Entry Visas Research Articles

United Arab Emirates: Recent Developments in the Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers and of Women

Abstract This survey reviews some of the key legislative and executive measures of the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the year 2021–2022, which have relevance to mainly the rights of the migrant workers. Further, and in less detail, this survey also refers to some of the developments pertinent to the rights of women living in the UAE. However, more generally these rights are less relevant to women who are not UAE nationals. The UAE is a member country of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and a federal state comprising seven emirates namely, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Dubai, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and Fujairah. The GCC comprises six states in the Arab-Gulf region: Oman, Bahrain, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. These oil-producing states have a significant proportion of foreign workforce in the population. Foreign workers work mostly in the private sector and are also residents in the host countries. At 88.1 per cent, the UAE has the highest proportion of migrants in its population among the GCC members (UN DESA, 2020). Therefore, a broader spectrum of governments’ measures relating to the issues like labour, entry and residence, and ownership of property or business touch the lives of the foreign/migrant workers or expatriates in the Gulf country. Governments’ initiatives targeting domestic workers are relevant also for women because they comprise the majority in this group. The survey notes that most of the governmental activity in the Emirates in the past year largely concern new laws or amendments of the existing legislation and regulations linked to labour and residency matters. Some of the more relevant ones that the survey has selected here confirms this. It also marks the period post the pandemic, which had posed considerable economic challenge for the government. Hence, as also some neighbouring Gulf countries, the UAE has shown a balance of measures. On the one hand, to revive its economic dynamism and competitiveness, measures have been taken aimed at facilitating more ease and benefits to attract and retain foreign labour and investment in the country. On the other hand, measures have been taken that expressly favour the national workforce in order to boost their more active participation in the labour market and to support increased nationalisation efforts. The UAE government’s expansion and the introduction of new residence and entry visas, unified rules of labour, and the Abu Dhabi government’s initiative with separate personal status law for non-Muslim foreigners in the emirate are a few notable highlights. The survey has essentially drawn on the government’s documents and announcements as available in English or translated text, in addition to information in the press and other relevant sources.

Introduction

The introduction provides context for the correspondence of Marianne Angermann-Bielschowsky and the journal entries of her mother, Charlotte Angermann. These autobiographical texts deal with the experiences of Marianne Angermann-Bielschowsky and her husband, the German-Jewish physician Franz Bielschowsky, during the Spanish Civil War in Madrid, and those of her mother in Dresden, Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Marianne travelled to Madrid in late 1935 to take up a position at the Institute of Medical Research, led by Professor Carlos Jiménez Díaz, at the University of Madrid. She had been preceded by her future husband, Franz, who began collaborating with Jiménez Díaz in late 1933 after he had been dismissed from his post at Freiburg University. When the Spanish Civil War broke out, Marianne and Franz worked at Military Hospital No. 6 at Chamartín de la Rosa in Madrid. At the end of the Spanish conflict they managed to get entry visas for the United Kingdom where they held research positions at Sheffield University under Professor H. Green. Marianne's mother, Charlotte, a pensioner, spent the Second World War in Dresden with her husband, Konrad. Her journal entries record the everyday travails of life on the home front in Nazi Germany. She records what she hears from her friends and family in Germany who had been subjected to the Allies' Area Bombing Campaign and she writes of her own experiences of the bombing of Dresden in February 1945. The Soviet occupation of Dresden in 1945 and early 1946 forms another strand in her entries.

