Street-level bureaucrats and the governance of unaccompanied migrant children
| DOI | 10.1177/0952076718811438 |
| Author | Mariglynn Edlins,Jennica Larrison |
| Date | 01 October 2020 |
| Published date | 01 October 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Street-level bureaucrats
and the governance
of unaccompanied
migrant children
Mariglynn Edlins
School of Health and Human Services, University of Baltimore,
Baltimore, MD, USA
Jennica Larrison
School of Public and International Affairs, University of Baltimore,
Baltimore, MD, USA
Abstract
Street-level bureaucrats implement public policy in daily face-to-face encounters with
individuals. Through the sequence of decisions they make in these interactions, street-
level bureaucrats govern the individuals they interact with. But, a lot is unknown about
these interactions and the governance that occurs within them. This article investigates
the encounters between street-level bureaucrats who implement immigration policy and
Central American children who crossed the U.S.–Mexico border without their parents.
Using process mapping and content analysis, the article seeks to determine the points at
which street-level bureaucrats interact with unaccompanied migrant children, the agen-
cies these street-level bureaucrats represent, and the responsibilities they have in the
process. The findings of this study highlight the complexity through which street-level
bureaucrats govern this vulnerable population and the import of their decisions, which
construct the experience and outcome for unaccompanied migrant children.
Keywords
Governance, immigration discretion, interactions, migration, street-level bureaucrats,
unaccompanied children
Introduction
In the summer of 2018, the U.S. government implemented a zero-tolerance immi-
gration policy that made crossing the border from Mexico into the United States a
Public Policy and Administration
2020, Vol. 35(4) 403–423
!The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0952076718811438
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Corresponding author:
Mariglynn Edlins, School of Health and Human Services, University of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Email: medlins@ubalt.edu
criminal offense. One result of this policy was the forced separation of children from
their parents by U.S. government officials if the family was apprehended on the U.S.
side of the border. This made the children ‘‘unaccompanied’’ in the eyes of the law.
This practice raised a number of concerns about the experiences of unaccompanied
children in the custody of the government and the role of public administrators,
including questions about where children were held once separated, who was taking
care of them, and what process they would follow to be reunited with their parents.
These questions remain as relevant and urgent today as they were in the summer
of 2014, when the number of unaccompanied children entering the United States
increased dramatically. Then, as well as now, the treatment and process for
unaccompanied children is poorly communicated by the government; the spe-
cifics—including the process these children must navigate and the agents and
agencies they might encounter—remain unclear. While in government custody,
however, these children work their way through a process designed to determine
their eligibility for remaining in the U.S. and, if granted eligibility, with whom will
they live. This process is mediated by representatives of the government, also
known as street-level bureaucrats, who work on the frontlines of service delivery,
and are entrusted with making decisions about policy implementation (Lipsky,
1980; Prottas, 1979). As they interact with unaccompanied children along the pro-
cess and make a sequence of decisions on their behalf, street-level bureaucrats
govern unaccompanied children (Hupe and Hill, 2007).
This article explores the interactions between street-level bureaucrats and chil-
dren who crossed the U.S.–Mexico border without their parents in 2014 to better
understand the governance that occurred in these interactions. The project explores
the questions: At what points did street-level bureaucrats interact with unaccom-
panied migrant children? What are the roles of street-level bureaucrats who inter-
acted with unaccompanied migrant children? What responsibilities did they have
for unaccompanied migrant children in the immigration process?
Street-level bureaucrats and unaccompanied migrant children
The following section outlines what is known about street-level bureaucrats and
their encounters with the public as well as the policies that guide them and the
context of unaccompanied children as a population that regularly interacts with
street-level bureaucrats.
Street-level bureaucrats
The implementation of public policyfalls to the street-level bureaucrats who actually
apply these policies (Vinzant and Crothers, 1998). These individuals are often
thought to be police officers, teachers, counselors, and lower court judges (Lipsky,
1969; Maynard-Moody and Musheno, 2003), but also include border patrol agents,
caseworkers, and other public servants. The label of ‘‘street-level bureaucrats’’ is
broad, reaching beyond solely government employees to include individuals from
404 Public Policy and Administration 35(4)
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