similar one to Hopewell. Possible explanations for this are the size of Petersburg (almost twice as large as Colonial Heights) and the partisan makeup of the localities (Petersburg is heavily Democratic and Colonial Heights solidly Republican).

Finally, the findings provide a mixed support for Hypothesis 4, which expected Republican areas to use more exclusionary strategies, and Hypothesis 5, which expected Democratic areas to use more inclusionary strategies. (Because size of the locality is clearly a relevant factor, Table 5 shows variation by partisan balance in the three larger localities and by partisan grouping for the fourteen smaller localities.) For the three large localities, each exhibits the same number of inclusionary strategies despite significant variation in partisan balance. For smaller localities, average inclusionary strategies are lower for highly Republican localities but not higher for strongly Democratic ones. Exclusionary strategies do appear to be higher in more Republican localities for both larger and smaller population localities, though interestingly it is Republican leaning localities where exclusionary strategies appeared more frequently rather than strongly Republican ones.

Table 5.

Variation by Partisan Balance.

Large Localities	2012 Republican Advantage	Exclusion Strategies	Inclusion Strategies
Chesterfield County	7.8	2	5
Henrico County	−11.8	1	5
Richmond City	−57.3	0	5
Smaller Localities Grouped by Partisan Balance	Number in Group	Average Inclusion	Average Exclusion
Strong Republican (higher than +20 percent)	7	0.43	0.14
Leans Republican (0 percent to +20 percent)	2	1.00	1.00
Leans Democrat (−20 percent to 0 percent)	2	1.00	0.00
Strong Democrat (lower than −20 percent)	3	1.00	0.00

Evidence on the Frequency of Bureaucratic versus Elected Impetus for Responses

As noted previously, our analysis also reviewed all initiatives identified in the four most active localities to see what the relative importance of bureaucratic initiative in local responses to immigration seemed to be. The results suggest bureaucratic initiative is dominant. In all four localities, more than three-quarters of the responses identified appeared to be at a level below that of elected officials (see Table 6). The main exceptions to this were agreements with federal immigration enforcement for housing detained immigrants for reimbursement (which shows up in approved budgets), the establishment of multicultural/Hispanic liaison offices (which required line-item budget appropriations), or of advisory committees to the board of supervisors. Most of the activities (e.g., library programs highlighting the immigrant experience and hiring of bilingual staff) are more likely due to bureaucratic initiative, providing support for Hypothesis 6. This suggests responses beyond ordinances must be studied for a full picture.

Table 6.

Percentage of Initiatives Bureaucratic.

Localities	Percentage of Initiatives Bureaucratic (%)
Henrico County	96.5
Richmond City	90
Petersburg City	87.5
Chesterfield County	78.9

Summary Conclusions, Further Research, and Practitioner Implications

As demonstrated above, this research generally confirms the expected relationships outlined above. Most localities respond with either laissez-faire or community cohesion strategies. When initiatives are present, partisan balance in a locality provides a key insight in addition to the size of the locality and the relative size of the immigrant population. Bureaucratic initiatives appear to dominate in numerical terms. Taken together, these results may cause readers familiar with the literature on extreme cases to wonder why so little activity is found in Richmond. Perhaps one of the key takeaways here is a reminder that for all the media attention the controversial measures attract, the norm across the United States may be more like the Richmond MSA than Hazleton—a smattering of efforts by conservative elected officials to pass exclusionary ordinances and a steady undercurrent of bureaucratic inclusionary initiatives.

Yet there are also areas that warrant further inquiry. There are interesting differences between the four high-response localities. Although it has the highest proportion of foreign-born residents, Henrico County does not have a central or designated office dedicated to multicultural or immigrant outreach. This different organizational path does not, however, seem to prevent numerous agencies from undertaking integration strategies that fit well within Brenner’s rubric. Is one or the other model more effective? More research is needed.

There are also examples of countervailing forces within the same locality that vary over time, which points to a need highlighted by Williamson (2014) to include a temporal dimension to research designs. In 2007, at the urging of a Republican member of the Chesterfield board of supervisors, local administrators studied the cost to the county of providing services to “illegal immigrants,” an amount they estimated at US$1.35 million in one year. The report led the same member to propose that the board affirm English as the official language of the county. Two months later, he lost re-election and at a mid-November public input session on the “Illegal Immigration” report, the only returning member of the board proposed the formation of a multicultural commission instead (Walker 2007a, 2007b; Virginia Department of Elections 2015).

