Inclusive Immigration Policy and Conferring Urban Citizenship

Ravneet Kaur

Abstract: With nearly 80 million migrants displaced worldwide and the share of individuals living in urban areas increasing, cities face the issue of supporting undocumented immigrant residents who are not afforded national citizenship. Sanctuary cities afford their non-citizen residents a “local citizenship” by passing ordinances which forbid city employees from inquiring about immigration status, and therefore, cities do not procure immigration information that can be used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In this paper, I examine how cities implement inclusive immigration policy and offer meaningful citizenship to undocumented immigrants who lack formal citizenship as offered by the United States government. In Section I, I review the dimensions of local citizenship and how urban citizenship plays a role in the “right to the city”. In Section II, I discuss examples of inclusionary immigration policies implemented in cities and focus in detail on sanctuary city laws. In Section III, I outline San Francisco's experience and history in implementing sanctuary policy. In Section IV, I conclude with an analysis of whether cities can provide meaningful citizenship to immigrant residents who lack formal citizenship and related policy implications. In conclusion, cities can offer, and extend, meaningful local and urban citizenship through inclusive policies and are able to do so since federal and state law does not specifically preempt cities from affording certain rights and privileges to residents.

I. Introduction 

Urban policy scholars hail cities as innovative policy hubs where experimentation can lead to solutions for national or global problems when state and federal governments are inhibited by bureaucracy and scalability (Kaufmann 2019). In the late 1960s, French sociologist Henri Lefebvre developed the concept of “the right to the city” to reclaim the city as the center of reform and reject exclusionary processes. The right to the city addressed growing inequality and “assert[s] an individual liberty to access urban resources, to avoid spatial segregation and exclusion, and to be provided with public services that meet basic needs in health, education, and welfare” (Schragger 2017). Lefebvre posited that the city is more than an individual right - it is one that goes beyond monetary value of land and values the collective of a city and the values of society and sociability. This concept develops the role cities can play in affording rights to their own community members: between the right to the city and the assertion of collective rights lays a claim to “urban citizenship” for undocumented immigrants. To compare, in the United States, the formal notion of “citizenship” is typically conceptualized through a federal lens where foreign-born individuals procure their citizenship from federal agencies, namely the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

From a normative perspective, urban citizenship challenges formal citizenship as offered by the nation-state and proposes a form of citizenship offered by residing in an urban center. Urban citizenship remains a theoretical framework, but there are examples of reinforcement of the idea by de facto policies. Cities, for example, provide undocumented residents with municipal identification cards, provisions to local services, and sanctuary status within the city. This idea is entrenched in Lefebvre’s “right to the city” because it values the concept of community as citizenship rather than a formal metric. Inclusive immigration policies developed by cities in the U.S. and globally utilize urban citizenship to confer status to undocumented immigrants as a part of the local community. 

Under the Trump administration, refugee admissions were at their lowest level in history (15,000 in 2020) and President Trump frequently campaigned on the promise of curtailing immigration (Scott 2020). Numerous cities and state governments across the U.S. have taken steps to further exclusionary immigration laws, such as Arizona’s SB1070, or develop inclusionary immigration laws, such as sanctuary cities, in a direct response to federal law.  As a form of inclusionary immigration policy, sanctuary cities face a renewed focus in the 21st century, as they have increasingly become battlegrounds for opposing political ideology and a rebuke to anti-immigration rhetoric. The present-day sanctuary city movement is a response to the post-9/11 creation of the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to aggressively enforce federal immigration policies. 

In this paper, I will briefly review inclusive immigration policies, including providing municipal identification cards, provision of local services, and expand on one such policy – the sanctuary city. In the following sections, I will review the dimensions of local citizenship and the concept of urban citizenship before detailing inclusionary immigration policies. 

II. Dimensions of Local Citizenship and Urban Citizenship

A. Four Dimensions of Local Citizenship

Rose Cuison Villazor (2010) outlines the four dimensions of local citizenship in “Sanctuary Cities” and Local Citizenship as formal citizenship, entitlement to rights, political participation, and belonging to a community. 

