Using innovative strategies, The Consensus Building Institute improves the way leaders, advocates, experts and communities make public and organizational decisions.

In the summer of 2007, an omnibus bill to address a range of immigration issues across the United States failed to pass the U.S. Senate. Without an overarching federal framework to address immigration, these issues remain unaddressed. CBI proposed to convene a dialogue of municipalities, immigration advocacy groups of various views, and other appropriate stakeholders in a public policy dialogue to develop concrete, effective legal policy recommendations for counties and municipalities regarding these issues. The challenge of this project was to produce a viable design for a consensus process that could be funded, draw broad participation, and be initiated in 2008.

Our work

Step 1: Research local laws that have been passed regarding immigration.

Step 2: Identify the key issues that municipalities have sought to address through local policy reforms.

Step 3: Frame a possible purpose statement, objectives and process design for the dialogue.

Step 4: Identify the key stakeholders and potential partners, their interests, and reasons why they may support such an effort.

Final Product

A report outlining the results of the interviews, the results of the research, and, based on this data, a recommendation whether to hold a policy dialogue, and if so, how it should be framed, structured, and possibly funded.