Weltliteratur in der Shanghaier jüdischen Exilpresse (1939–1947) ed. by Ruoyu Zhang

Reviewed by: Weltliteratur in der Shanghaier jüdischen Exilpresse (1939–1947) ed. by Ruoyu Zhang Samuel Kessler Ruoyu Zhang, ed., Weltliteratur in der Shanghaier jüdischen Exilpresse (1939–1947). Munich: Iudicum Verlag, 2022. 282 pp. The coming-into-existence of the Jewish exile community in Shanghai was one of the most fascinating consequences of the rise of fascism in 1930s Germany and the subsequent dislocation (for those who would or could escape) of Jews from Central and Eastern Europe. Its creation is a story whose reality feels as fantastical as any movie, and its short-lived existence has lent its memory an air of magical realism: a world of German and East European Jewry arising whole cloth in the Far East, only to vanish entirely within a decade. Yet there it was, an island of European Judaism in an ancient Chinese city, complete with newspapers, yeshivas, and a Yiddish-speaking underworld. [End Page 125] How did this most peculiar of Ashkenazic cultures end up in Shanghai, and what did it feel like to live there? While most nations had officially closed their borders to Jewish immigration by the late 1930s (a policy made condescendingly clear at the now-notorious Evian Conference of July 1938), a handful—often because of the actions of just one or two diplomats or politicians, in this case, chief among them those of Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese consul in Lithuania—became unexpected destinations for Jews desperately seeking to leave Europe. One of these places was Shanghai, the Chinese port city at the mouth of the Yangtze River. Divided among various colonial trading concessions since the mid-nineteenth century, the city after 1932 was under partial, then full Japanese occupation. Yet throughout the war it remained home to an international community of Europeans, Russians, and Central and East Asians. And because in the 1930s Shanghai did not require entry visas, this wealthy, cosmopolitan, deeply contested city, occupied by an ally of Nazi Germany and located on the farthest coast of the Eurasian continent, became home to a quixotic Jewish community of, at its height, some twenty thousand souls, from urban former German and Austrian citizens—trained as physicians, artists, musicians, journalists, and engineers—to the four hundred rabbis and students of the Mir Yeshiva, one of the most famous in Eastern Europe. In Weltliteratur in der Shanghaier jüdischen Exilpresse (1939–1947), Ruoyu Zhang gives us a sense of just what those German-educated Jews living in exile in Shanghai were reading and thinking about. Culling extracts from the German-Jewish newspapers printed in the city, this anthology presents the wide variety of international journalism, speeches, and political documents published so that the community could stay abreast of world events and the opinions of important persons. Zhang includes writings by Jews and non-Jews living around the world, from the most famous—Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Sigrid Undset, Albert Einstein—to the less familiar though still widely respected—Max Eitingon, Max Nordau, Emil Ludwig. As Zhang writes, much of what appeared in these periodicals directly represented the experiences of the community in Shanghai: "Die […] Werke standen alle mehr oder weniger in Übereinstimmung mit den Anliegen, Exilerfahrungen, Erwartungen, dem seelischen Verlust und den sozialen Problemen der jüdischen Emigranten in Shanghai" (10). Yet this was by no means a parochial press, and while the content might have reflected the present situation (which is, of course, the primary purpose of journalism and popular periodicals), [End Page 126] the range of authorship and geography was perhaps surprising, suggesting a community that, though marooned far from home, was anything but disconnected from world events: "der vorliegende Band [ist] ein guter Beleg dafür, dass die jüdischen Exilperiodika in Shanghai im Zeitraum von 1939 bis 1949 keineswegs von der Außenwelt isoliert blieben, sondern stets in enger Verbindung mit den weltweiten Medien standen" (10). This book is the follow-up to Zhang's first edited volume, "Wir in Shanghai": Pressetexte deutscher und österreichischer Journalisten im Exil (1939–1949) (Iudicum 2021), which, together with this new work, contain the selection of the primary sources that formed the basis for Zhang's monograph on the subject, "Orient und Okzident/Sind nicht mehr zu...

