Sheriffs, State Troopers, and the Spillover Effects of Immigration Enforcement

42 Pages Posted: 23 Sep 2021 Last revised: 16 May 2022

See all articles by Huyen Pham

Huyen Pham

Texas A&M University School of Law

Van H. Pham

Baylor University - Department of Economics

Date Written: September 22, 2021

Abstract

As the Biden administration decides whether to continue the 287(g) program (the controversial program deputizing local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration laws), our research shows that the program has broader negative effects on policing behavior than previously studied. To date, debate about the 287(g) program has focused exclusively on the policing behavior of law enforcement agencies like sheriff’s offices that sign the agreements and on concerns that these signatory LEAs engage in racial profiling. Our research shows that the agreements also negatively affect the behavior of nearby, nonsignatory law enforcement agencies. Using 18 million traffic stops drawn from the Stanford Open Policing Project, we find that the agreements caused state troopers in North Carolina and South Carolina to stop Hispanic drivers more often than White drivers, to funnel them into the intensive immigration screening conducted by signatory LEAs at the shared jails. Because trooper agencies did not sign the agreements, statistical associations between the presence of agreements and the differential treatment of drivers by race are not contaminated by unobserved confounding factors. Our identification of these previously unnoticed spillover effects raises important policy questions about the program’s impact and the adequacy of existing legal and administrative controls.

Keywords: immigration, sheriff, state trooper, law enforcement, 287(g), policing, spillover effect, cooperation, hispanic, racial profiling, federalism, Stanford Open Policing Project, police arrests, police stops

Suggested Citation

Pham, Huyen and Pham, Van H., Sheriffs, State Troopers, and the Spillover Effects of Immigration Enforcement (September 22, 2021). Arizona Law Review, Vol. 64, Iss. 4, 2022, Texas A&M University School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper 21-47, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3929037

Huyen Pham (Contact Author)

Texas A&M University School of Law ( email )

1515 Commerce Street
Fort Worth, TX Tarrant County 76102
United States

HOME PAGE: http://law.tamu.edu/faculty-staff/find-people/faculty-profiles/huyen-pham

Van H. Pham

Baylor University - Department of Economics ( email )

One Bear Place #98003
Waco, TX 76798
United States
(254) 710-3521 (Phone)
(254) 710-6142 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.baylor.edu/van_pham

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