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The Geographies of Local Immigration Policies in the United States a DISSERTATION SUBMITTED to the FACULTY of the GRADUATE SCHOO

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The Geographies of Local Immigration Policies in the United States a DISSERTATION SUBMITTED to the FACULTY of the GRADUATE SCHOO The Geographies of Local Immigration Policies in the United States A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Kyle E. Walker IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Professor Helga Leitner, Adviser June 2011 © 2011 Kyle Walker Acknowledgements This research was made possible by the support of a number of funding sources. Quantitative data collection and preliminary analysis was supported by a Graduate Research Partnership Program fellowship from the University of Minnesota, and a Darrell Haug Davis Memorial Fellowship from the Department of Geography. Qualitative field research in 2009 was supported by National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant BCS-0902685; a New Initiatives research grant from the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs; and a Thesis Research Grant from the University of Minnesota Graduate School. I would also like to acknowledge the support of the Minnesota Population Center, who awarded me a Proposal Development Grant that ultimately led to successful future funding of this project, and who hosted me as an Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellow during the 2009- 2010 academic year, when I conducted much of the data analysis for this project. Dissertation writing was supported in 2010-2011 by a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Minnesota Graduate School. I have many people to thank who supported me over the course of my graduate studies. Many thanks are due to Susan Hardwick, who showed me that I could pursue a career as a geographer while an undergraduate at the University of Oregon, and helped me develop an interest in immigration issues. I would also like to thank the members of my dissertation committee. Donna Gabaccia provided me with invaluable mentorship and encouragement throughout my time at Minnesota, and Ross Macmillan and Steve Manson provided me with crucial guidance and training in quantitative methods. I also owe a lot to the late Roger Miller, who I had the pleasure of working with for several years and who helped push me to excel as a young scholar. Thanks are due to Eric Sheppard as well who generously filled in for Roger as chair of my committee. I would also like to acknowledge the staff at the Minnesota Population Center as well as Will Craig at the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, who provided key logistical and i financial support for this project. Most importantly, I owe a tremendous gratitude to Helga Leitner, my advisor. She has been a trusted mentor and research partner throughout this dissertation project, and has put in significant effort to make sure this dissertation is of the highest quality. It has been a pleasure to develop as a scholar and professional under her tutelage. Additionally, I would like to thank all of the people I spoke with and interviewed during my field research; they are too numerous to list here, but they invited me into their homes and offices, and took time out of their busy schedules to help me, a complete stranger, with my research project. I owe them considerable gratitude. Finally, I would like to thank my family, whose support was invaluable as I completed this project. Thanks are due to the extended Walker and Opland families, who made Minnesota feel like home during my 5 and a half years there; to my brother, Travis, whose conversations on research methodology helped bring a fresh perspective to my work; and to my parents, Jane and Gregg, whose constant support helped me achieve my goals. Lastly, and most importantly, none of this would have been possible without Molly and Michaela. Michaela, you have been a constant source of joy and inspiration, even though you wanted to mash on the keyboard every time I took out the computer to write. Molly, I cannot express enough how much you have meant to me throughout this whole process. I am so grateful for your willingness to move to Minnesota with me and support me every step of the way throughout this process. I dedicate this dissertation to you. ii Abstract Over the past decade, hundreds of local governments have considered or implemented locally-scaled immigration policies. Some localities have enacted inclusionary policies that seek to promote an inclusive environment for all immigrants regardless of legal status, whereas others have opted for exclusionary policies designed to drive away undocumented immigrants. A burgeoning interdisciplinary literature has provided substantial evidence of how both transformations in US federal immigration policy and locality-specific conditions have led to the emergence of these local immigration policies. This literature has paid less attention to how these policies vary geographically, and the role of social and political spaces in enabling or constraining these policy responses. In this dissertation, I employ a multi-methods approach to conduct a geographical analysis of the factors and conditions that influence local governments to implement local policy responses to immigration. The first part of the dissertation is based on a national quantitative study I designed to test a series of hypotheses about the introduction and intent of these policies. I find that local immigration policies are associated with the size and pace of change of the local immigrant population, and that exclusionary policies tend to be found in suburbs, the US South, and areas of lower education, higher Republican voting, and higher owner-occupied housing. The remainder of the dissertation draws from a multi-sited qualitative study of six suburbs in the Chicago, Washington DC, and Phoenix metropolitan areas. Based on this research, I find that local immigration policies are influenced by multi-scalar immigration policy hierarchies, networks of national and regional immigration activists, and deeply-rooted place identities. Further, proponents of exclusionary immigration policies in the suburbs frame their policy positions as a defense of a suburban ideal reflected in the “American Dream.” Such policies, however, also reflect anxieties about fiscal insecurity and loss of local identity in the wake of continued suburban population growth. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................ vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1 Cave Creek, Arizona ......................................................................................................... 1 Local immigration policies in the US: A review of the literature .................................... 8 Research design and methodology ............................................................................... 14 Outline of the dissertation ............................................................................................ 18 CHAPTER 2: THE VARIEGATED LANDSCAPE OF LOCAL IMMIGRATION POLICIES IN THE UNITED STATES ................................................................................................................. 22 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 22 Geographical divides of local immigration policies....................................................... 26 Factors and conditions influencing the nature of local immigration politics ............... 34 The significance of geography ....................................................................................... 39 Methodology ................................................................................................................. 42 Results/findings ............................................................................................................. 45 Contrasting imaginaries of place and nation ............................................................ 56 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 58 CHAPTER 3: THE COMPLEX SPATIALITY OF LOCAL IMMIGRATION POLICIES IN THE UNITED STATES ................................................................................................................. 62 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 62 Local policy and the politics of scale ............................................................................. 66 Policy mobility and the politics of networking .............................................................. 69 iv Local policy as a politics of place ................................................................................... 71 Description of methodology and case studies .............................................................. 74 Local immigration policies and the politics of scale ...................................................... 79 Extralocal (activist) networks and immigration policy mobility .................................... 90 The politics of place in the local immigration debate ................................................... 97 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 103 CHAPTER 4: IMMIGRATION, LOCAL POLICY, AND THE “AMERICAN DREAM”
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