Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Specifically, we trace and map how immigrants have historically been integrated by state and local policies throughout United States history, providing a broad empirical lens for understanding inclusion. Additionally, we explore the full constitutional and legal scope of what states can do with respect to immigrant rights, benefits, free movement, civic participation, and sense of belonging. We argue that pro-immigrant integration laws, cumulative over time, create a de facto regime of state citizenship, one that operates in parallel to national citizenship and, in some important ways, exceeds the standards of national citizenship. 

Turning to California, which has gone the furthest in this regard, both with respect to the number of pro-integration laws passed since 2000, and in their collective scope, we explore how de facto state citizenship today maps onto our typologies of federated citizenship, and explore the dynamics that produce expansions and contractions in state citizenship over time.