Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Variegated Landscape of Local Immigration Policies in U.S. Metropolitan Areas

虽然美国的移民执法传统上在联邦一级运作，但在过去十年中，数百个地方政府考虑或实施了地方规模的移民政策，以处理其社区的无证移民问题。关于这种相对较新的移民政策本地化的许多学术研究主要集中在这些政策的法律的和政治方面，因此忽视了这些政策的性质在大都市地区内的变化。中心城市似乎倾向于采取包容性政策，而移民人口增长最快的郊区往往采取相反的路线，颁布排斥性举措。 事实上，这些政策让人想起了过去在郊区帮助产生大都市居住隔离的法令。本博士论文研究项目探讨了影响当地移民政策实施的因素和条件，以及大都市地区对移民的政治反应如何变化。具体而言，该研究还探讨了推动郊区当地移民政策的动机。该项目利用收集的数据为芝加哥，华盛顿DC和凤凰城大都市区，并使用统计建模，基于GIS的空间分析，以及文件分析和关键线人访谈，以调查如何以及为什么这些地方政策的实施不同的空间。本研究旨在展示当地社会人口特征和社会空间特征的变化如何有助于促进美国大都市地区内当地移民政策的新兴拼凑。 这个研究项目探讨了郊区社区应对快速人口变化的方式。这些过程有可能极大地改变美国大都市地区的人口特征。由于美国各地的郊区经历了巨大的变化，由于移民，这是至关重要的，以了解美国移民政策和当地大都市的特点之间的交叉点如何影响郊区对这些变化的反应。因此，该项目将移徙问题奖学金与郊区化和居住隔离问题工作联系起来。它也有可能告知有关移民融合和美国大都市地区的社会不平等的城市政策。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个独立的研究生涯。

While immigration enforcement in the United States has traditionally operated at the federal level, hundreds of local governments in the past decade have considered or implemented local scale immigration policies to deal with issues of undocumented immigration in their communities. Much of the scholarship on this relatively new localization of immigration policy has focused primarily on the legal and political aspects of these policies, and has thus neglected how the nature of these policies varies within metropolitan areas. It appears that whereas central cities tend to prefer inclusionary policies, their suburbs, where immigrant populations are frequently growing the fastest, often take the opposite route and enact exclusionary initiatives. Such policies, in fact, are reminiscent of past ordinances in the suburbs that helped produce metropolitan residential segregation. This doctoral dissertation research project explores the factors and conditions influencing the implementation of local immigration policies and how political responses to immigration vary within metropolitan areas. Specifically, the research also examines the motivations that drive local immigration policies in the suburbs. This project draws upon data collected for the Chicago, Washington DC, and Phoenix metropolitan areas, and uses statistical modeling, GIS-based spatial analysis, as well as document analysis and key informant interviews to investigate how and why the implementation of these local policies varies across space. This study aims to demonstrate how variations in local socio-demographic characteristics and socio-spatial identities have helped foster an emerging patchwork of local immigration policies within US metropolitan areas. This research project examines the ways in which suburban communities are responding to rapid demographic changes. Such processes have the potential to dramatically re-shape the demographic character of metropolitan areas in the United States. As suburbs across the US experience dramatic changes due to immigration, it is vital to understand how the intersections between US immigration policy and local metropolitan characteristics influence suburban responses to these changes. This project thus links scholarship on migration with work on suburbanization and residential segregation. It also has the potential to inform urban policies concerned with immigrant integration and social inequalities within US metropolitan areas. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish an independent research career.