Illegal Lives : How Local Immigration Law Shapes Everyday Life for Undocumented Immigrants

Cities across the U.S. increasingly respond to undocumented immigrants through local law. These locales set parameters of inclusion and exclusion through accommodating measures intended to integrate newcomers and restrictive policies meant to marginalize them. How do the varying legal contexts of receiving locales shape these immigrants' everyday lives and future prospects? In the first comparative study of the outcomes of local immigration law, my dissertation explores the incorporation effects of accommodating and restrictive socio-legal contexts, and it does so from the perspective of undocumented Mexicans. Drawing on multi-sited and mixed methods research, I counter scholars who argue that restrictive policy environments uniformly force immigrants to margins of society. My dissertation demonstrates the unintended social consequences of legal restrictions, wherein aspects of immigrants' settlement, cultural incorporation, and political socialization flourish in response to the very laws that seek to exclude them. The first empirical chapter asks whether restrictive laws work to push undocumented immigrants out of hostile destinations. To gain leverage on this question, I focus on the relationship between settlement behavior and "attrition through enforcement" policy. Formed to trigger the voluntary exit of undesired immigrants, these laws aim to make their lives exceedingly difficult. With a twofold comparison of undocumented immigrants in three cities and two states, I use original bi-national survey data to demonstrate that such measures do not have a significant effect on the amount of time spent in restrictive locales or changes in place of residency. I draw from interview data collected from undocumented immigrants to argue that economic, social, and life course factors more prominently shape settlement decisions. Within the second chapter, I explore undocumented immigrants' navigation of daily life in cities with hostile socio-legal environments. How do every day events, like going to work and taking children to school, unfold for undocumented immigrants living legally restrictive cities, and how does this relate to incorporation trajectories? Drawing on observations and interviews, I find that undocumented Mexicans in restrictive destinations attempt legal passing, or the public embodiment of the culture of the dominant core population, a behavior not present in accommodating locales. Purposive and strategic, this daily effort to pass is primarily a protective strategy, yet over time it becomes internalized and contributes to incremental cultural incorporation. The final empirical chapter focuses on political engagement in restrictive and accommodating receiving locales. With observational and interview data from undocumented immigrants, I demonstrate that restrictive laws---while clearly contributing to social suffering---also trigger political socialization. Seeking to understand the implications of legal restrictions, immigrants forge closer ties with neighbors, sympathetic allies, and advocacy organizations and, in doing so, they develop political knowledge. Nevertheless, the oppressive nature of restrictive socio-legal contexts dampens political efficacy and limits political participation to the realm of local immigration policy. Conversely, accommodating laws make the everyday activities of undocumented immigrants far more secure and stable. Freed from the daily burden of restrictive immigration policy, immigrants in accommodating destinations become more broadly socialized in the local politics, have a higher sense of political efficacy, and participate in a wider range of political issues. The determinants of local immigration laws have been studied, but we know little about their social effects. With fieldwork in multiple sites chosen for their theoretical variation, my dissertation is the first comparative study of the outcomes of local immigration measures for undocumented immigrants themselves. By bringing immigrants into the analysis, I highlight the deep yet often counterintuitive influence of divergent socio-legal contexts. In doing so, the dissertation expands standard explanations of incorporation to include illegality and the socio-legal environments of immigrant destinations as key variables driving the adaptation process. My data also have implications for our understanding of inequality, as local immigration laws create a new axis of stratification that shapes immigrants' everyday lives and future prospect