Scholars contend that presidents exert some influence over the implementation of national policy. Yet, prior research has overlooked the importance of local context, specifically socio-political conditions, and how it can shape an agency’s response to executive-level guidance. We examine the effect of local context on county-level immigration removals by ICE agents from 2013 through 2018. We predict local removals starting with the Secure Communities program, continuing under Obama’s two-year Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), and up through Trump’s zero-tolerance policies. Obama-era executive guidance, which advised agents to target only dangerous criminal immigrants, did lead to a significant national decline in total removals. However, conservative localities continued to remove large numbers, even during PEP. Notably, the difference between conservative and liberal communities was largest for non-criminal immigrant removals. Despite Obama’s guidance to focus on dangerous immigrants, ICE agents continued to remove undocumented immigrants without criminal records from conservative U.S. counties. Our analysis indicates street-level agents are most responsive to chief-executive direction in the absence of local-level opposition to top-down demands.

学者们认为，总统对国家政策的实施具有一定的影响力。然而，先前的研究忽视了当地背景的重要性，特别是社会政治条件，以及它如何影响机构对行政级别指导的反应。我们研究了 2013 年至 2018 年当地情况对 ICE 特工驱逐出县级移民的影响。我们预测当地驱逐情况会从“安全社区计划”开始，一直到奥巴马的两年优先执行计划 (PEP)，一直到特朗普的零移民计划。 - 宽容政策。奥巴马时代的行政指导建议特工只针对危险的犯罪移民，这确实导致全国遣返总数大幅下降。然而，即使在政治公众参与期间，保守派地方仍继续大量撤离。值得注意的是，保守派和自由派社区之间的差异在非犯罪移民驱逐方面最大。尽管奥巴马指示重点关注危险移民，ICE 特工仍继续从美国保守县驱逐没有犯罪记录的无证移民。我们的分析表明，在地方层面不反对自上而下的要求的情况下，街道一级的代理人对行政长官的指示最为敏感。