In the U.S., the federal government, namely U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), is the only entity with power over immigration and legal citizenship. Citizenship is typically viewed through a nation-centric view where the legal rights are afforded by the national government and not local municipalities. National governments can formally declare citizenship and decide “how many foreigners can legally enter the country each year, who is subject to deportation, when and how legal immigrants can become U.S. citizens, and the duties, rights, and benefits associated with U.S. citizenship” (Villazor 2010). In this first dimension, all ability to afford legal status to local residents by municipalities is preempted by state and federal government. This is a normalized standard and sanctuary cities have no intention to disregard the legal jurisdiction of the federal government in affording legal citizenship. 

The second dimension of citizenship shifts the focus from legal and formal ramifications to the rights afforded to a member. Rose Cuison Villazor (2010) explains that entitlement to rights includes various other types of rights, such as civil, political, and social. If a local resident is provided with the possession of opportunity and goods offered to the wider community without interference, they are a rightful citizen of the jurisdiction. The third dimension, Civic republican theory, focuses on citizenship’s classical political dimension - civic participation and individual freedoms for the greater good. The Aristotelian concept of active citizenship “denotes the process of democratic self-government, deliberative democracy, and the practice of active engagement in the life of the political community” (Bosniak 2006) and relies on governance with active civic participation. The final dimension of citizenship centers around the ties to a community and a sense of belonging - social membership. Rather than focusing on legal processes, political involvement or formal rights, social membership focuses on how people experience themselves collectively.

B. Urban Citizenship 

Despite the significant constraints on city power as preempted by states and the federal government, the idea of an “urban citizenship” grounded in place and community is increasingly discussed among urban scholars. In “Urban Citizenship and the Right to the City”, Blokland et al. (2015) outline the foundations of urban citizenship and its dominance in critical urban scholarship and activism. Scholars understand that there are very few examples of urban citizenship that are protected by constitutions, but they also believe there is merit in studying how governance at a local level intersects with concepts of citizenship (Blokland et al. 2015). The modern-day city serves as a hub for numerous governing bodies, residents, institutions, and organizations to organize and live in a communal space. 

Blokland et al. (2015) propose several characteristics which link the concept of the city to a form of urban citizenship. First, cities are centers teeming with innovation and invention as they welcome residents and novel ideas from various and diverse backgrounds. Unlike previous industrial cities, the modern city is not constrained to a specific industry, given the rise of globalization and advanced technology. Innovation led to new forms of local governance, such as business improvement districts, shopping complexes, and gated communities. Cities are no longer stratified by class – they are now hubs for different classes to live together and form a robust and thriving economy and community. Next, cities provide residents with opportunities, such as creating a network and founding a business, that go beyond spheres of governance. Therefore, allowing residents from various classes to own property and support their livelihood without federal intervention (Blokland et al. 2015, 661). They further explain how the advent of modern technology led to the concept of leisure and severed the relationship between the home and labor. Cities develop a form of urban citizenship where local residents articulated their place of residence as a part of their identity. Across social classes, the quality of life and a home within the status of a neighborhood became important. Perhaps, the strongest argument for the strength and purpose of urban citizenship is its ability to shrink the distance between politics and local residents. Residents are encouraged to participate at the local scale to implement change in their neighborhoods, community, and city through representative democracy. Examples can be found in local advisory boards, neighborhood councils, participatory budgeting, and homeowner’s associations. This level of participation builds social cohesion and a strong sense of community where a resident associates belonging or citizenship to a place (Blokland et al. 2015). 

III. Inclusive Public Policy

In response to 9/11, in 2002, the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued a memorandum “that local officials have the authority to arrest and detain undocumented immigrants for civil violations, including immigration violations” - a sharp rebuke of previous OLC policy that only extended local authority to criminal violations (Raina 2016).  

Various states, cities, and townships reacted to the aggressive local immigration enforcement in different ways. States like Colorado initiated further exclusionary immigration policies, by signing in law that required local municipalities to report suspected unlawful immigrants to ICE, while numerous municipalities, such as New York City, and San Francisco, responded with inclusionary public policy that limited local enforcement and offered resistance inspired by the models of the Central American Sanctuary Movement and the New Sanctuary Movement.  Although the national dialogue around immigration shifted after 9/11 and led to claims that crime increased with sanctuary city policies, researchers found no statistical difference in crime, rape, or property rates after a city was declared a sanctuary city (O’Brien et al. 2019). In this section, I begin by outlining the most significant inclusive immigration policy - sanctuary cities - followed by the provision of identification cards and local services.

