DescriptionSince 2006 approximately 60 municipalities across the United States have either proposed and/or enacted a city ordinance known as the Illegal Immigration Relief Act (IIRA). This policy trend is the focus of my dissertation. The IIRA penalizes employers and landlords who hire or rent to unauthorized-immigrants. Ordinance proponents admit the objective is to drive-out “illegal aliens.” Ultimately, the Illegal Immigration Relief Act mainly targets Caribbean, Central American, South American and Mexican immigrant communities, criminalizing their survival, by annihilating access to the public and private spaces necessary to survive. The IIRA is one powerful local policy mechanism used to territorialize space, segregate communities, and create boundaries of belonging. Though the discussion of local immigration policy is relatively new, the role of municipal governments and planners in enacting policies to manage and manipulate how and where minority groups live, work and play has a long historical precedent. This paper investigates the agents and forces that initiated the IIRA, the evolution of the IIRA, as well as the legal, political, economic, spatial, and demographic outcomes of the Illegal Immigration Relief Act. During 2010, I conducted fieldwork in three cities: Hazleton, Pennsylvania; Riverside, New Jersey; and Fremont, Nebraska. These cities are regionally diverse, have distinct histories, economies, and demographics. They have in common that each city enacted the IIRA between 2006 and 2010. The implications of my research findings are important given the anti-immigrant political climate in the United States and the increasing implementation of local and state anti-immigrant policies.