Immigrant Citizenship Research Articles

Labouring for Citizenship

This article draws from the lessons of the Mexican-American labour movement’s internal conflict during the twentieth century about how to respond to new co-ethnic migration to consider what new immigrants and citizens owe to one another as workers in the current US immigration reform debate. For much of the twentieth century, Mexican-Americans were divided about how the US government should respond to new unauthorized and temporary legal immigration from Mexico. Though their class interests diverged, Mexican-American business and union leaders joined forces to lobby for border security and increased immigration enforcement. During the same period, progressive Mexican-American labour leaders advanced a countervailing message of transnational solidarity between newcomers and their settled immigrant compatriots. They further demanded that all Americans recognize the earned citizenship of immigrants who contributed to their families, communities and adopted nation through their labour.

Double standards? Attitudes towards immigrant and emigrant dual citizenship in the Netherlands

ABSTRACTDespite increasingly liberal practices around the world, dual citizenship acceptance is still contested. Surprisingly, few studies exist on what drives public attitudes towards political membership in two or more states. Based on data from the 2012 Dutch Parliamentary Election Study (N = 1,677) we investigate the discrepancy in negative attitudes in the Netherlands towards dual citizenship of immigrants who acquire Dutch citizenship, on the one hand, and more positive attitudes towards Dutch citizens acquiring a foreign citizenship, on the other. We find that negative views of immigrant dual citizenship are associated with strong in-group identification and out-group derogation, whereas experiencing a sense of symbolic group threat is associated with negative views of both immigrant and emigrant dual citizenship.

A randomized controlled design reveals barriers to citizenship for low-income immigrants

Citizenship endows legal protections and is associated with economic and social gains for immigrants and their communities. In the United States, however, naturalization rates are relatively low. Yet we lack reliable knowledge as to what constrains immigrants from applying. Drawing on data from a public/private naturalization program in New York, this research provides a randomized controlled study of policy interventions that address these constraints. The study tested two programmatic interventions among low-income immigrants who are eligible for citizenship. The first randomly assigned a voucher that covers the naturalization application fee among immigrants who otherwise would have to pay the full cost of the fee. The second randomly assigned a set of behavioral nudges, similar to outreach efforts used by service providers, among immigrants whose incomes were low enough to qualify them for a federal waiver that eliminates the application fee. Offering the fee voucher increased naturalization application rates by about 41%, suggesting that application fees act as a barrier for low-income immigrants who want to become US citizens. The nudges to encourage the very poor to apply had no discernible effect, indicating the presence of nonfinancial barriers to naturalization.

Values and Attitudes of Nordic Language Teachers Towards Second Language Education

Summary Issues in minority education in relation to citizenship have received more attention lately, because of new requirements for language testing in several countries (Bevelander, Fernandez & Hellström, 2011, p. 101). The acquisition of citizenship is more decisive for immigrant participation in society than the duration of stay in the country (Bevelander, Fernandez & Hellström, 2011). The second language is crucial for active citizenship and integration in this perspective. Most countries in the EU (except Ireland and Sweden) have language requirements for citizenship and the use of language testing becomes increasingly common among the countries that receive migrants. The rapid development highlights the need for new international studies on the relationship between citizenship and conditions for second language learning. The goal of the recent study is to compare premises, perspectives and scales of values of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish language educators, related to the requirements for immigrant citizenship. Previous studies (Björklund & Liubiniené, 2004) indicate that there are major differences in value systems even between the neighbouring countries. To reach the objective of the present study, interviews were conducted with language educators in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The results have revealed two opposing patterns. The values of Swedish informants show a wide-ranging variation, while the Danish and Norwegian data on values are consistently similar. The results raise further questions about the effects caused by differences in values among language educators when comparing the countries and call for a further verification of the data in a more extended study, including Lithuania and other Baltic states.

