Karla Mari McKanders

The Subnational Response: Local Intervention in Immigration Policy and Enforcement

This chapter examines the history of promise and ultimately failure by the U.S. federal, state, and local governments to develop and implement compassionate immigration policies within their boundaries and the new opportunities for localized compassion presented by the current humanitarian crisis of transmigrant women and unaccompanied youth. The federal government’s inaction has, in part, led to an increase in xenophobic sentiments which caused the proliferation of varied state and local legislation targeting Latina/o immigrants. This chapter ultimately addresses how we can learn from the proliferation of state and local immigration laws to move toward developing compassionate migration policies that acknowledge the complex realities of migration while developing a form of cooperative federalism.