A. Developing Sanctuary City Laws

The concept of a sanctuary city is based on the premise that municipalities can afford their non-citizen residents a local citizenship by passing ordinances which forbid city employees from inquiring about immigration status, and avoid obtaining citizenship information that can be utilized by ICE. In order to understand the role of sanctuary law and urban citizenship, it is imperative to discuss the background and development of sanctuary cities. 

1. Central American Sanctuary Movement

Faith-based groups have provided sanctuary or refuge throughout U.S. history, from Jews escaping the Holocaust to civil rights activists fleeing mobs in the South (Villazor 2003). In the 1980s, thousands of Central Americans from El Salvador and Guatemala were fleeing their homes because of violence and civil war. Under the Refugee Act of 1980, asylum was granted to refugees who met the statutory definition. However, people from Central America were still denied asylum under the act, and faith groups drew comparisons to Jews escaping persecution and underground railroad during the Civil War. They argued that America had a moral obligation to provide refuge since the U.S. government was heavily involved in the political turmoil in Central America. In 1982, churches declared themselves as “sanctuaries” to provide refuge for El Salvadorians and Guatemalans, which later became the foundation of the Central American Sanctuary Movement. Driven by the belief that the U.S. immigration system was failing the needs of Central American migrants, faith groups and activists were not deterred by the legal consequences of providing sanctuary and offering provisions of shelter, food, and clothing. They believed it was a moral and ethical obligation for the United States to provide shelter and thus, established a strong precedent for refuge in the U.S. with popular support, including 47 members of Congress in the 1980s (Villazor 2003). 

2. New Sanctuary Movement

The terrorist attacks of September 11 opened the door for the “New Sanctuary Movement'', based on the precedent set by faith groups in the 1980s. New executive orders and legislation in response, such as the Patriot Act, aggressively increased local enforcement of federal immigration law. Under the Homeland Security Act passed in 2002, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was restructured and moved from the Department of Justice to the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The INS was restructured into three new subagencies and one such subagency was the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or what it is known as, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE. The strategic repositioning of immigration enforcement under the DHS, a department responsible for combatting terrorism, generated a strong resistance movement amongst activists and immigration advocates. Many viewed ICE’s increased enforcement and separation of immigrant families as a moral failure of the U.S.’ immigration policy (O’Brien et al. 2019). 

Church and faith-based groups responded again to inequities in federal immigration enforcement; however, this time the focus shifted on interventions on behalf of undocumented immigrants rather than refugees and asylees. Churches remained involved as a leading force of the New Sanctuary movement and advocated for undocumented immigrants who they believed have the right to stay in the U.S. The primary shift from the Central American Sanctuary Movement to the New Movement was the refocus on the integrity of the family for immigrant families already in the U.S. and viewing undocumented immigrants as active members of the local community (O’Brien et al. 2019). 

Previous presidents and most recently, former President Trump, had deemed sanctuary cities  illegal and halted federal funding to cities who refused to comply with federal statute, 8 U.S.C. § 1373 (Donahue 2017). This statute prohibits “local and state governments and agencies from enacting laws or policies that limit communication with DHS about ‘information regarding the immigration or citizenship status’ of individuals” (Donahue 2017).  Despite this statute, cities with sanctuary policies were within legal bounds because the statute, ultimately, did not require any local government to take action to comply with the stipulations (Galarza v. Szalczyk, No. 12-3991). 

Since President Trump’s election in 2016, the number of sanctuary cities, counties and states increased by two-thirds, with approximately 564 jurisdictions in the U.S. limiting local enforcement of immigration laws (Henderson 2018). These jurisdictions include the States of California and Colorado, Cook County in Illinois, Santa Fe County in New Mexico, and numerous cities (Washington DC, New York City, Denver, and New Orleans) (Raina 2016). 

B. Local Membership: Identification Cards

Municipalities can expand their inclusionary policies beyond sanctuary cities by implementing local bureaucratic membership and provision of local services. The city is the lowest administrative level and awarding local members with bureaucratic access to city services, which does not violate the concept of legal citizenship. Many cities provide undocumented immigrants with identification (ID) cards and thus, allowing them streamlined access to city services. These ID cards are critical inclusionary policies, since they allow undocumented immigrants to identify themselves to local actors, such as hospitals, libraries, school, police, and city officials without legal documents (Kaufmann 2019).  Providing access to ID cards does not preempt federal citizenship law because they do not confer a legal status and cannot be used to access state or federal services. The policy was first passed in New Haven, Connecticut in 2007 and was followed by San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, and New York City (Kaufmann 2019, 444). 

