Sanctuary Policy Adoptions: Assessing the Effects of Ideology and Access to Labor and Housing Markets

Abstract

Sanctuary policies are generally explained as the outcome of a conflict between desires for openness and restrictionist impulses. In this view, economic factors are exogenous forces that interact with ideological commitments. In contrast, we contend that some of these economic factors follow from ideological commitments and are therefore not exogenous forces. The economic factors follow from ideology because governments that choose to enact sanctuary policies also favor higher levels of land-use and labor-market regulation. We show that: (1) declines in the relative size of the non-citizen population pre-date the sanctuary policies and are confined to counties that ultimately adopt the sanctuary policies; and (2) reduced access to housing and labor markets predicts both sanctuary policy adoption and negative changes in the relative size of the non-citizen population. Thus, the outcomes from policy choices of left-of-center governments on land-use and labor-market regulation directly contravene the apparent purpose of the sanctuary policy.