The Jewish Question in Polish-Soviet Relations in the First Half of the 20th Century (Based on the Materials of the Plenipotentiary Mission of the USSR in Warsaw)

A high level of anti-semitism in the newly revived Polish state had to be taken into account by the Soviet diplomacy in the first half of the 1920s. The disclosed documents from the correspondence between the Plenipotentiary representative of the USSR in Warsaw with the central office of the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs introduced into the scholarship for the first time testify to the existence of a Jewish problem in Polish-Soviet relations. Moscow had to keep track of the number of Jews in the diplomatic mission in Warsaw as well as to consider the request of Polish officials, including the Polish leader Jozef Pilsudski, about the desirability of appointing a person of Russian origin the head of the mission in Warsaw given the level of anti-semitism in the Polish society. The deputies of the Polish Sejm at a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee attributed the shortcomings in the Polish-Soviet negotiations to the Jewish nationality of the representative of the USSR. Another problem in Polish-Soviet relations in 1923 was represented by the destiny of Jews who escaped through Poland from Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine to the United States. After the introduction of immigration quotas in the USA in 1921 about 6 to 8 thousand Jews were not able to receive entry visas in the United States in 1923. The Polish government required their urgent deportation. Other countries did not want to see them on their territory either. The Jewish organization “Joint” was forced to ask Moscow to approve of their repatriation to the USSR on condition it took charge of covering all expenses. After some hesitation, the USSR agreed with such repatriation. However, it was not organized in a civilized way. The Polish authorities simply ordered to drive Jews to the borders with the USSR. It meant the spontaneous transfer across the border which caused a new scandal in the already strained Polish-Soviet relations.

The H-1B Visa and US GATS Market Access Commitments: Options and Strategies for India

Indian IT firms and professionals have been one of the primary beneficiaries of the US H-1B visa. However, the new US ‘buy American, hire American’ policy and the consequent suspension of the H-1B visa have resulted in India’s claims that the US measures are discriminatory and not in compliance with various provisions of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The present article aims to assess the consistency of the US measures on H-1B category visa in the context of its specific commitments under Mode 4 of GATS and explore India’s options in finding a suitable solution. Our analysis posits that India’s concerns are well-founded, and the US measures at issue may have direct implications on its commitment under the GATS Schedule of Commitments. At the same time, for India, the option of the invocation of the WTO redressal process to force the well-guarded discretionary sovereign power associated with entry visas could be counterproductive and finding a mutually beneficial solution seems to be the way forward. The article will also help understand and explore India’s options in dealing with the highly sensitive area of entry for foreign nationals that falls under the domain of sovereign prerogative of a State.

Gendered Pathways: Employment Behavior among Family-Based and Skill-Based Immigrants in the United States

The United States is the only country to admit the majority of its immigrants on the basis of kinship ties. Although policy makers typically view family migration as less favorable and assume that family immigrants do not contribute to the U.S. economy, this argument is oversimplified and ignores the role of gender and the various ways that family immigration works. This study captures the multiple aspects of immigrants’ entry visas and its intersection with gender to examine the employment behavior of college-educated immigrant men and women who arrived in the United States via several family-based and skill-based categories. Using nationally representative data from 2010, 2013, and 2015 National Survey of College Graduates, the author finds that immigrants’ initial entry pathways into the United States continue to stratify their employment behavior and trajectories, especially for immigrant women. The conditions of family-sponsored immigration matter; temporary migration as a spouse is negatively associated with immigrant women’s employment but not permanent family migration.

Why Employment During and After COVID-19 Is a Critical Women's Health Issue.

Why Employment During and After COVID-19 Is a Critical Women's Health Issue.

Conflict and international education: experiences of Yemeni international students

ABSTRACT The ongoing conflicts in Yemen have affected the entire community. This article focuses on students from Yemen and the continuing impact of the conflict on their educational experiences in China. A case-study methodology and in-depth interviews with ten participants reveal a combination of pre-departure, travelling, registration and financial challenges, the loss of opportunities and hopes, and social and psychological pressures. As a result of the research, conclusions are that the Yemeni government needs to re-consider providing monthly stipends for the students and neighbouring nations (e.g. Oman) need to facilitate the procedures for students’ entry visas. Further, it is argued that the Chinese government and universities could provide additional assistance for Yemeni students, re-consider their policies concerning application outcomes and registration procedures, and provide waivers for tuition fees. Implementing these measures could have a positive impact on the experiences of Yemeni students in China and on other students from conflicted areas.