Finally, there are also several practitioner implications from this research. First, public administration professionals beyond elected officials must be thought of as key actors. Likewise, categorizations of strategies are often helpful for assessing gaps in current responses and administrators seeking to develop inclusionary response strategies can use the broad categories developed by Brenner (2009b) and validated by this content analysis as areas for asking “What are we doing in the area of …?” Finally, the evidence of innovation at the bureaucratic level of local government suggests individual public administrators can ask “What can I do in my context?” without waiting for a top-down initiative. In light of a newly polarized debate nationally and migration’s continued impact at the local level, work by administrators to develop responses will continue to require both creativity and an ability to navigate the crosscurrents of demographic pressures, partisan debate, and professional commitments.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Supplemental Material

The online data supplements are available at .

References

Benavides

Abraham David

. 2008. Municipal best practices: How local governments are responding to a growing Hispanic community. Journal of Public Management and Social Policy 14:59–78.

Bogdan

Robert C.

Biklen

Sari Knopp

. 1998. Qualitative research in education. An introduction to theory and methods. Boston, MA: ERIC.

Brenner

Christine Thurlow

. 2009b. Structures and strategies for immigrant integration: Evidence from local governments in the new Latino destinations in the United States. Journal of Public Management and Social Policy 15:31–70.

Brettell

Caroline B.

Nibbs

Faith G.

. 2011. Immigrant suburban settlement and the “threat” to middle class status and identity: The case of Farmers Branch, Texas. International Migration 49:1–30.

Hester

Wesley

. 2009. Chesterfield occupancy limits get planners’ nod. July 22, 2009. http://www.richmond.com/news/article_3ed34e3c-a636-5a10-8918-a49435a89035.html (accessed December 16, 2015).

Holsti

Ole R.

1969. Content analysis for the social sciences and humanities. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Hopkins

Daniel J.

2010. Politicized places: Explaining where and when immigrants provoke local opposition. The American Political Science Review 104:40–60. doi: 10.2307/27798539.

Huang

Zhenyu

. 2007. A comprehensive analysis of US counties’ e-government portals: Development status and functionalities. European Journal of Information Systems 16:149–64.

Jones-Correa

Michael

. 2008. Race to the top? The politics of immigrant education in suburbia. In New faces in new places: The changing geography of American immigration, ed. Massey

D. S.

, 308–40. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

10.

Leip

Dave

. 2015. Atlas of U.S. presidential elections—2012 Virginia county results. http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/datagraph.php?year=2012&fips=51&f=0&off=0&elect=0 (accessed December 16, 2015).

11.

Light

Ivan

. 2006. Deflecting immigration: Networks, markets, and regulation in Los Angeles. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

12.

Lipsky

Michael

. 2010. Street-level Bureaucracy, 30th Ann. Ed.: Dilemmas of the individual in public service. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

13.

Marrow

Helen

. 2009. Immigrant bureaucratic incorporation: The dual roles of professional missions and government policies. American Sociological Review 74:756–76.

14.

Meier

K. J.

O’Toole

L. J.

Nicholson-Crotty

Sean

. 2004. Multilevel governance and organizational performance: Investigating the political-bureaucratic labyrinth. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 23:31.

15.

Meier

K. J.

Stewart

Joseph

England

Robert E.

1991. The politics of bureaucratic discretion: Educational access as an urban service. American Journal of Political Science 35:155–77.

16.

Mitnik

Pablo

Halpern-Finnerty

Jessica

. 2010. Immigration and local governments: Inclusionary local policies in the era of state rescaling. In Taking local control: Immigration policy activism in the U.S. cities and states, ed. Varsanyi

Monica

, 51–72. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

17.

Ramakrishnan

S. K.

Gulasekaram

. 2013. The importance of the political in immigration federalism. Arizona State Law Journal 44:4–13.

18.

Ramakrishnan

S. K.

Lewis

P. G.

. 2005. Immigrants and local governance: The view from city hall. San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California.

19.

Ramakrishnan

S. K.

Wong

Tom

. 2010 Partisanship, not Spanish: Explaining municipal ordinances affecting undocumented immigrants. In Taking local control: Immigration policy activism in US cities and states, ed. Varsanyi

Monica W.

, 73–93. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

20.

Remmers

Vanessa

. 2013. Immigrants in the tri-cities cope with counties’ English-only policies. The Progress-Index, December 29, 2013. http://www.progress-index.com/article/20131229/NEWS/312299950 (accessed December 14, 2015).

21.

Rodriguez

Cristina M.

2008. The significance of the local in immigration regulation. Michigan Law Review 106:567–642.

22.

Rosenblum

2011. US immigration policy since 9/11: Understanding the stalemate over comprehensive immigration reform. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.

23.

