From coverage to context: how race, sanctuary policies, and media shape immigrant perceptions of police

Abstract

Immigrant perceptions of police are shaped by race, experiences with law enforcement, and the broader political and information environments in which immigrants live. Yet less is known about how race, media coverage, and sanctuary policies jointly shape evaluations of police performance. We examine these relationships using the 2016 Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS) and an original dataset of media-reported police malfeasance from the Cato Institute. Using ordered logit models, we find that foreign-born respondents evaluate police performance more positively than native-born respondents, though these differences vary across racial groups. We also find that living in a “Sanctuary” county showed little to no change in immigrant perceptions of police performance. In contrast, higher levels of media-reported police malfeasance are associated with lower evaluations of police performance among both foreign-born and native-born respondents. These relationships are pronounced among immigrants and vary across racial groups, with stronger associations among Black and Latino immigrants. Taken together, our findings suggest that immigrant perceptions of police are shaped more by concrete behavioral cues and the broader information environment than by symbolic policy signals such as sanctuary status.