Since the mid-1900s, former industrial strongholds in the Midwestern and Northeastern United States---the Rust Belt---have struggled with population loss and economic declines stemming from deindustrialization. These cities have tried a number of revitalization strategies, which have been largely (though not completely) unsuccessful. The latest attempt in several of these cities is immigrant-driven revitalization, where the cities try to create a positive context of reception in an attempt to attract immigrants who could restore their populations, rebuild their neighborhoods, and restart their economies. This dissertation focuses on the challenges these cities face in implementing these strategies. I focus on three main challenges: 1) the difficulty inherent in trying to create a positive context of reception; 2) the difficulty inherent in providing services to a small, diverse, and disadvantaged (in this case, disproportionately refugee) population; and 3) difficulties created by decentralization and federalization.

Using a combination of data from municipal codes, newspaper archives, the Census, the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and Immigrations and Customs enforcement, the empirical chapters focus on these three challenges. Chapter 2 considers how official policymaking efforts---policies that are codified in the city's municipal code---affect the context of reception in 16 Rust Belt cities. I consider both whether cities are passing new policies with the intent of changing their context of reception, and whether they have existing policies on the books that could affect immigrant experiences. I find that with the exception of two cities---Chicago and Detroit---these cities are not passing new immigration laws, and that they all maintain existing laws that can both positively and negatively affect the context of reception. If these cities are trying to attract immigrants as a revitalization strategy, most of them are not doing it through changes to their municipal codes. They also are maintaining policies that could undermine their efforts.

Chapter 3 examines the effect of decentralization and federalism on social services in 6 Rust Belt cities, and considers how the characteristics of the Rust Belt's immigrant populations affects the provision of those services. After considering educational services and the services provided to refugees, I find that decentralization makes it more difficult for the city government to provide services, and that much of these cities' immigrant service provisions are handled by the civil society.

Chapter 4 focuses on the effects of decentralization and federalization on immigration enforcement. While some of these cities, particularly Dayton, have made efforts to reduce their participation in immigration enforcement, changes to the immigration enforcement structure have essentially federalized person-to-person policing interactions, making it very hard for local police to actually limit their participation in enforcement. This makes it much more difficult for local governments and law enforcement agencies to engage in pro-immigrant policymaking that could help with their immigrant-driven revitalization strategies. I conclude with a discussion of how the results of the 2016 Presidential election have affected both local immigration policymaking and immigrant-driven revitalization strategies.