U.S. IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT GOVERNANCE IN AN INTERGOVERNMENTAL AND INTERSECTORAL CONTEXT

Complex governance arrangements characterize the public service delivery landscape and are expected to affect organizational decision making and public service outcomes. This dissertation explores organizational incentives to either engage in or engage more intensely in governance arrangements, and how complex governance arrangements affect public service quality. Using data on immigration enforcement in the United States involving county governments, the Immigration and Custom’s Enforcement agency (ICE), and private detention companies, this dissertation contains three empirical studies of theoretical and practical importance.First, I examine how county governments differentially respond to collaboration incentives based on the perceived benefits of immigration enforcement programs. The results indicate that collaboration incentives align with the program’s perceived benefits, suggesting that collaboration decisions are strategically assessed based on an organization’s needs. The next chapter assesses how collaboration intensity is affected by inter-organizational goal agreement and other organizational incentives to collaborate. Inter-organizational goal agreement between county governments and ICE is found to positively affect collaboration intensity, but it loses explanatory power when other county government collaboration incentives are considered. Chapter three examines how subcontracting service delivery functions affects public service quality. The results propose that as county governments subcontract jail operations to a private detention provider, immigrant detainee confinement quality deteriorates.