This dissertation is a study of policymaking for undocumented immigrants (UDIs) at the subnational state level in the United States between 1998 and 2005. Following the enactment of the restrictive federal Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIR) in 1997, which closed opportunities for UDIs to legalize their status and also trends in continuing growth of the UDI population in the states, state governments began to start making policy targeted toward UDIs. In some states, the policies toward UDIs were progressive—allowing them such benefits as access to state issued driver's licenses, lowering barriers to higher education, and creating prenatal healthcare programs for pregnant undocumented women. However, in other states such as Colorado, states chose restrictive policies toward UDIs explicitly denying them the above benefits. This study examined why states moved in different directions with regard to policymaking for UDIs. The study is bounded between the time period of 1998 and 2005, which witnessed large scale activity in the states with regard to policy making for UDIs.

Among the different explanations explored here for the variance in policymaking for UDIs across the states included the role of a state's ethnic culture, its partisanship, the role of bureaucracies, and the role of interest groups in state immigration politics. This research used mixed methods of analysis using both statistical and context sensitive methods to explain policy variance. Field work in four states - Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, and Washington yielded evidence supporting the role of interest groups in the states in influencing immigration politics in those states. Client and Interest group models of politics proved to have the largest explanatory power in explaining policy variance. Other factors such as the strength of a state's minority—especially Hispanic population or the partisanship of a state did not seem to explain policy variation. The dissertation concludes with implications of the findings for both policy activists and those in academia.