C. Provision of Local Services

Another form of inclusionary immigration policy is the provision of local services. Els de Graauw (2020) states that activist officials in New York and San Francisco have conferred local citizenship to undocumented immigrants by improving access to existing city services, restoring services that have been limited or taken away by other government levels, and developing new services in response to federal immigration policy changes. 

San Francisco, in 2001, and New York City, in 2003, responded to immigrant rights advocates' concerns about language barriers as it relates to access, by offering government information and services in different languages. The cities’ activists also sought to restore services, such as healthcare, to undocumented immigrants who cannot access federally funded health services. In 2007, San Francisco city officials launched the “Healthy San Francisco” program to offer comprehensive healthcare to uninsured residents, regardless of citizenship. Legal observers and immigration advocates continued to push for new, vital services to ensure undocumented immigrants with deep ties in the U.S. were not expelled. In response, New York City implemented ActionNYC in 2012, which funded local nonprofits to offer free legal services to immigrant New Yorkers (Graauw 2020, 10). While sanctuary cities are a foundation to local citizenship, the policies outlined above demonstrate how municipalities can go further in affording undocumented immigrants rights in their jurisdictions.

IV. Policy Case Study - Formulating the Sanctuary City: San Francisco

Over the past few years, more cities, states, and counties have adopted inclusive “sanctuary” policies in communities with large immigrant populations, specifically undocumented immigrants. In this case study, I outline the San Francisco city government’s experience and background events in implementing sanctuary policy and how the body conferred local citizenship to undocumented residents. 

For the purposes of this paper, I use O’Brien et al.’s (2019) definition of a sanctuary city: 

“a city or police department that has passed a resolution or ordinance expressly forbidding city or law enforcement officials from inquiring into immigration status and/or cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).” 

Sanctuary policies are based on the idea that the federal government cannot compel jurisdictions to take part in immigration enforcement, and compliance is voluntary, not mandatory. Some of the reasons municipal governments adopt sanctuary policies include strengthening relationships between local enforcement and immigrant communities; the parties work together in investigating crimes without fear of deportation; allowing local governments to determine how and whom to allocate their resources; and by visibly supporting immigrant communities when this is not possible at the federal level.

A.  San Francisco: A Brief History as a Sanctuary City

The City of San Francisco designated itself a “City of Refuge” as part of an overall protest against the treatment of non-citizens from El Salvador and Guatemala under Mayor Dianne Feinstein in 1985. Four years later, the sanctuary ordinance was extended to all undocumented immigrants. Per San Francisco city government, the policy “helps keep our communities healthy by making sure that all residents, regardless of immigration status, feel comfortable accessing City public health services and benefit programs.” The San Francisco Police Department, in 1995, clarified that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy did not apply to non-citizens who were being held or convicted of crimes. Another decade passed, before reporters uncovered that nearly 185 undocumented youth offenders were placed in juvenile hall rather than reported to ICE (Villazor 2010).

In 2008, Anthony Bologna and his three sons were stopped in San Francisco traffic when a car pulled up and fatally shot two of his sons (Villazor 2010). The shooter was an undocumented youth offender who had brushes with criminal law as a minor and was not reported to ICE, and the Bologna family sued the city for its sanctuary policy. The following year Mayor Gavin Newsom responded by requiring the police department to contact ICE when juveniles were arrested for felony crimes. 

Opponents of the policy change argued that it would lead to the deportation of many undocumented juveniles who are either innocent or have been arrested for minor crimes. As a result, a few months later, the Board of Supervisors responded by passing an ordinance stating that undocumented juveniles will only be reported to ICE after they were convicted of a felony crime. San Francisco Supervisor David Campos defended the ordinance stating that, “there is the very basic principle that in this country, you are innocent until proven guilty” while Mayor Newsom refused to enforce the ordinance stating that it violated federal law (Villazor 2010, 587). 

