Immigration Policy Research Articles

U.S. immigration policy at the court: organized interests & asymmetric decisions

ABSTRACT Do some interest groups fare better on immigration cases before the Supreme Court? We build on interest group power theory and extend the literature by focusing on the heterogeneity of signers to amicus curiae briefs. Specifically, we argue that the presence of organizations that collaborate with multiple communities sends stronger signals to the justices. We use network community detection methods to reveal the coalition behavior of amici that file briefs on immigration cases between 1947 and 2021. We find that immigration cases garner far more amici on the liberal than conservative side, and that amici coalition behavior varies from acting alone, to cliques, to multiple communities. The presence of an amicus that works in multiple communities has a significant and asymmetric effect on judicial decision-making, such that conservative amici move justices to decide in their favor, but there is no comparable effect for liberal groups. Moreover, the effect is conditional on justice ideology, with moderate justices moving to side with conservative amici. In the domain of immigration cases, the accent heard by justices is that of the conservative side.

Spillover effects from partisan conflict and trade & immigration policy uncertainty to US travel and leisure stocks: a time-frequency analysis

ABSTRACT This study uses the time-varying parameter vector autoregression (TVP-VAR) based connectedness approach to explore the effects of partisan conflict, trade policy uncertainty, and immigration policy uncertainty on the return and volatility of travel and leisure stocks in the US markets. The empirical results show that partisan conflict has the strongest spillover; the trade and immigration policy uncertainties are the spillover transmitters; travel and leisure stocks are the main receivers. In the time-domain, the spillover effect is time-varying, which increases significantly in times of crisis, especially during the COVID-19 and the Russia–Ukraine Conflict. In the frequency-domain, long-term spillover is more significant than short-term spillover. Compared with returns, volatility is more sensitive to uncertainties and has a much more complex spillover path. Among travel and leisure stocks, airline stocks are most vulnerable to uncertainty shocks, whereas gambling stocks are more rigid than other stocks. Our results have important implications for investment decisions, policy-making, and coping with risks arising from uncertainty.

Disenchanted With the Immigrant Dream: The Sociological Formation of Ex-Immigrant Subjectivity

AbstractAlthough many return migrants had planned to go back to their country of origin, other return migrants who had originally planned to pursue the immigrant dream––the idea that one can have a better life by migrating—eventually change their mind and return to their society of origin. Just as the identity of individuals must adjust to the loss of a relationship, job, or membership of a group, many formerly aspiring immigrants give up on immigrating. I analyze data from oral history interviews and social media narratives of 121 Chinese ex-immigrants from 16 different countries. I show how disappointments, the language barrier, cultural alienation, racial-ethnic discrimination, intersectional-gender issues, barriers to upward socioeconomic mobility, and/or restrictive immigration policies interact with each other to constitute ex-immigrant subjectivity. This article highlights why immigration is a far less certain process than many perceive it to be, contributing to the broader sociological literature on how in different and similar ways processes of abandoning important social endeavors, like a romantic partnership, political party, or religious faith, transform subjectivities and social identities in other domains of social life.

Building a wall around the welfare state, or around the country? Preferences for immigrant welfare inclusion and immigration policy openness in Europe

Existing research on welfare chauvinism, which involves preferences about the inclusion or exclusion of immigrants in welfare programmes, often overlooks individual preferences regarding immigration policy openness (the number of immigrants allowed into a country). This article posits that these two dimensions should be considered together. The reason is that the implications of including or excluding migrants in welfare programmes vary significantly depending on whether a country admits few or many immigrants. Utilizing data from two waves of the European Social Survey across 23 European countries, we develop a typology of individual stances that encapsulate attitudes towards both immigration policy openness and immigrant inclusion in the welfare state. Our analysis reveals that the distribution of these stances varies considerably across European nations. We further examine how the probability of endorsing one of these typologies correlates with individual socio-economic characteristics, especially education. We find that higher education levels are linked to a higher likelihood of supporting either a combination of openness and inclusion or, to a lesser extent, openness paired with welfare exclusion. Additionally, more exclusionary attitudes are observed in countries where welfare usage by migrants is higher.

Association of integration with oral health among Indian migrants living in the Netherlands.

Limited data exist about the relationship between acculturation and oral health. Hence, the aim of this study was to assess the association of integration with self-reported oral health, behaviours, and oral healthcare utilization among Indian migrants living in the Netherlands, a cross sectional survey study. Between February and April 2021, a random sample from Dutch municipalities was obtained for the Indian migrants living in the Netherlands (n = 147). A validated questionnaire was used to collect information on independent variables, namely socio-demographic, integration assessment tool: Immigration Policy Lab (IPL-12) and everyday discrimination scale (EDS). The outcome variables were self-reported oral health, oral health behaviours, and oral healthcare utilization. Multiple regression analysis was used to assess the associations. Higher integration among Indian migrants was associated with longer stay in the Netherlands, having a Dutch passport, intention to settle in the Netherlands, and having a permanent residence. After adjusting for covariates such as age, gender, marital status, education, income, occupation, and dental insurance, regression analysis showed that Indians with higher integration had lower odds of reporting their oral health as fair to poor [OR = 0.92(95%CI:0.0.85;0.99)] than the Indians with low integration scores. Also, Indians with higher integration had lower odds of using a manual toothbrush as compared to an electric toothbrush or use of both [OR = 0.86(95%CI:0.76;0.97)]. Highly integrated Indians had lower odds of consuming Indian sweets than lower integrated Indians (OR = 0.91; 95%CI:0.86;0.97). Indians with higher integration had 1.15 times (95% CI:1.03;1.29) higher odds of visiting a Dutch dental professional than visiting a dentist in both places (India and the Netherlands). No significant association was found between discrimination and the three outcome variables. Integration is positively association with self-reported oral health outcomes among the Indian migrants. Measure to improve integration among Indian migrants may help to promote healthy oral health behaviours and improve their oral health care utilization.

