While most immigrants to the United States remain concentrated in metropolitan areas in certain states, since the late 1980s immigrants have also dispersed to new destinations. Immigrant populations are growing most quickly in suburbs, rather than center cities, and in the non-traditional regions of the Midwest and the Southeast, rather than in typical gateways like the Southwest.  In these new destinations, local officials must respond to immigrant newcomers, typically with few resources and little guidance from the federal government.  Observing local governments in new destinations offers scholars the opportunity to understand how responses to immigrants develop from the ground up.  Moreover, the increasing diversity of immigrant destinations enables scholars to identify variations in local response, investigate how they arise, and analyze how they contribute to immigrant political incorporation over time. 

Understanding municipal responses to immigrants in new destinations requires analysis not only of formal policies, but also of less visible, incipient practices.  Among scholars investigating local government responses to immigrants, two divergent strains of literature have emerged. In the first, scholars have identified local bureaucratic practices that accommodate immigrants, even in the absence of political pressure to do so.  The literature on bureaucratic incorporation offers crucial insights on how accommodating responses emerge, but fails to explain variation in response across cities.  In contrast, the bulk of scholarly and media attention has focused on formal policies, particularly restrictive immigration-related ordinances. This strain of the literature employs quantitative methods to identify the factors precipitating the passage of ordinances.  The literature on local ordinances contributes to understanding variation in response across cities, but the limited focus on ordinances obscures the broader repertoire of local government response.  We do not yet have a full picture of the range and tenor of responses to immigrants across new destinations, nor can we explain variation in response beyond the incidence of ordinances.

My previous research analyzing four non-traditional immigrant destinations over time found that restriction is not the default local government response to immigrants.  Moreover, immigrant-related policies and practices vary across officials within new destinations and over time.  In this paper, I employ an original survey of local government administrators and politicians across 250 mid-sized new immigrant destinations.  The survey allows me to identify less visible practices toward immigrants while also explaining variation in these responses across actors and destinations.  In previous work, I have hypothesized that local elites, both bureaucrats and politicians, face distinct personal and professional incentives for accommodating immigrants. Yet, across the United States, we also see examples of intransigent local restriction.  The survey allows me to identify how prevalent restrictive and accommodating responses are, while also identifying the factors that may explain varying responses across destinations.