B.  Conferring Local Citizenship Within a Sanctuary City

San Francisco’s sanctuary laws present certain rights to undocumented immigrants, such as the right to not be reported to federal officials (unless the immigrant in question is an adult who committed a felony crime) and other ordinances also provide local provisions and identification cards. As the case study outlines, there is a tension between urban (local) and national citizenship within cities and the scope of rights for undocumented immigrants. City officials agreed that undocumented immigrants are active and critical members of the local community, and thus, cities have the right to legitimize their presence in their city without preempting federal law - hence, the sanctuary city (Villazor 2010). One of the dimensions of local citizenship is the possession of rights and privileges within a city’s jurisdiction. The San Francisco case study demonstrates a story about the right to “due process” and how officials guaranteed this right to undocumented immigrants, and essentially conferred local citizenship at the highest level possible in a city. Providing undocumented immigrants with the right to due process is a strong example of how the city values non-citizens as local members by affording them the right to a fair trial. This is just one example of how sanctuary city policy adopted recognizes undocumented immigrants as local members and is one facet of inclusive local immigration policy.

 V. Analysis 

In the U.S., the federal government is the ultimate authority as it relates to formal citizenship for residents. However, local municipalities across the U.S. and numerous cities globally have developed and utilized policy tools to shield their undocumented communities from federal oversight (Graauw 2020; Henderson 2018; Kaufmann 2019). Through inclusive immigration policy, cities have been able to provide undocumented residents meaningful citizenship thereby allowing them to lead a dignified life (Blokland et al. 2015; Kauffman 2019. Offering undocumented residents identification cards provides them with certain privileges, such as enrollment in schools, local banks, and identification to local authorities. In addition, providing access to local services, such as multi-lingual immigration services and healthcare plans, deepens a city’s commitment to undocumented residents as consequential citizens of the community (Graauw 2020; Henderson 2018; Kaufmann 2019; Villazor 2010). 

Without the fear of being reported to ICE under sanctuary law, undocumented city residents are more likely to comply with local police enforcement and feel well-supported in acquiring local services (O’Brien et al. 2019). Local city government officials can utilize inclusive immigration policy to support undocumented residents and consider them as local citizens. While the federal government has failed to implement robust immigration reform for undocumented immigrants, numerous local municipalities have responded with inclusive local policies that lead to mutually beneficial outcomes and social cohesion. 

The most compelling argument for urban citizenship lies in the fourth dimension discussed earlier - social membership. Most undocumented immigrants are active and productive members of their local jurisdictions, whether they are a child learning to read in English, a local sanitation worker, or a neighbor. Undocumented immigrants pay nearly $11 billion in state and local taxes yearly, contribute more in taxes than they use in government services, and spur job creation in the formal economy (UnidosUS 2020). In fact, the Coronavirus pandemic has shown how farm workers, who are often undocumented, are essential and critical members of the food supply chain, despite not being eligible for federal benefits. By offering an “urban citizenship” and regularizing the presence of undocumented immigrants as members of the community, local governments can acknowledge the value of their neighbors and offer acceptance through social membership. 

The benefits afforded by inclusive immigration policy are, however, limited by several factors. City power is preempted by state and federal law and thus, while a blue city in a red state may implement immigrant-friendly policies, they can be overruled by the state government. Perhaps, most straightforward, the lack of formal citizenship prevents undocumented migrants from regularizing their presence in the United States and interactions beyond the local government. Local ordinances, like sanctuary law, are limited to the city jurisdiction and vastly impede the mobility of undocumented immigrants. Essentially, an urban citizenship is confined to the constraints of a city’s limits. For example, in the Anthony Bologna case in San Francisco, the Mayor opted not to allow undocumented youth charged with felony crimes from being reported to ICE, citing federal law. Another limitation is changing public sentiment and the composition of local politicians. Ordinances protecting undocumented immigrants and conferring rights and privileges can be repealed if a more conservative local board is elected. 

VI. Conclusion

In this paper, I discussed three inclusive immigration policies: local identification cards, provision of local services, and sanctuary law, in greater detail. There are various other policy options, such as voting rights and access to welfare benefits, which were not discussed that also play vital roles in providing urban citizenship to undocumented immigrants (Michelson and Monforti 2018; Lafleur and Mescoli 2018). None of the policies are a one-size-fits all solution and the local context of a city and its residents are critical factors in determining which combination of policy tools would be the most effective. The evidence provided indicates that some local officials and key decision makers are interested in welcoming undocumented immigrants and providing a form of “urban citizenship” within their jurisdictions, while caveating their limitations to federal and state law. These policies will continue to evolve as migration patterns and federal immigration laws change, but meanwhile, city officials have policy options to support their undocumented residents.