Para além dos muros: uma análise da inserção e do comportamento dos estados-santuário frente aos governos de Barack Obama e Donald Trump (2009-2019)

Abstract

The immigration landscape in the United States is becoming less favorable to the immigrant. In this sense, the purpose of this research aims to analyze the performance of states governments that implement pro-immigration policies and guidelines, the so-called sanctuary, from 2009 to 2019, through the administration of Obama and Trump. Thus, the two problems addressed here aim to understand the role of sanctuary states in the current US conjuncture, as well as if there is a motivational pattern that encourages the adoption of this behavior. From studies about the particularities of US federalism and immigration federalism, we identify the existence of an openness for greater activism of these actors, which has been intensifying in recent years. Concerning the hypotheses, it is firstly argued that since the beginning of the Trump administration, sanctuary states have formed a resistance to the application and development of restrictive immigration policy conducted at the federal level. Secondly, it is considered that their actions are strongly motivated by the partisan political factor, but that the internal conjunctures and the relevance of immigration to the states themselves are just as important. In order to carry out this qualitative research, it was used the hypothetico-deductive method and a comparative mapping between the internal conjunctures within the current sanctuary states. Finally, this analysis allows us to identify the current US reality regarding the relationship between federal and subnational governments, especially in order to understand how the causes of this activism and the instruments utilized by them.