Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Rights of Non-Citizens in the Workplace

博士论文研究摘要：《工作、正义与外国人：美国非公民权利的社会语境》。本项目探讨市政府和地方（市、县或私人）组织在构建美国非公民合法权利的意义中所扮演的角色。关于非公民权利的法律和社会科学文献普遍认为，民族国家是公民身份和异化意义的最终仲裁者。这种观点未能抓住地方组织在行动中帮助构建非公民权利的重要方式。初步研究表明，地方政府机构和非政府服务组织可以有效地扩大、限制或改变联邦法律名义上授予（或拒绝）非公民的合法权利。本项目考察了非公民权利在日工征集背景下的本地化建构，日工征集是指在美国市政当局的街角和其他公共空间寻找临时日常工作（主要是体力劳动）的做法。由于日工主要是非法居留在美国的，并且由于非法外国人代表了领土上最具问题的非公民类别，因此对日工就业的监管提出了三个关键问题。首先，非民族国家、地方、公共和私人组织如何参与构建非公民权利的意义和内容？其次，这些组织如何界定非公民从事日间劳动征集的权利（例如，作为言论自由、集会自由或公平就业的权利）？第三，这些权利的条款和背景是什么，这些权利有多强大？加州的五个城市作为本研究的实地地点，研究考察了这些城市中不同类型的市政机构和项目的影响。该项目涉及多种形式的定性研究，包括与政府官员的访谈、对日工征集地点的观察和档案研究。这是对日工征集的第一次主要的社会法学研究。由于该研究考察了市政机构和非政府组织在实际权利建设中的作用，因此对美国城市、州和联邦政府具有至关重要的政策意义。报告将指出管理日益普遍的日工现象所面临的挑战，并将提出更有效的方法。

Abstract of Doctoral Dissertation Research: Work, Justice and the Foreigner: The Social Contexts of Non-Citizens Rights in the U.S.This project explores the roles that city governments and local (city, county, or private) organizations play in constructing the meaning of legal rights for non-citizens in the United States. The legal and social scientific literatures on non-citizens rights generally presume that nation-states are the final arbiters of the meanings of citizenship and alienage. This view fails to capture the important ways in which local organizations help to construct non-citizens rights in action. Preliminary research suggests that local government agencies and non-governmental service organizations can effectively expand, constrict, or transform the legal rights of non-citizens that are nominally granted (or denied) by federal law. This project examines the localized construction of non-citizens rights in the context of day labor solicitation, the practice of searching for temporary daily work, primarily manual labor work, on street corners and other public spaces within American municipalities. Because day laborers are primarily illegally present in the United States, and because illegal aliens represent the most problematic category of territorially present non-citizens, the regulation of day labor employment poses three crucial questions. First, how do non-nation-state, locally-based, public and private organizations take part in constructing the meaning and content of non-citizens rights on the ground? Second, how do these organizations frame the rights of non-citizens to engage in day labor solicitation (e.g., as a matter of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, or a right to fair employment)? Third, what are the terms and contexts of these rights, and how robust are these rights? Five California cities serve as the field sites for this study, and the research examines the effects of different kinds of municipal agencies and programs within each of these cities. The project involves multiple forms of qualitative research, including interviews with public officials, observation of day labor solicitation sites, and archival research. This is the first major sociolegal study of day labor solicitation. Because it examines the role of municipal agencies and non-governmental organizations in the construction of rights in action, this research has crucial policy implications for U.S. cities, states, and the federal government. It will identify the challenges of regulating the increasingly prevalent phenomenon of day labor, and it will suggest more effective ways of doing so.