Local agencies in the US increasingly play a key role in immigration enforcement and in providing services to immigrants. This project will study the local construction of law on the street regarding immigrants by studying the degree of agencies' "welcomeness" to immigrants. A 2011 pilot study revealed that some local agencies have comprehensive policies favoring integrating immigrants into the local community; others do little or are hostile to integration. The research will examine how widely local law enforcement agencies and public libraries are welcoming (or unwelcoming) to immigrants and what conditions shape the degree of welcomeness. This project will evaluate three different claims concerning the incorporation of immigrants. The first approach posits that agencies in communities experiencing greater immigration levels will be less welcoming; an alternative posits that agencies? policies will be influenced by shared professional practices. Finally, it may be that front-line employees are influenced by the characteristics of their immediate situation and the actions of the person they are addressing. The research will include a two-phased study using organizational surveys of national samples of law enforcement and libraries and interviews with a sub-sample of leaders and front-line employees, supplemented by observations. These agencies interact commonly with immigrants, but vary in whether they are regulatory-agencies or service-agencies. The national samples will allow comparisons across widely-varying levels of immigrant populations, local political preferences, and degree of agency connection to professional networks. The project will enhance understanding of the local construction of immigrant policy. In addition, the project may help local agencies develop policies and training programs to improve relationships with immigrants. The project will also produce two databases, one of interview transcripts and one of survey data that will be available to researchers and professionals.
This dissertation explores the extent of welcoming policies and practices and the factors that may affect their development and how the situational factors, suchas race and attitude of those involved, affects the implementation of these policies at the street-level. 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. In June and July 2012 I surveyed agency leaders in police departments and public libraries and from February to March 2013 I conducted 31 semi-structured recorded interviews with two subject categories in six states across the United States, including executives and front-line employees in public libraries and city police departments. The field sites were chosen based on the "degree of welcomeness" of the agency based on responses to survey questions. The data were systematically reviewed, coded and analyzed using Atlas ti research software. I find 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. I have coined the term "welcomeness" to represent the extent to which the policies and practices of the organization either seek to help integrate immigrants into the community or punitively exclude immigrants from incorporation into society. The degree of welcomeness encompasses both the formal policies of the organization and how front-line staff act and speak toward immigrants. I have developed five dimensions of welcomeness for police and six dimensions for public libraries. These dimensions represent a range of agency actions and are sensitive to the continuum of possible actions, both symbolic and substantive. This interdisciplinary project brings together the literatures in law and society and sociology of institutions by studying the factors that affect the development of policies and practices of organizations towards immigrants. The main contribution of this project is to provide the first systematic account of the range of policies and practices of local agencies towards immigrants. 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. I find evidence that welcoming policies are widespread in both settings which suggests that welcomeness is not confined to the service context. This project 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.
