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With a Little Help from Our Feds: Understanding State Immigration Enforcement Policy Adoption in A merican Federalism
Author(s) -
Creek Heather M.,
Yoder Stephen
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
policy studies journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.773
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1541-0072
pISSN - 0190-292X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1541-0072.2012.00469.x
Subject(s) - immigration , federalism , enforcement , immigration policy , immigration law , state (computer science) , public administration , government (linguistics) , law enforcement , political science , politics , business , public economics , economics , law , linguistics , philosophy , algorithm , computer science
Since 2001, state governments have adopted 287(g) cooperative immigration enforcement agreements with the federal government that authorize their law enforcement personnel to assist in detaining violators of civil federal immigration law. Employing a theoretical framework drawn from theories of policy adoption, intergovernmental relations, and immigration research, we test which state‐level political, sociodemographic, geographic, and economic determinants influence states to enter into such a cooperative agreement. In addition to finding that the partisanship of a state's governor, a state's effort on public welfare, and an increase in a state's percentage of H ispanics are related to the adoption of a cooperative immigration enforcement policy, we found evidence of “steam valve federalism” working not at the state level as S piro (1997) first theorized but at the local level. When a state's localities adopt immigration enforcement agreements with the federal government, the state itself is far less likely to adopt their own. Understanding the reasons states would adopt this type of policy sheds light on current trends in state immigration policy and their effect on future state/federal intergovernmental relations.