A Gender-Aware Analysis on the Feminization of Entertainment Industry in Japan

This manuscript reexamines the institutionalization of the feminization of migration industry in the Philippine-Japan migration stream through a gender-aware approach. It interrogates on the reasons why Filipina migrants made their way out of the Philippines, through regular and illicit channels, to a host country like Japan despite its restrictive immigration policies. The study unpacks on the common notion that along with active state facilitation, Filipino women migrants’ mobility or those who are engaged in “nightwork” is basically mediated through the entertainment industry. This research is a product of long engagements with the respondents and various key-informants of NGOs and club owners from 2010 to 2015. The findings reveal that women migrants are able to exploit the migration industry as their personal network in alleviating their precarious status. The researcher agrees that the institutionalization of the migration through the entertainment industry from the Philippines to Japan perpetuates an exploitative woman-dominated migration stream. However, in most instances, Filipina migrants capably exploit their personal or community network formation which could also be found in the nightwork industry.

Does a tragic event affect different aspects of attitudes toward immigration?

Abstract Dramatic events can evoke feelings of compassion, fear, or threat, and can affect public opinion regarding controversial issues. Such an event was the drowning of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi, a Syrian boy whose body washed up on a Turkish shore, and was photographed, producing an iconic image that was seen worldwide. The image evoked empathy and compassion that neuroscience and psychological research associate with a motivation to help. This article examines the impact of this event on four different aspects of attitudes toward immigration. The timing of the European Social Survey in Portugal allowed us to use this tragic event as a natural experiment. Our results suggest that Kurdi’s drowning had a significant effect on only two sentiments, but no such impact was detected on other attitudes. The results show that the event did not change the respondents’ opinion regarding the possible negative consequences of immigration on the host country’s economy, crime level, or culture, nor did it change their perception of the skills required by immigrants. On the other hand, the empathy induced by the tragic event increased their willingness to have a less restrictive immigration policy and their openness to having close social relationships with immigrants, although these changes were short-lived.

Immigration Policy Solutions Contextualized Through American Political Interests, Economic Market Manipulation, and Legal Rulings

Immigration Policy Solutions Contextualized Through American Political Interests, Economic Market Manipulation, and Legal Rulings

Producing international students: Migration management and the making of population categories

AbstractInternational student mobilities (ISM) is an important but increasingly complex and controversial topic. Politically, the contested nature of international student mobilities is driven by the confluence of immigration policies, increasing demand for global education, and new higher education funding imperatives. Academically, international student mobilities is a key field of study which intersects with three subdisciplines of geography: political, population and social. Our intervention reveals, for the first time, how current UK migration management policies are actively ‘producing’ the international student as a population category. We illustrate the effects of this production through its operationalisation into universities and everyday student lives. We achieve this by developing an analytical framework informed by theorisations of ‘dynamic nominalism’, which is complemented by data from semi‐structured interviews and policy documents. Our findings uncover the existence of multiple populations within the international student category, exposing the inherent complexities, hierarchies of privilege and contradictions therein. Notably, we identify a conceptual and empirical distinction between those produced as ‘international students’ based on their visa, and those produced as ‘international students’ via their tuition fee status. The implications of this intervention are important for the contentious landscape of higher education and immigration policy because the paper challenges assumptions about, and raises ethical questions regarding the treatment of, the ‘international student’. Our analytical framework also has wider applicability beyond the subject of ISM, through its potential to aid geographers, and those in cognate disciplines, concerned with addressing fundamental questions about how and why categories are produced and the consequences of this production.

Student Perspectives of Global Citizenship within a Virtual Exchange

Higher education internationalization has become an increasingly challenging endeavor. The outbreak of the COVID-19 virus and the ever-changing landscape of immigration policies have called for a need to reexamine how universities internationalize. Transnational virtual classrooms or virtual exchanges have been shown to provide students with a more equal opportunity to develop their global competencies and cultural skills than study abroad. Traditional internationalization methods may no longer be as effective as they have been in the past, creating a need to reconceptualize how we educate college students for global competencies. This research in-progress summarizes a portion of a dissertation. The aim of this qualitative study is to investigate global citizenship student awareness in a virtual exchange. This study presents preliminary findings of their experiences; applied global citizenship and virtual exchange as a channel.

