(2010). The Border Fence, Immigration Policy, and the Obama Administration. Administrative Theory & Praxis: Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 129-133.

This chapter examines immigration and border security. It begins with a historical overview of immigration trends. The chapter then highlights some of the recent tendencies and policies in immigration and border security. The work highlights deportation policies, particularly during the Bush and Obama administrations. The chapter also examines politicians’ opinions about immigration and border security, focusing on the key statements made by leading politicians from both political parties. The last section concludes with American public opinion about border security and immigration.

In this chapter, we examine African American attitudes toward immigration given the policy context of the Obama administration. What the editors of this volume call an “inverted Black linked fate” with Obama and his administration may or may not have indirectly affected Black attitudes on immigration. In President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, he made promises to the immigrant community, but especially the Latino immigrant community, to deliver comprehensive immigration reform. Reform advocates and activists were sorely disappointed when, for various reasons, these promises were not fulfilled and more punitive immigration enforcement led to activists dubbing Obama the “deporter in chief.” How might immigration affect Black politics? We examine what factors shape Black views toward often racialized and politicized policy issues such as immigration in order to provide insight on the prospects for coalition formation and sustainability beyond the Obama administration. We examine the extent to which factors such as economic attitudes, linked fate, neighborhood context, and sociodemographic factors influence Blacks’ views toward undocumented immigrants already living and working in the US. In this sense, we examine the standard conception of group linked fate but consider, to a limited degree, what it says about this volume’s notion of “inverted linked fate.”

Senator Barack Obama played a key role in supporting bipartisan efforts led by Senators John McCain and Edward Kennedy to legislate “comprehensive immigration reform.” This new legislation calls for augmenting border security, enforcing employer sanctions for firms that hire “undocumented workers,” and creating a path to “earned” citizenship for workers already in the United States. The authors argue that Senator Obama uses a “both . . . and” rather than an “either . . . or” approach to immigration that seeks to shift the terms of the debate. In this article, the authors chart Senator Obama's stance on immigration in relation to conservative and liberal positions. By doing so, they explore how Obama's constructed understanding of “earned” citizenship stands in sharp contrast to ultraconservatives' essentialized notion of “patriotic” citizenship.

Abstract This chapter examines how border policies have evolved in Europe and the United States. It goes beyond law and deals more broadly with what has been termed “policy output. ” The chapter considers how policies have varied over time and space, and the author argues that in both Europe and the United States immigration policy has increasingly become focused on the border, the reinforcement of border controls, and the link between other aspects of immigration to these controls. The framing of the political problem of immigration—as one of legal entry in the United States, and integration in Europe—has been connected to questions of border control and enforcement. Even as levels of immigration have been stable, or even in decline, policy on the border has become more important. The chapter concludes by dealing with outcomes, which help us to understand the relevance of policy objectives.

This article examines why deportation and imprisonment for immigration offenses rose under presidential administrations that claimed to favor more “humane” approaches to immigration enforcement. I examine the politics of enforcement discretion on the US-Mexico border during the administrations of Bill Clinton (1993–2001) and Barack Obama (2009–17). Drawing on historical and ethnographic research, I argue that the Clinton and Obama administrations took a punitive humanitarian approach to enforcement discretion aimed at punishing “illegal immigration” at the border while protecting “legal immigrants” with long-standing ties to the United States from deportation. The findings show that such an approach extended crime control to US-Mexico border enforcement. This blend of humanitarian and punitive approaches systematized criminal enforcement priorities and expanded the discretion of border agents to deport and imprison. Just as other scholars have shown how liberal reform contributed to the rise of the carceral state, this article shows how immigration policies that blended humanitarianism and security punished the very people such policies were designed to protect.

Illegal immigration is a major policy challenge in Europe, in particular in countries on the external border of the EU such as Italy or Spain. However, there are likely to be important effects on the rest of the EU, too, depending on the policies against illegal immigration in border countries. This paper determines optimal enforcement and amnesty policies on immigration in a two-country, two-instrument setting with international spill-overs from onward migration within a federation, taking into account the interactions between the two types of policies. Among other results we find that total enforcement spending is too low to maximize joint welfare in the federation.

Illegal immigration is a major policy challenge in Europe, in particular in countries on the external border of the EU such as Italy or Spain. However, there are likely to be important effects on the rest of the EU, too, depending on the policies against illegal immigration in border countries. This paper determines optimal enforcement and amnesty policies on immigration in a two-country, two-instrument setting with international spill-overs from onward migration within a federation, taking into account the interactions between the two types of policies. Among other results we find that total enforcement spending is too low to maximize joint welfare in the federation.

Selective immigration policies set lower barriers to entry for skilled workers. However, simple economic intuition suggests that skilled majorities should welcome unskilled immigrants and protect skilled natives. This paper studies the voting over a selective policy in a two-country, three-factor model with skilled and unskilled labor, endogenous migration decisions, costly border enforcement and aversion to immigration. Results show that heterogeneity in capital distribution forces skilled voters to form a coalition with unskilled voters, who become pivotal. The voting outcome is therefore biased towards the preferences of the latter, and consists in a selective protectionism. Finally, immigration aversion helps to explain why skilled majorities do not bring down entry barriers against unskilled workers.

This article highlights Canada’s flexible immigration and visa policies designed to increase international student enrollment. Such policies are a priority for all levels of the Canadian government and educational institutions since international students significantly bolster Canada’s economy with their skills and talent and serve as a remedy to current labor shortages. Flexible immigration policies provide Canada with a competitive edge over other major countries receiving international students, such as the U.S. and the U.K., where border controls are more restrictive.