Conflict and local immigration policy making How conflict over immigrant day laborers in the United States shapes local policy responses

This research project explores how conflict over immigrants in the United States varies across space and time, and how this variation impacts local policy making. Conflict consists of multiple elements – such as conflict duration, actors involved, and conflict intensity – and these elements may vary over time and across space. This study deploys a largescale dataset on immigrant day laborers to examine local conflict over immigrants in a generalizable manner. This approach allows to identify variation in conflict and to assess how this variation shapes local policy making. Quantitative methods are supplemented with qualitative methods to illustrate how variations in conflict and local policy making play out in practice.
The analyses show that hypervisibility of immigrant day laborers plays an important role in spurring local conflict, while contact between day laborers and other community members may increase or reduce the chances of conflict to occur. Initial contact oftentimes is a source of conflict, while prolonged contact provides the opportunity to develop relationships. In addition, the results indicate that local policies are dynamic, because mobilizations of opponents and supporters of immigrants result in policies being pushed and pulled between restrictive and accommodating. The study shows that it is important to recognize that factors impacting policy making interact and are not carved in stone, which results in dynamic policy making.