Rubaii-Barrett

2008. Immigration reform: An intergovernmental imperative. ICMA policy issue white paper, 1–44, ICMA, Washington, DC.

24.

Rubaii-Barrett

2009. The case for immigrant integration. Public Management 91:22–26.

25.

Sassen

Saskia

. 1996. Beyond sovereignty: Immigration policy making today. Social Justice 23:9–20.

26.

Steil

Justin Peter

Vasi

Ion Bogdan

. 2014. The new immigration contestation: Social movements and local immigration policy making in the United States, 2000–2011. American Journal of Sociology 119:1104–55.

27.

Suro

Roberto

Singer

Audrey

. 2002. Latino growth in metropolitan America: Changing patterns, new locations. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy in collaboration with the Pew Hispanic Center.

28.

Tat‐KeiHo

Alfred

. 2002. Reinventing local governments and the e‐government initiative. Public Administration Review 62:434–44.

29.

Tichenor

Daniel J.

2009. Navigating an American minefield: The politics of illegal immigration. The Forum 7:1–21. doi: 10.2202/1540-8884.1325.

30.

U.S. Census Bureau. 2014. American fact finder. http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_12_5YR_S0501&prodType=table (accessed December 14, 2015).

31.

Varsanyi

Monica

. 2010a. City ordinances as ‘Immigration policing by proxy’: Local governments and the regulation of undocumented day laborers. In Taking local control: Immigration policy activism in US cities and states, ed. Varsanyi

, 135–56. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

32.

Varsanyi

Monica

. 2010b. Taking local control: Immigration policy activism in US cities and states. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

33.

Virginia Department of Elections. 2015. Elections database. http://historical.elections.virginia.gov/elections/search/year_from:2007/year_to:2007/office_id:419 (accessed December 16, 2015).

34.

Walker

Julian

. 2007a. Chesterfield debates illegal immigration. Richmond Times-Dispatch, November 15, 2007. http://www.richmond.com/news/article_599d323c-ff63-5ff8-9982-0cf636ece226.html (accessed December 16, 2015).

35.

Walker

Julian

. 2007b. English could be official language. Richmond Times-Dispatch, September 27, 2007. http://www.richmond.com/news/article_0bc7c9fd-b8ab-5a6b-a0b8-daf7bd326237.html (accessed December 15, 2015).

36.

Walker

Kyle E.

2014. Immigration, local policy, and national identity in the suburban United States. Urban Geography 35:508–29.

37.

Williamson

Abigail

. 2011. Beyond the passage of time: Local government response in new immigrant destinations. PhD, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

38.

Williamson

Abigail

. 2014. External forces, internal responses: Local government policies toward immigrants over time. Washington, DC: American Political Science Association.

39.

Winders

Jamie

. 2012. Seeing immigrants Institutional visibility and immigrant incorporation in New Immigrant Destinations. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 641:58–78.

40.

Zuniga

Victor

Hernandez-Leon

Ruben

. 2005. New destinations: Mexican immigration in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

41.

Brenner

Christine Thurlow

. 2009a. Latina administrators in local government the interplay of role orientation and policy intentions. Administration & Society 40:825–51.

42.

Cadge

Wendy

Curran

Sara

Nadya Jaworsky

Levitt

Peggy

. 2010. The city as context: Culture and scale in new immigrant destinations. Amérique Latine Histoire et Mémoire. Les Cahiers ALHIM. Les Cahiers ALHIM (20). http://alhim.revues.org/3640 (accessed October 1, 2015).

43.

Furuseth

Owen

Smith

Heather

. 2010. Localized immigration policy: The view from Charlotte, North Carolina, a new immigrant gateway. In Taking local control: Immigration policy activism in US cities and states, ed. Varsanyi

Monica W.

, 173–92. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

44.

Vicino

Thomas J.

2012. Suburban crossroads: The fight for local control of immigration policy. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

45.

Walker

Kyle E.

Leitner

Helga

. 2011. The variegated landscape of local immigration policies in the United States. Urban Geography 32:156–78.

46.

Williams

Linda M.

2015. Beyond enforcement: Welcomeness, local law enforcement, and immigrants. Public Administration Review 75:433–42.

47.

Wilson

J. H.

DeRenzis

Singer

. 2010. Growing pains: Local response to resent immigrant settlement in suburban Washington, DC. In Taking local control: Immigration policy activism in US cities and states, ed. Varsanyi

, 193–216. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

48.

Winders

Jamie

. 2011. Representing the immigrant: Social movements, political discourse, and immigration in the US South. Southeastern Geographer 51:596–614.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.14 MB