Local implementation of US federal immigration programs: context, control, and the problems of intergovernmental implementation

Scholars contend that presidents exert some influence over the implementation of national policy. Yet, prior research has overlooked the importance of local context, specifically socio-political conditions, and how it can shape an agency's response to executive-level guidance. We examine the effect of local context on county-level immigration removals by ICE agents from 2013 through 2018. We predict local removals starting with the Secure Communities program, continuing under Obama's two-year Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), and up through Trump's zero-tolerance policies. Obama-era executive guidance, which advised agents to target only dangerous criminal immigrants, did lead to a significant national decline in total removals. However, conservative localities continued to remove large numbers, even during PEP. Notably, the difference between conservative and liberal communities was largest for non-criminal immigrant removals. Despite Obama's guidance to focus on dangerous immigrants, ICE agents continued to remove undocumented immigrants without criminal records from conservative U.S. counties. Our analysis indicates street-level agents are most responsive to chief-executive direction in the absence of local-level opposition to top-down demands.