SPE Strong: Strengthening Our Core: Strengthening the SPE Conference Experience

Of all the programs that SPE offers, the most rewarding and enjoyable ones for me personally are the conferences. I love walking the floor of an exhibition hall, discovering the latest technology advancements, and listening to the various product demonstrations. I look forward to running into fellow SPE members in the vast conference halls and catching up on what they’ve been doing since we last met. When exiting the room of a technical session, I like being able to turn to the person next to me and ask their opinion about the presentations we just heard. Finally, I relish being able to attend the receptions and luncheons to network with industry colleagues. I attribute most of my career achievements to those moments of connecting with others and learning from them during SPE conferences. For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate. - Margaret Heffernan As much as I yearn for our conferences to return, I suspect they will be different as we incorporate more social distancing and other protective measures; however, how this will affect the experience is unclear. There have been many opinions shared by our members on whether SPE should fully convert to virtual conferencing. We have been asking ourselves: Can attendees and exhibitors realize the same amount of value at a virtual event when compared to a physical one? Let’s examine this from several perspectives, starting with the exhibitors’. Over the years, some of our exhibitors have expressed that they were not satisfied with the value of having a traditional exhibit booth. The cost for exhibitors to have a booth can be quite high when considering the shipping of booth materials and manpower required. Exhibit booths are a tried-and-true method to connect to potential customers; however, recent advances in digital marketing are proving to be very effective as well. Perhaps virtual exhibition halls will bring value to exhibitors and provide a broader platform from which they can educate potential customers about their products and services. For many authors, the coveted opportunity to present a paper at an SPE conference is a career goal, especially at ATCE. I will never forget being at the 2003 ATCE in Denver, Colorado, to present my first ATCE paper. I vividly recall feeling proud yet nervous while standing at the podium and seeing my mentor, James Pappas, at the back of the room to show his support. At the conclusion of my presentation, I remember the rush of adrenaline and sense of accomplishment upon hearing the applause from the audience. If I had been using a virtual platform, I do not believe I would have felt these same emotions. Giving a virtual presentation can be less engaging due to being unable to “read’ and hear the audience. Still, it does offer the advantage for authors to present their work when they cannot be there physically. The recent pandemic has prevented our authors from presenting in person, but historically, there have been other challenges for authors such as being unable to attend the conference because of delayed or denied entry visas or lack of funding for travel. A significant advantage of virtual events is the removal of such barriers.

Journey through the ‘Gate of Zion’: British policy, Jewish refugees and the La Spezia Affair, 1946

ABSTRACTThis article explores the case of ‘illegal’ immigration at the end of the Second World War and, specifically, the events that unfolded at the Italian port of La Spezia. In April 1946, 1014 visa-less Jewish refugees, who were attempting to reach the British Mandate of Palestine, were detained on a vessel by Italian authorities under the instruction of the British. Rather than conceding to Whitehall’s rejection of entry visas, the Spezia refugees remained defiant, threatening collective mass-suicide and staging hunger strikes until passage was finally granted. The Spezia narrative has, however, remained on the periphery of academic scholarship, with the case of the ship Exodus 1947, which set sail the following year, dominating historiographical accounts. This article demonstrates the impact of the La Spezia Affair on post-war migratory movements and, most notably, the importance of refugee agency within the context of forced migration. Analysing the events at La Spezia from the port itself recasts the narrative through a ‘local’ lens, recovering the role of the refugees which has been largely overshadowed by state-level responses. In so doing, traditional perspectives from ‘above’ are confronted with those from ‘below’, reconfiguring our historical understanding of refugees and transnational migration in the twentieth century.

Zuwanderungspolitik – ein neues kommunales Aufgabenfeld?