Working Together: Building Successful Policy and Program Partnerships for Immigrant Integration

Supporting and investing in the integration of immigrants and their children is critically important to US society. Successful integration contributes to the nation's economic vitality, its civic and political health, and its cultural diversity. But although the United States has a good track record on immigrant integration, outcomes could be better. A national, coherent immigrant integration policy infrastructure is needed. This infrastructure can build on long-standing partnerships between civil society and US public institutions. Such partnerships, advanced under Republican- and Democratic-led administrations, were initially established to facilitate European immigrants' integration in large American cities, and later extended to help refugees fleeing religious persecution and war. In the twenty-first century, we must expand this foundation by drawing on the growing activism by cities and states, new civil society initiatives, and public-private partnerships that span the country. A robust national integration policy infrastructure must be vertically integrated to include different levels of government and horizontally applied across public and private sector actors and different types of immigrant destinations. The resultant policy should leverage public-private partnerships, drawing on the energy, ideas, and work of community-based nonprofit organizations as well as the leadership and support of philanthropy, business, education, faith-based, and other institutions. A new coordinating office to facilitate interagency cooperation is needed in the executive branch; the mandate and programs of the Office of Refugee Resettlement need to be secured and where possible expanded; the outreach and coordinating role of the Office of Citizenship needs to be extended, including through a more robust grant program to community-based organizations; and Congress needs to develop legislation and appropriate funding for a comprehensive integration policy addressed to all, and not just humanitarian immigrants. The federal investments in immigrant and refugee integration we propose are a big ask for any administration; they seem especially unlikely under the Trump administration, whose efforts focus on enforcement and border control, targeting undocumented and legal immigrants alike. Yet immigrant integration is not and should not be a partisan issue. Federal politicians across the political spectrum need to realize, as many local officials and a large segment of the public already do, that successful immigrant integration is a win-win for everybody. When immigrants have more opportunities to learn English, to improve their schooling and professional training, to start businesses, and to access citizenship, we all benefit. A majority of the American public supports immigrant integration, from proposals for learning English to a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Local and state governments are setting up initiatives to promote integration. If the federal government will not act, cities, states, and civil society organizations must continue to work together to build an integration infrastructure from the bottom up.

The Contributions and Constraints of Contemporary Immigration and Citizenship: Commemorating Canada’s 150 Years

The Contributions and Constraints of Contemporary Immigration and Citizenship: Commemorating Canada’s 150 Years Evangelia Tastsoglou, Special Guest Editor (bio) Although neither selected as representative of the field of Canadian ethnic studies, nor comprehensive, the articles in this special issue of Canadian Ethnic Studies/Études ethniques au Canada, commemorating Canada’s 150 years, do provide a good sense of the contemporary state of ethnic studies in Canada. The articles consist of diverse perspectives, methodologies, substantive topics and disciplines, yet they also share common features and point to common directions. I will start from their diversity, representative of and continuing the historical diversity in the field of ethnic studies, then move on to their similarities and common directions which reflect broader scholarly, theoretical and policy preoccupations of the present time, and finally end with what I consider promising, more recent—though by no means new—perspectives and directions pushing the traditional boundaries of the field of ethnic studies. I will conclude this brief introduction with an overview of the articles in the volume. First, in terms of the articles’ diversity as a group, they are interdisciplinary, spanning the fields of sociology, literary studies, history, and policy studies. They make use of a great range of social science and humanities methodologies, from discourse analysis to multilevel regression and from the analysis of legal texts to qualitative interviews. They also derive from a healthy range of perspectives and dimensions within their respective disciplines, ranging from feminist perspectives to historical and legal dimensions; from positivist approaches to interpretative, constructivist and Critical Theory ones. In terms of the articles’ similarities which also shaped the title of this special issue, they consist first in a common emphasis on immigration and broadly defined citizenship issues and processes, as opposed to insular ethnic group issues, essentialized ethnic cultures and static ethno-cultural identities. Moreover, the articles are [End Page 1] about either contributions or constraints of immigration and citizenship, that is, they emphasize the dynamic interaction of diverse groups within Canadian society and with the Canadian state. An important similarity among these articles, in the midst of their said diversity, is the authors’ intent for intervention in order to make a difference, manifested in various degrees of explicitness. This intent to make a difference is expressed as recognition of a problem of exclusion, discrimination, omission, or gap, so that more inclusive and equitable policies and practices, at the appropriate level, can be put in place. The studies of this issue move beyond description to policy relevance, in the direction of expanding social justice in Canadian society for the 21st century. In so doing, while always mindful of the lessons from the dark periods in Canada’s 150 years, the present volume truly commemorates the country’s historical promise of freedom and justice to its immigrants and all Canadians. More specifically, in this volume the articles by Fernando and Rinaldi, and Kaya are about ongoing—albeit in new forms—processes of exclusion, i.e., obstacles to citizenship for immigrants. The article by Tastsoglou and Dobrowolsky is about obstacles but also possibilities for enhancing a sense of belonging for immigrants; Branker’s study is about obstacles but also venues or possibilities for finding work, that is, economic integration or socio-economic citizenship for English-speaking Caribbean immigrants in Toronto. Yixi Lu and Li Zong’s article is about historical processes of discrimination against the Chinese out of major metropolitan centres, while Chira’s work is about obstacles to, and possibilities for international students, i.e., often prospective immigrants, also outside of major, immigrant-attracting Canadian metropolises. Finally, van Dijk’s article is about contributions of Dutch-Canadian writers to Canadian multi-cultural and polyphonic identity. With respect to the more recent dimensions and directions, the latter consist in modernizing and expanding the field of ethnic studies outside of the historical settler societies, societies of immigration, immigrant-receiving societies, or nation-states in which ethnicities are created and ethnic identities are molded, to include the transnational level, in recognition of (i) the contemporary modality of migration as a dynamic transnational process and (ii) the role that the transnational field plays in identity negotiation, sense of belonging and citizenship. As a consequence...

