What explains variation in access to citizenship rights in China? Why do some governments extend citizenship to migrants while others do not? This talk details the structural barriers to accessing citizenship rights in China through the household registration system, hukou, which creates foreigners out of domestic migrant workers in their own country. Over the last twenty years, city governments erected local citizenship regimes, controlling who is allowed to become full citizens locally while keeping unwanted populations out of government services. In this talk, professor Vortherms details the sub-national variation in these policies and explains the connection between economic growth, development, and local citizenship acquisition for China's 300 million migrant workers.