The regulation of migration has mostly been regarded as a core task of the nation-state, which has the right to control its territorial borders and issue entry visas and citizenships. In the field of urban research, cities and municipalities are therefore regarded as largely dependent on state “migration regimes”. This special issue examines the central question of whether there is also a “local turn” in the field of immigration policy. The cities of Europe are dependent on immigration in order to stabilise their population figures; without immigration they would shrink. In most cases, urban policy is growth- and competition-oriented. Nevertheless, most cities have not yet developed explicit immigration strategies. Wherever this does occur, it is for the most part socially highly selective: many urban development concepts merely articulate the desire for the immigration of young and qualified workers. Many cities still rely on the influx of the “creative class” when competing with other municipalities. The immigration of refugees and asylum seekers, on the other hand, is often seen as a burden by the municipalities and is delegated to integration policy. Due to the dispersal of refugees and asylum seekers by the German state, cities have very little room for manoeuvre in terms of controlling the influx of these immigrant groups. Against this background, this conceptual introductory article examines two key questions: (i) Which migration policy options do cities have and how are they theorised? (ii) Which proactive strategies can cities develop for the purpose of targeted recruitment of immigrants?Immigration Policy – A New Field of Activity for Cities?

From Nairobi to Baden-Baden: African Politics, the International Olympic Committee, and Early Efforts to Censure Apartheid South Africa

In July 1963, some three months before sports administrators from around the world were to descend on Nairobi for the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) annual session, the meeting was in jeopardy. Government officials in Kenya announced that in protest against white minority rule on the African continent, delegates from Portugal and South Africa were to be denied entry visas. Their decision culminated in the eleventh-hour transfer of the IOC session from Nairobi, Kenya, to Baden-Baden, West Germany. Kenyan politicians, on the cusp of ousting British colonial control, were using the Nairobi IOC gathering of 1963 to advance the anti-colonial resolutions of the newly established Organization of African Unity (OAU) in solidarity with Africa’s independent states.

Potential consequences of the immigration ban on the scientific community.

On January 27, 2017, President Trump signed an executive order banning the citizens of 7 countries from obtaining US entry visas for the next 90 days. Since the announcement, the news media have devoted a large portion of their coverage to the ban and its political ramifications. There have been arguments made by both sides that the ban will make our country safer, while others have argued that this executive order will result in the weakening of our country and bolstering of our enemies. As a physician-scientist who was born in Iran and immigrated to the US, I will stay away from the politics of this executive order; rather, I want to discuss the impact of the immigration ban on scientific discourse, education, and research programs, and how it may influence the dissemination of knowledge to physicians and scientists in low- and middle-income countries. I will use my own experience as an example of how the educational and scientific systems in this country benefit those who strive to learn in a free and intellectually stimulating environment.

Philippine visas-for-Jews from the perspective of 1939 unanswered letters to president Quezon

More than twenty letters of European Jews to the President of the Philippines Manuel Quezon, sent to apply for entry visas for over four dozen people, were recently found in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department of the National Library of the Philippines in Manila. The letters written in English, German, and Spanish are dated Spring-Summer 1939, when escape from Europe was still possible. Though several hundreds of Jewish refugees came to Manila via various ways during 1937–1941, the letters in question remained unanswered. All of them provide the exact time of the short-lived Mindanao plan, which proposed to establish an agricultural colony of European Jews in the Philippines, but got stuck in the very beginning. The databases of the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington reveal the tragedy, which many Jews anticipated: all of the Philippine visa-seekers, except for one person, found their death in various concentration camps, ghettos, and labour battalions. The article is dedicated to the memory of Jewish refugees, who were seeking in vain an asylum from the Nazis and their collaborators in the Philippines and other parts of the world.

The communitarian community membership and the support for an entry visa

Why, as a Nigerian, do I need a visa to travel to South Africa? Why should a South African require a visa to travel to Nigeria? The answers seem obvious. I am not a South African but a Nigerian and a South African is not a Nigerian too. The answers receive a theoretical backing in a radical communitarian philosophy and the notion of community membership. Radical communitarianism, as a theory, favours socio-historical contextualism and endorses the social embeddedness of the individual. The individual is not only a member of his or her community at birth, the community is the primary commodity shared among members. The point is well demonstrated in the work of communitarians such as Michael Sandel, Michael Walzer, Charles Taylor, Amitai Etzioni, Kwame Gyekye, and Robert Bellah. On this account, both Nigeria and South Africa as nations are considered to be communities too. The article argues that the possible support for entry visas derivable from a radical communitarian philosophy and the notion of community membership is not philosophically convincing. The article suggests a revised communitarian notion of membership consistent with contemporary shifts in communitarian philosophy especially in its methodology. Such a revised notion of community membership exposes the weakness of the possible communitarian argument for entry visas.