Economic Theories of Citizenship?

This paper explores the relationship of immigrant citizenship ascension and the effect on the naturalized citizen's economic outcomes in Europe and North America. We offer a unique model and empirical outcomes to define optimal waiting periods for immigrant ascension to citizenship by entry class and human capital requirements for country specific examples.

La producción de la ciudadanía en la era de la migración: el caso de las asociaciones políticas de los peruanos en santiago de chile (1996 – 2006)

Desde fines de los noventa, la mayoría de los Estados latinoamericanos han tomado medidas para relacionarse con sus ciudadanos residentes en el extranjero, las que han ido desde la creación de programas para la atención de las comunidades en el exterior, la modificación de artículos constitucionales que le permitan a sus ciudadanos residentes en el extranjero acceder a una doble ciudadanía y el impulso de políticas de desarrollo con base en las remesas que giran los inmigrantes a sus familiares en sus países de origen. La mayoría de estos cambios se han debido a las acciones realizadas por asociaciones de inmigrantes que han presionado (con distintos resultados), a sus élites gobernantes para lograr una extensión de sus derechos políticos que les permitan participar en los procesos electorales de sus países o ser incorporados en determinadas políticas públicas de los países receptores, ejemplos de estas situaciones son los casos: Dominicano, mexicano, chileno y salvadoreño. En este sentido el propósito central de la presente ponencia es explicar la producción de la ciudadanía de los inmigrantes peruanos pertenecientes a asociaciones de perfil político en Chile a partir de examinar el surgimiento y los cambios ocurridos en tres asociaciones de corte político en Santiago de Chile.

The Naturalization of U.S. Immigrants: Why Citizenship Rates Differ by State

<p>This paper investigates the extent to which the geographic region in which an immigrant resides influences the propensity to naturalize, by specifically analyzing the variation in U.S. immigrant citizenship rates across states. By merging Census data with other forms of publically available state level data, we are able to better understand why state naturalization rates in the U.S. vary so dramatically, from a low of about 30% to a high of almost 60%. We find that while applying for citizenship is an individual decision, both institutional and group variables influence this decision. Consistent with prior research, our results indicate that a more favorable economic environment is correlated with higher naturalization rates and that the clustering of Mexicans discourages naturalization. Unique to the literature, our results also indicate that states that are more socially and politically welcoming to immigrants have statistically higher rates of naturalization, and that there are no significant negative effects on naturalization rates in states with larger numbers of undocumented immigrants. Our research contributes to the growing body of literature on naturalization decisions and supports the proposition that attitudes towards immigrants, be they authorized or undocumented, influence the extent to which the foreign born will choose to become fuller participants in U.S. society.</p>

