As during the Brexit referendum, immigration was one of the most divisive issues in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Since then, immigration has remained a heated topic in the United States. Despite its frequent mention in political rhetoric and in the media, little has been done to reform the U.S. immigration system since 2013 when a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill failed in the Senate. As such, U.S. immigration policy has changed little since the creation of the H-1B system, a temporary visa for high skilled workers, in 1990. Outside high-skilled workers, the U.S. immigration system largely remains the same as it was in 1965 after the Immigration and Naturalization Act removed racially discriminatory national quotas for immigrants. In the meantime, the majority of advanced economies have reformed their immigration systems to favor immigrants with in-demand skills in an effort to make immigration work as a benefit for their economies. This is in stark contrast to the U.S. immigration system, which remains firmly centered around family reunification. Add to this the ongoing uncertainty facing the nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States and one can begin to appreciate the frustration that immigration causes both sides of the political aisle.
While U.S. immigration policy broadly rests with the federal government, states and municipalities in the United States increasingly are pushing the legal boundaries of their jurisdictions in the absence of national-level action. Local governments have justified taking action as something required in order to respond to the needs of their residents and their local economies. Immigrants have long been proven to be economic contributors to the U.S. economy, and their impacts are often most tangibly felt at the local level. This has resulted in a range of policy innovations that either provide protection or expand access to services for immigrants regardless of status (e.g. municipal identifications cards, language access policies, protections for undocumented residents or becoming so-called “sanctuary cities,” city offices for immigrant affairs and integration) or seek to better integrate immigrants as a means of supporting economic growth (e.g. immigrant entrepreneurship programmes, re-credentialing schemes, setting immigration as a pillar of local economic development strategies).
The increase in immigration policy crafted at the local level is also in tandem with the wider distribution of immigrants throughout the country. While historically, only the largest cities in the United States experienced significant inflows of immigrants, increasingly immigrants—especially after having established a foothold—are moving to smaller cities or into the suburbs of larger cities. This move to smaller cities and suburbs among immigrants mirrors the migration patterns of U.S.-born Americans, as people continue to seek lower costs of living, more space, and increased job opportunities. In some cities, particularly those in the former industrial heartland of the United States, often called the “Rust Belt,” immigrants and refugees have come to be seen as a way to turn around depopulation trends that have plagued these cities since the mid-1970s. This had led to the building of coalitions not often seen—refugee groups, business and industry groups, faith communities, immigrant rights organizations, and elected officials from both sides of the spectrum—to come out in support of more immigrant-friendly policies in cities.
This flourishing of city policy innovation, however, has led to an increasingly adversarial relationship between cities and the federal government. Under Donald Trump, the anti-immigrant stance of the federal government is coming face-to-face with the pragmatism that cities have shown in trying to address issues affecting their residents. A number of cases challenging cities’ jurisdiction over refugee resettlement policy, undocumented immigrants, and immigration enforcement and deportations have been brought to court, sometimes contested and appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. One of the most recent examples, the administration’s new requirement that local and state officials must “affirmatively opt-in” in order to receive refugees within their jurisdictions is particularly interesting. Whereas in cases revolving around sanctuary cities and undocumented immigrants, where the federal government challenges cities’ right to override federal immigration policy, here the federal government is acquiescing control and giving it to local jurisdictions, with local actors claiming to say that this is improper.
Ultimately, the lack of consistent “winner” in these cases attests to the lack of clarity provided by past precedent and current policy on immigration-related issues. This only adds to the uncertainty felt by cities and by immigrants in general. In the continued muddled state of immigration policy in the United States, cities are likely to continue to press on until they run out of option or pathways to do so by the judicial branch or by federal legislation.
