Immigration Federalism and Local Regulation in the United States

Abstract

In recent decades, many local governments (mostly cities and towns) have entered the national debate on immigration. As was to be expected, the local governments’ stance vis a vis immigrants and immigration reflects the national debate. Local policies and legislation ranges from those that are friendly to immigrants, trying to facilitate their integration into the larger society, to those that are overtly hostile to the newly ar-rived. As local government legislative activity increases, another level of politics and political structure is layered onto the immigration debate. In addition to the well-established state and federal interest, regulation, and mandates involving immigration, local laws now come into play as well. At the local level, both city and county governments have begun to adopt legislation targeting immigrants. In this article, I analyze the legal status of these local actions and evaluate the legal relationship between and among local, state, and federal government that informs the legality of these local initiatives.