Theory, Analysis, Social Justice, and Criminalizing HIV Transmission: A Commentary on Lehman and Colleagues (2014)

Since the start of the AIDS epidemic, the US government has attempted a number of interventions to protect the public health. Some, such as Congressional allocation of funds for HIV surveillance and research, or assistance to persons living with HIV such as subsidized treatment or housing, appear to have promoted this aim. Others such as the Helms amendment banning federal funds for AIDS education materials describing homosexuality, bans on Federal funding for syringe exchange, the US public health service travel ban on entry visas for people living with HIV, or the PEPFAR anti-prostitution pledge have probably undermined it. These mixed effects suggest that scientific data measuring the outcomes of policies proposed to protect the public health are not the deciding factor on whether such policies become federal law. State governments have also had a role, but until now it has been challenging to evaluate the scope of state-level HIV law in its entirety. In their article, Prevalence and Public Health Implications of State Laws that Criminalize Potential HIV Exposure in the United States, Lehman and colleagues [1] take stock and analyze state laws criminalizing HIV exposure. Their paper offers an excellent exploration of the differing ways states (1) define criminal HIV exposure; (2) classify it within the legal code; and (3) impose penalties on those it finds guilty. In this commentary, we expand upon the ideas put forth by Lehman and colleagues. We explore methodological challenges to the study of how law impacts individual HIV risk behavior and suggest theoretical frameworks and testable models to understand this phenomenon. We conclude with a consideration of how the principle of social justice joins this arena as a necessary research question in its own right.

Visa problem: certification, kinship, and the production of ‘ineligibility’ in the Gambia

The article describes the documentary vicissitudes of young Gambian men of Soninke ethnicity. Normally the most mobile subjects in a milieu where international migration is central to subsistence and prosperity, these young men often fail to secure entry visas to the West and other desirable destinations owing to restrictive admission policies. Would‐be travellers cope with high rejection rates, but also struggle to secure financial and logistical support from relatives in order to meet the demanding requirements of visa applications. Since kinship mediates access to travel documents, the article suggests that visa ineligibility is a product of both state‐based and societal practices of certification. It shows how the visa regime plays into the kinship reciprocities and affects that produce, discipline, and select prospective migrants, thereby transferring and concealing the arbitrariness and uncertainty of legal‐political structures of mobility.

"Phony Mothers" and Border-Crossing Adoptions: The Montreal-to-New York Black Market in Babies in the 1950s

There were, in fact, a series of independent but nonetheless highly organized baby rings in Montreal. The rings had their own maternity board- ing houses where children were born and utilized a series of baby depots where children were housed while they awaited parents. Spotters trolled the city for pregnant women, and contacts or legmen approached pregnant women who seemed in need of help. Potential adoptive parents heard about the baby rings through word of mouth, or through salesmen who worked in New York City apartment blocks. Lawyers helped parents secure docu- ments (false birth registrations and/or fraudulently obtained adoption court orders) which could then be used to obtain Canadian passports and U.S. entry visas for the children. In some cases, pregnant women were sent to U.S. cities to give birth, or newborn children were simply smuggled across the border by couriers with alleged connections to organized crime. 3 The Montreal-to-New York baby black market was the most sensational episode in a longer history of cross-border adoption between Canada and the United States in the mid-twentieth century. Between 1930 and 1975, several thousand Canadian-born children were adopted by families in the United States. Most of these children were very young infants, and most were the children of unwed mothers. The majority of the children were white, but the border-crossing group also included hundreds of First Nations and Metis children placed in the United States. 4 While many of the Canada-to-U.S. adoptions were completely legal, some were clearly illegal, and many others were highly questionable in terms of American