Re-thinking urban citizenship for immigrants from a policy perspective: the case of Barcelona

This article proposes that the role of cities in immigrant integration be reconsidered through the prism of urban citizenship, looking at how local policies co-regulate immigrants’ status, rights and identity. It argues that urban citizenship connects two dominant understandings of citizenship, as city governments are under pressure to reconcile the normative perspective of formal membership of the state with the claims for rights expressed by excluded parts of the urban citizenry. A case study of an inclusive way of regulating citizenship in Barcelona illustrates how a citizenship perspective can cast light on the specific ways in which cities regulate immigrant citizenship in interaction with higher levels of government, and highlights some of the levers cities possess to modify the boundaries between inclusion and exclusion of immigrants locally.

The Difference that Being a Minority Territory Makes—A Comparison of the Regulation of Immigrant Citizenship in Catalonia, Andalusia, and Madrid

Contributing to the debate on immigrant incorporation in subnational minority territories, this chapter looks at how Catalonia’s status as a minority territory results in a specific model of immigrant citizenship. It draws on a comparison between the autonomous communities of Catalonia, Andalusia, and Madrid with the latter two territories representing the influence of the left-right axis. An analysis of five elements of citizenship regulation reveals that Catalonia’s status as a minority territory has an influence on an inclusive citizenship philosophy and generous attitude towards granting political rights, while in the other areas (incorporation of cultural difference, newcomer integration and healthcare) the Catalan policies are less inclusive than those in Andalusia, the territory governed by the left. While there is no conclusive evidence that being a minority territory makes Catalan policies more inclusive, the density of the Catalan regulation of citizenship is the most striking finding emerging from the comparison.

Xenophobia, Asylum Seekers, and Immigration Policies in Germany

In the context of Germany's anti-Semitic past, current attitudes towards refugees and immigrants are surveyed and compared with other countries. Higher levels of xenophobia in former East Germany, despite far fewer foreigners than in West Germany, is explained with the official denial of the fascist legacy, in contrast to an effective reeducation policy and dealing with the Nazi past in the West. Islamophobia and allegations of welfare tourism have now emerged as the main obsession of xenophobes. Yet, overall attitudes towards outsiders have improved, together with legislative changes in immigration policy and citizenship acquisition, the weekly anti-Muslim demonstrations by PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans) in Dresden and arson attacks on asylum homes notwithstanding. Younger and better educated Germans are far less xenophobic. This analysis portrays the current German public discourse, provides relevant statistics on immigration, explores contested integration/asylum policies, scrutinizes implications of categories from the cultural repertoire through which migrancy is understood and assesses the contending political forces.

When Partisans and Minorities Interact: Interpersonal Contact, Partisanship, and Public Opinion Preferences on Immigration Policy*

ObjectiveMany studies investigating contact theory have suggested that contact effects are not universal but rather conditional. In this article, we test one form of conditional contact effects. Our approach posits that contact with out‐groups produces support for pro‐minority public policies only when in‐group members are not subject to contrary messages from co‐partisans.MethodsWe use data from an original survey to test this theory in the immigration policy domain.ResultsWe find strong confirmatory evidence that the emergence of contact effects on support for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants is dependent on party identification.ConclusionWhen information from the social environment and that from the party coincide, they reinforce each other, producing more tolerant policy preferences. However, when the two are not congruent, individuals may use partisanship to help interpret contextual information, thus canceling out the positive effects of intergroup contact on policy opinions.

