The Federal-Local Nexus in Immigration Enforcement Policy An
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The Federal-Local Nexus in Immigration Enforcement Policy An Evaluation of the Secure Communities Program by Dongjae Jung A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Approved May 2015 by the Graduate Supervisory Committee: N. Joseph Cayer, Co-Chair Paul G. Lewis, Co-Chair Christopher M. Herbst ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY August 2015 ABSTRACT This study analyzes how current U.S. immigration enforcement policy has been carried out, specifically under the implementation of the Secure Communities (S-Comm) program. Paying special attention to the enforcement-only policy hysteria and immigration patchwork trend since the 2000s, this study has the following research questions: (1) whether S-Comm has faithfully implemented enforcement actions for removing "dangerous" criminal noncitizens; (2) how counties with different immigration perspectives have responded to such an immigration enforcement program; and (3) whether the implementation of S-Comm has really made local communities safer as in the program goal. For analysis, 541 counties were selected, and their noncitizen enforcement results under S-Comm were analyzed with 5 time points, covering a 13-month period (Dec. 2011 - Jan. 2013) with longitudinal data analyses. In spite of the rosy advertisement of this program, analysis of S-Comm showed a very different picture. Unlike the federal immigration agency's promise of targeting dangerous criminal noncitizens, 1 in 4 noncitizen removals were for noncriminal violations, and more than half of noncitizen deportations were for misdemeanor charges and immigration violations in the name of "criminal aliens." Based on latent class analysis, three distinct subgroups of counties having different immigration enforcement policy perspectives were extracted, and there have been huge local variations over time on two key intergovernmental enforcement actions under the implementation of S-Comm: immigration detainer issuances and noncitizen deportations. Finally, unlike the federal immigration agency's "immigrant- crime nexus" assumption for legitimating the implementation of S-Comm, no significant i and meaningful associations between these two factors were found. With serious conflicts and debates among policy actors on the implementation of S-Comm, this program was finally terminated in November 2014; although, the essence of the policy continues under a different name. A series of results from this study indicate that the current enforcement-only policy approach has been wrongfully implemented, and fundamental reconsideration of immigration policy should be made. Enforcement-focused immigration policy could not solve fundamental immigration-related problems, including why noncitizens immigrate and how they should be dealt with as humans. More rational and humane approaches to dealing with immigration should be discussed at the national and local levels. ii DEDICATION I dedicate my dissertation to my loved family, my academic father, and the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). A special thanks to my loving parents, Daebak Jung and Oakjoo Byun, for their endless patience, encouragement, and love to their second son. My younger brother Dongwon Jeong always encouraged me to concentrate on my studies without any financial concerns, giving his full material and emotional support. I also dedicate my dissertation to my dissertation co-chair and academic father, Professor Emeritus N. Joseph Cayer, who taught me important academic and life values in person during his advisership. I will never forget his endless humbleness, patience, consideration, and respect for his students. I dedicate my work and give special thanks to TRAC at Syracuse University. As a massive data-gathering research institute, TRAC and its co-director Susan Long accepted my TRAC Fellowship and generously gave me an opportunity to access public data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on immigration detainer issuances received through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Without TRAC’s support, I could not have completed this dissertation project. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation could not have been completed without the support and consideration of my dissertation committee members. First, I would like to thank Professor Emeritus N. Joseph Cayer, my dissertation co-chair as well as my academic father for graduate studies in the School of Public Administration and Policy at Arizona State University. I am very honored to have met, studied, and worked with him in my School, and through my connection with him, I have learned a lot as a scholar and a human. He never once said "no" to any my questions and requests during my graduate studies. He always praised, encouraged, and helped me not to lose my self-confidence and -esteem. All of his endless consideration, patience, and love are beyond what I deserve. As my role model for what I would like to become in my future academic journey, he has been the best of the best kind of mentor. I would also like to express my gratitude and respect to Professors Paul G. Lewis and Christopher M. Herbst. Although Professor Lewis is an outside faculty, he generously accepted my request to participate in my dissertation committee as a co-chair without any conditions, and played a key role in sharpening the substantive policy ideas and perspectives on U.S. immigration and related issues. I also appreciate Professor Herbst for his valuable comments and advice during the development of the method sections for the dissertation. This dissertation project also could never have been completed without generous public data sharing from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University. After accepting me as a TRAC Fellow, TRAC provided me with invaluable immigration enforcement data covering more than 24 months which were obtained from U.S. iv Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. I specifically appreciate TRAC’s co-director Susan Long for her consideration and technical assistance in helping me to access immigration enforcement-related data from TRAC. Many people in the Arizona State University community helped me to develop this dissertation. Faculty, staff, and doctoral students in the School of Public Administration and Policy were always the first place for me to get and share fresh ideas and information. Of them, I would like to express a special gratitude and respect to Professor Thomas Catlaw for his personality, humbleness, and academic strictness. I am also deeply indebted to Patsy Kraeger and Joe West for their friendship and encouragement during my doctoral studies. My 10 doctoral cohorts - precious academic brothers and sisters - always gave me humor and encouragement. I would also like to express my gratitude to Professor Natalie Wilkens at the Sanford School for her methodological contribution to the longitudinal modeling topic. In addition to the ASU community, I also offer a big thank you to outside academic and nonacademic friends: Soogil Oh, Young Aa Ryoo, Daegeon Kim, Wooseong Jeong, Dongsuk Shin, Roger Chin, Daniel Chand, William Schreckhise, Viola Lerma Fuentes, Jaewan Bhak, Jun-hyuk Byun, Jong-kyu Cho, Jihyee Kim, Cheol Kim, Geiguen Shin, Kyungim Park, Janice, Faiza Rais, and Sarah Andrews. Without their consideration, encouragement, kindness, and support, my doctoral life at Arizona State might have been more difficult. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... ix LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................. xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Background of Research ............................................................................ 1 1.2 Purpose of Research ................................................................................... 8 1.3 Research Questions .................................................................................. 11 1.4 Organization ............................................................................................. 14 2 U.S. IMMIGRATION POLICY CHANGE .................................................................... 17 2.1 Social Construction and Policy Responses to Noncitizens .................... 18 2.2 Shifting Policy Goals and Directions: Historical Trend ......................... 21 2.3 Current Immigration Policy ..................................................................... 35 2.4 Organization ............................................................................................. 44 3 IMMIGRATION POLICY IMPLEMENTATION ......................................................... 47 3.1 Local Immigration Policy Involvement .................................................. 48 3.2 Implementation of the Secure Communities Program............................ 56 3.3 Secure Communities and Two Key Interaction Points ........................... 69 3.4 Final Program Goal of S-Comm ............................................................. 75 3.5 Summary .................................................................................................. 79 4 ANALYZING THE PROGRAM OUTCOME of S-Comm ......................................... .82 4.1 Introduction .............................................................................................