At the Intersection of Immigration and Welfare Governance in the United States: State-, County-, Frontline-Level and Client's Perspective

Background: Previous studies on U.S welfare policies and immigrants have largely focused on the explanatory factors behind state variation in welfare generosity to immigrants, such as a higher percent of liberal voters or a smaller African American population. However, scholars thus far “have given insufficient attention to how the government treats immigrants while they reside in the U.S.” (Hammond 2018: 503). This study, drawing on concepts of inclusionary and exclusionary regimes, practices and discourses, aims to address this gap in the literature by analyzing how immigrants are governed within California’s TANF program at the state, county and frontline-level as well as how immigrant clients experience CalWORKs.

Methodology: CalWORKs, besides being more inclusive and generous than other states’ programs, is an interesting case for the study, because California is the “home to the nation’s largest immigration population” (Reese, 2011). We triangulate data at different levels: At the state-level, we analyze seven interviews with state administrators and 52 policy documents and secondary statistical data from kids count and CalWORKs annual summary. At the county-level (from Bay- and Central-County), we analyzed ten interviews with county administrators and 27 county-level policy documents from two case counties. At the frontline-level, we analyzed 13 interviews with frontline-workers specialized in working with immigrants. At the client-level, we analyzed eight interviews with immigrant clients. We combined content analysis with a critical discourse analysis to uncover embedded discourses in interviews and documents. We used qualitative data analyzing software MaxQDA to code the interviews and documents.

Findings: Our quantitative analysis reveal, that despite a higher need for CalWORKs among immigrant families (according to kids count data 2017; 55% of children live in poverty in California), approximately 90% of CalWORKs WTW participants are citizens and only 10% are non-citizens. Qualitative analysis reveals inclusionary mechanisms at different policy-levels: Expanded eligibility rules for immigrants in CalWORKs at the state-level, Central-County operates on culturally sensitive discourses and practices for major immigrant groups, aiming at protecting clients when the immigration agencies contact them. Frontline-workers across both counties use their discretion to help clients navigate the CalWORKs system. However, CalWORKs still excludes certain immigrant groups, such as undocumented immigrants. Actors across all levels describe confusion and uncertainty to further include and help immigrants under the federally restrictive rules and unpredictable changes with the public charge ruling. Our discourse analysis of documents shows that CalWORKs tend to discourage qualified immigrants from applying through punitive and threatening language in documents. Our analysis of immigrant clients’ interviews shows the experience of fear and vulnerability to unfair treatments within and outside of CalWORKs.

Conclusion: We conclude that the implementation of the punitive workfare regime along with the restrictive immigration regime contradicts the aim of WTW-policy to lead all families in poverty to self-sufficiency. Our study suggests a need to untie the strict workfare requirement for recently immigrated clients in financial hardship who need immediate help, in consideration for the time to organize their lives in a new country.