Hurdles or walls? Nativity, citizenship, legal status and Latino homeownership in Los Angeles

Homeownership is directly and indirectly linked with many positive child, adult, and community-level outcomes. Prior research offers strong evidence that nativity and immigrants’ citizenship status shapes U.S. homeownership, but relatively little work has explored how immigrants’ legal status is connected with homeownership. This study draws from locational attainment and classic assimilation theories to develop hypotheses about sources of intra-Latino heterogeneity in homeownership. Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey data are used to contrast four distinct groups of Latinos: U.S. born natives, naturalized citizens, authorized non-citizens, and unauthorized non-citizens. Logistic regression results indicate baseline and residual variation in Latino homeownership based on immigrant citizenship and legal status. Of these, unauthorized non-citizens are the least likely to own their home. The results provide support for all three theoretical models, particularly the place stratification perspective. The results also point to the need for more housing studies that jointly examine citizenship and legal status.

The British Academy Brian Barry Prize Essay: Mandatory Citizenship for Immigrants

Long-term immigrants often have the option but not the obligation to acquire citizenship in their state of residence. Contrary to the received wisdom, this article defends the idea of mandatory citizenship for immigrants. It suggests that the current asymmetry in the distribution of political obligations between native-born citizens and immigrants is unfair. It also argues that mandatory citizenship is required by the principle that those who persistently affect others should share a democratic setting. Finally, it claims that mandatory citizenship is more compatible with the ideal of democratic equality and more conducive to a stable society.

Educating Adults for Citizenship: Critiquing Adequate Language Practices and Canada’s Citizenship Test

In 2012, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) implemented a requirement that all aspiring Canadians who wish to take the Citizenship Test must have an adequate level of English or French language skills, defined as Canadian Language Benchmark (CLB) 4. The CLB 4 language policy directly and, we argue, problematically links language abilities with the right to citizenship for new immigrants, and relatedly, assumes a deficit conception of literacy. We examine the discourses embedded within the citizenship study guide, Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship (2012), the new language requirement policy, and the CIC website in order to expose how these place problematic restrictions on new immigrants who aspire to become Canadian.

The U.S. Immigration Crisis and a Call for the Church's Lifeworld Politics: Why Should Hauerwas Collaborate with Habermas on the U.S. Immigration Crisis?

The U.S. Immigration Crisis and a Call for the Church's Lifeworld Politics: Why Should Hauerwas Collaborate with Habermas on the U.S. Immigration Crisis? Ilsup Ahn Introduction: Saying “No” to the State's Biopolitics Against the Undocumented Migrants According to the recent survey report published by the Washington, D.C.‐based Public Religion Research Institute, throughout 2013, there has been consistent bipartisan and cross‐religious support for creating a path to citizenship for immigrants living in the United States. While 14 percent percent of Americans support allowing undocumented immigrants to become permanent legal residents but not citizens, 63 percent favor providing a way for immigrants who are currently living in the United States without legal documentation to become citizens provided they meet certain requirements. They also discovered that nearly two‐thirds of Americans believe that the U.S. immigration system is either completely broken (34 percent) or mostly broken but working in some areas (31 percent). The report also shows that 41 percent of Americans believe immigration policy should be an immediate priority for President Obama and Congress, while roughly as many (42 percent) say it should be a priority during the next couple of years. Interestingly enough, only 14 percent of Americans say it should not be a priority at all. Despite the majority of the U.S. citizens favor some sort of comprehensive immigration reform, the Congress has failed to pass a comprehensive immigration overhaul to date largely due to the House Republican leaders, who recently unveiled their principles for an overhaul for the nation's immigration laws. These principles, however, do not clarify whether most undocumented immigrants would ever be able to become legal residents or U.S. citizens, while they would require tighter border security and more interior immigration enforcements. These principles seem to reiterate the problematic anti‐immigration mantra to continuously militarize our borders as well as to criminalize undocumented immigrants. The Obama administration has been increasingly criticized in regard to the inhumane deportation of many undocumented people, especially those parents whose children are U.S. citizens. Critiques argue that President Obama has overseen record levels of deportations, with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) repatriating about 2 million undocumented people since he took office in January 2009 (roughly 400,000 a year or 1,100 per day). Amid the increasing political turmoil relating to the immigration reform, the public media begin to notice that the real winners in immigration control are the prison industry. The Atlantic, for example, reports that since 2003, when ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) was created and government crackdowns on undocumented aliens increased, private prisons have gained business, with industry profits more than doubling. Damon Hininger, CEO of CCA (Corrections Corporation of America), said during a conference call with investors in May 2010 that between 2007 and 2009, when earnings for the S&P dropped by 28 percent, the company's earnings drew by 18 percent. According to The Atlantic, the government spends more than $2 billion a year on immigration detention, while spending only $72 million on alternatives to detention. It also reports that the private prison industry, such as CCA, has spent more than $1 million on lobbying. Although private prisons say that their lobbying efforts are aimed at promoting their services, not shaping immigration policy, immigrant advocates argue that the private prison industry is always lobbying for more detention beds. Given that the cost of detaining an immigrant averages $159 a day and half of 34,000 beds are operated by private prison corporations, it is not difficult to see the connection between the interests of the private prison corporations such as CCA and the Geo Group and the criminalization of undocumented migrants. According to Lee Fang of The Nation, the controversial Arizona SB1070 was developed in consultation with private prison lobbyists through a group called the American Legislative Exchange Council. Unfortunately, as Aubrey Pringle reports, several pending immigration bills would increase the number of incarcerated immigrants even more. The ongoing political struggles related to the increasing border militarization, the widespread criminalization of undocumented migrants, and the massive deportation of undocumented parents are the explicit exemplification of what philosophers Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben call the...

