Municipal institutions and local policy responses to immigrants policies towards day labourers in California

This paper examines the various factors that influence how local elected officials (mayors and council persons) in the United States develop policy responses to immigrant day labourers in their jurisdictions. We argue that in addition to demographic and political factors, the design of municipal political institutions shapes their responses. Inclusive day labourer policies are more likely to occur in mayor–council systems than in council–manager systems. In addition, we argue that it is important to consider how the interaction of factors affects local policy responses. Several factors have been identified as impacting local immigration policies, but in order to understand the widespread variation in local policy responses, it is necessary to examine how these factors interact in particular localities over extended periods of time. Interaction leads to dynamic policies that change over time. Local policy responses are examined quantitatively–using a dataset based on day labourer hiring sites in California and fitting multilevel generalized linear models–and qualitatively–using transcribed city council meetings.