In recent years, we have observed growing activism by municipalities and local civil society actors calling for “sanctuary” or “solidarity cities” and the inclusion of migrants without legal status in public service provision for formal rights protections and democratic participation. A multiplicity of studies have shown that these policies and practices vary greatly, depending on place-specific and path-dependent legal, political, and financial conditions and the interactions between governments and civil society actors. These policies and practices are products of complex policy-formulation processes. To develop a nuanced and comprehensive understanding of these dynamics, we will examine the processes of negotiating and contesting the implementation of municipal identification cards (City Cards) in Bern and Zurich. We adopt a process-oriented and relational perspective in which the different policies, practices and actors are analysed in their complex (cooperative/conflictive) interplay. City Cards have not yet been implemented in either city (as of autumn 2024), but both are developing context-specific policy approaches.