Asian American Attitudes towards a US Citizenship Path for Illegal Immigrants: Immigration Reform as Racialised Politics

Do Asian Americans view a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants in the USA as related to perceptions of shared interests with other ethnoracial groups? I utilise the National Asian American Survey to test this possibility. Ordinal logistic regressions reveal that higher levels of perceived political commonality with Latinos relate to increased support for the provision of a citizenship path. Similarly, higher perceived political commonality with blacks is positively related to support for a citizenship pathway, suggesting that a civil rights frame, rather than a group competition frame, links immigration reform and black political interests in the minds of Asian Americans. On the other hand, higher levels of perceived political commonality with whites relate to increased opposition to such a pathway. These results indicate that Asian Americans' racial attitudes, in particular their perceptions of political commonality with other racial groups, relate to their opinions on a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants in the USA.

Immigrant citizenship: neoliberalism, immobility and the vernacular meanings of citizenship

This article argues that all conceptualisations of citizenship are vernacular. Drawing on ethnographic data from two related studies among Mexican immigrants in New York City, the author examines the lived meanings of citizenship and the centrality of (im)mobility in immigrant claims for the rights of citizenship. Citizenship is a contested notion in contemporary immigrant-receiving states. As the United States again debates immigration reform proposals, citizenship is cast as the ultimate prize, a privilege to be bestowed only on the most ‘worthy’. Immigrant rights groups advocate for the granting of citizenship and likewise elevate its value and importance in their discourse. Yet, its shifting meanings and manipulation mean that it is not a guarantee of inclusion or rights. The notion of citizenship can simultaneously critique and reinforce neoliberal notions of the relationship between citizen and subject.

The Place of Vietnamese Marriage Migrants in Singapore: social reproduction, social ‘problems’ and social protection

While the literature on ‘global care chains’ has focused on the international transfer of paid reproductive labour in the form of domestic service and care work, a parallel trend takes the form of women marriage migrants, who perform unpaid labour to maintain households and reproduce the next generation. Drawing on our work with commercially matched Vietnamese marriage migrants in Singapore, we analyse the existing immigration–citizenship regime to examine how these marriage migrants are positioned within the family and nation-state as dependants of Singaporean men with no rights to work, residency or citizenship of their own. Incipient discussions on marriage migrants in civil society discourse have tended to follow a ‘social problems’ template, requiring legislative support and service provisioning to assist vulnerable women. We argue for the need to adopt an expansive approach to social protection issues, depending not on any one single source—the state, civil society and the family—but on government action to ensure that these complement one another and strengthen safety nets for the marriage migrant.