The impact of local enforcement of immigration laws on undocumented immigrant day laborers

Heightened undocumented immigration in some counties in a southeastern U.S. state has prompted policy changes and increased local enforcement of undocumented immigration laws. Enforcement initiatives have caused a swell in migration of undocumented immigrants to adjacent counties. Employing individual motivation theory, this research study was designed to determine how local immigration enforcement affects the undocumented day laborers' decisions, especially whether to remain or leave the location. Data were collected using the narrative inquiry method and snowball sampling among nine undocumented day laborers. Interview data were transcribed and analyzed to identify similar and disparate experiences. The interviews served to obtain information on the impact of local enforcement on undocumented immigrants from their lived perspectives. The results of this study demonstrate that local enforcement has little impact on day laborers' decisions to leave the county and no impact on their decision to leave the country. Data moderately supports the notion that undocumented day laborers' social interactions such as shopping, entertainment, and community engagement are impacted by local enforcement. The data also supports that many of the participants wish to return to their own countries. Social change implications for this research include informing the current immigration debate for the development of more fair and effective immigration policies. Improvement of policies would afford more legal opportunities for undocumented immigrants to gain legal entry, mitigate the socio-economic disparity in visa processes, and ensure that their family unit is minimally impacted by geographic separation and to become more productive members of the American community.