Secret Missions to Cuba: Fidel Castro, Benardo Benes, and Cuban Miami

Secret Missions to Cuba: Fidel Castro, Benardo Benes, and Cuban Miami

Immigration and the U.S. Economy: Labor-Market Impacts, Illegal Entry, and Policy Choices

Since the 1960s, the United States has undergone a surge in immigration. The share of the U.S. population that is foreign born surpassed 10% in 2000, with new immigrants accounting for nearly half of recent U.S. population growth. Three policy issues are central to the current debate about immigration. One is what should be the level and composition of legal immigration. The United States admits relatively large numbers of immigrants with low levels of education and other discernible skills. Rising immigration of the less skilled may lower wages of native workers. A second issue is what to do about illegal immigration. Illegal aliens account for one third of new U.S. immigrants. An open question is whether U.S. policy should attempt to replace illegal immigration with large-scale temporary immigration of foreign workers. A third issue is whether immigrants should be eligible for public assistance. Denying eligibility could reduce immigration and lower fiscal transfers from natives to immigrants. In this paper, we examine immigration in the United States over the last several decades in order to gauge the potential for and the consequences of changes in U.S. immigration policy. Our study has six main sections, following an introduction. In section 2, we review U.S. immigration policy and trends. Current U.S. policy sets a quota on overall immigration, with first priority for admissions given to family members of U.S. citizens and legal residents. In recent years, fewer than 15% of new immigrants have been admitted based on their skill level. Whether intended or not, this policy favors immigrants with relatively little schooling. Recent immigrants tend to concentrate in specific regions and industries, and tend to earn much less than natives. In section 3, we consider how U.S. regional economies adjust to immigrant inflows. Despite the geographic concentration of recent immigrants, wages have not fallen perceptibly in the gateway communities in which immigrants settle. Regions have adjusted to immigrant inflows through other mechanisms, including skill upgrading of the native labor force, outmigration of native workers, and shifts in output mix towards immigrant-intensive industries. If education levels of the U.S. labor force stabilize, as they are expected to do, the wage impacts of immigration may be more pronounced. In section 4, we examine the factors that influence U.S. illegal immigration. Most illegal immigrants enter the country either by crossing the Mexico-U.S. border or by overstaying entry visas. Mexico is the largest source country for illegal immigration and illegal entry tends to surge following economic downturns in the country. The U.S. government impedes illegal immigration by policing borders and monitoring employers, with the vast majority of resources dedicated to border enforcement. These efforts appear to have had limited success, as the inflow of illegal immigrants continues unabated. In section 5, we examine the fiscal impact of immigration. Prior to U.S. welfare reform in 1996, immigrants were more likely than natives to receive public assistance. New laws restrict immigrant access to many benefits, one important exception being costly public education. For some types of public assistance, individual U.S. states have the discretion to offer benefits after an individual has been in the country for at least five years. Excluding immigrants from public assistance has been subject to numerous judicial challenges. Despite immigrant use of public assistance, the net fiscal transfer from natives to immigrants appears to be very small at the national level, though it is higher in a few specific states that have both generous welfare benefits and large immigrant populations. In general, the older and the less educated the adult immigrant population is, the larger are native-to-immigrant net fiscal transfers. In section 6, we examine the political economy of U.S. immigration policy. We find that individual opinions about immigration policy are influenced by expectations about its impact on outcomes in the labor market and on public services and the welfare state. In particular, less-skilled workers and political conservatives are among those most opposed to freer immigration. Congressional representatives seem to respond to these concerns in their districts when voting on legislation. In section 7, we conclude by discussing current policy choices facing the United States. Key decisions for U.S. policy makers include whether to replace family-based immigration with skills-based immigration, whether to continue to exclude immigrants from access to public assistance, whether to expand temporary immigration, and how to balance border and interior policing in enforcing against illegal immigration.