State Level Immigration Policy

The author examines what level of responsibility there is between the federal government and the state government in creating policies around immigrants. Federal government ultimately has the largest responsibility in creating and enforcing the regulations around immigration, but the author examines how more recently states have been taking a larger role. The article begins by looking at the number of state legislation and resolutions that took place between 2005 and 2014. Arizona has stated a movement of legislation being created with what became known as the Omnibus Legislation because it lumped several bills into one. Within the next year, five other states passed similar legislation.

The journal then takes a wide look at all each state and the legislation they have enacted. This information is displayed in a large chart. The author then examines the different type of legislation more closely. It looks at law enforcement and the structure in which they exist and interact with immigrants. It touches on an E Verification for employment and how different states have different levels of requirements. It even continues into areas to determine how eligible immigrants are for In-State tuition and other financial aid resources, drivers licenses, and health care. Each area that is examined is accompanied by a diagram of the United States and to what degree the legislation exists.

The entire article is written about the laws and what limits are put onto immigrants and the way they are living. The journal was published in 2016 with much of its information coming from 2013-2015, being that it is currently 2019, I am unsure how much legislation has changed since the publication of this journal.

View journal here.

“Landscape of State-Level Immigration Policies.” A Cost-Benefit Framework for Analyzing the Economic and Fiscal Impacts of State-Level Immigration Policies, by Lynn A. Karoly and Francisco Perez-Arce, RAND Corporation, 2016, pp. 3–20. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.7249/j.ctt1btc0p8.10.