Neoliberal nationalism and immigration policy

ABSTRACT Contemporary nationalism in the West tends to be understood in ethnic terms and associated with a bottom-up reaction to disliked effects of globalization, in particular migration. But there is also a top-down nationalism that is inherent in states` boundary-policing and – constituting membership policies. This paper draws the contours of a state-level neoliberal nationalism. Its imprint can be found in social policy, citizenship policy, and – the focus of this paper – immigration policy, in particular for the highly-skilled. Neoliberal nationalism combines diversity and meritocracy, and thus a modicum of cultural and economic liberalism. The prefix ‘neo’ flags the refashioning of political community from solidarity-based to contract-based, conditional on individual contribution and strict reciprocity.

Ins and Outs: Immigration Policies in Early 20th Century Mexico and the Arrival of Spanish Immigrants and Exiles

Abstract: In the early decades of the 20th century, Mexican immigration laws and government circulars dictated populations believed to be economically, racially, and intellectually favorable. Determined to be a population able to easily assimilate into Mexican society based on their ability to maintain Mexico's mestizo demographic identity, the government gave preferential treatment to Spaniards seeking the opportunity to migrate. The Mexican government sought to protect the nation's mixed-identity through the promulgation of restrictive immigration policies, establishing limitations for populations believed to be too "other" to seamlessly integrate and bring wide-spread benefit to the nation. To understand Mexico's provision of aid to Spanish exiles and refugees unable or unwilling to return to their homeland during and after the Spanish Civil War, this article examines the Ley de Migración, the Ley de General Población, and other immigration laws promulgated between 1926 and 1936 and their efforts to control who was able to enter the country.

Anti-immigrant backlash: the Democratic Dilemma for immigration policy

Anti-immigrant backlash has emerged in recent years as a considerable threat to democracy. In many countries illiberal and anti-democratic political forces driven in part by anti-immigrant sentiment have damaged or threaten to damage the proper functioning of democratic institutions. Should policymakers try to avert this threat by implementing more restrictive immigration policy? If they do so, they may expose immigrants to unjust exclusion. If they do not, they may risk democratic dysfunction, even democratic failure. I will call this the Democratic Dilemma for immigration policy. In this paper I argue that this is a hard ethical dilemma that does not lend itself to a straightforward resolution. I propose an analytic and evaluative framework for assessing possible policy responses to the Dilemma to aid policymakers’ as well as the public’s ethical judgement.

Discrimination during COVID-19: Assessing migrant workers’ vulnerability to forced labor in Thailand’s seafood industry

Between 2020 and 2022, Thailand instituted a series of policies to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. However, many of the regulations were rooted in structural discrimination against the migrant population. This paper reveals how the discriminatory nature of the government’s policies heightened the vulnerability of migrant workers in Thailand’s commercial fishing and seafood processing industries. COVID-19 containment measures and immigration policies, coupled with the exclusion of migrant workers from social protection programs, inadvertently subjected migrant workers in Thailand’s seafood industry to increased risk of forced labor. At the same time, further restrictions on freedom of association rights and the weakening of labor inspections during the pandemic hampered workers’ ability to report labor abuses and the government’s ability to identify and remedy cases of forced labor.

Closing the Educational Gap on Human Trafficking: There’s No Better Time Than Now!

IntroductionHuman trafficking is a heinous crime and violation of human rights affecting between 25 and 27 million adults and children globally each year. Current immigration and refugee policy could exacerbate the human trafficking public health crisis. Health care providers working in emergency department and urgent care settings interact with human trafficking victims and provide life-changing care. Research identifies a significant need for coordinated, consistent, and standardized education on human trafficking. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of online educational training in human trafficking on the knowledge and self-confidence of registered nurses and nurse practitioners working in the emergency department and urgent care settings in New York. MethodsAn asynchronous, online education module was designed for emergency department and urgent care registered nurses and nurse practitioners to address key components of human trafficking identification, assessment, and treatment. Using a 1-group pretest/posttest design, participants completed an existing published survey tool before and 6 weeks after education. ResultsFindings revealed statistically significant improvement (P < .05) in knowledge and confidence regarding components of identifying, assessing, and treating victims of human trafficking. Data demonstrated 63.8% of participants had never received human trafficking training, and 80% reported no history of contact with patients known or suspected of being trafficked. DiscussionResults in this study demonstrate the need for increased standardized education regarding HT for frontline health care workers.

Trauma and Unaccompanied Child Migration in US History: Reflections from the Archives

Abstract: Through detailed analysis of archival records, Anita Casavantes Bradford traces the history of the clinical, academic, and popular understandings of trauma as it influenced US immigration policy for unaccompanied migrant children during the twentieth century. She questions why adults charged with the care of unaccompanied minors have "(mis)understood … (mis)managed … and (mis)represented" children as traumatized, both unintentionally and deliberately, in order to advance adult objectives. Casavantes Bradford provides a historical overview of US immigration and refugee polices since the 1930s as applied to unaccompanied migrant children. This history also traces the evolution of clinical and popular definitions of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)—officially recognized by psychologists in 1980—and suggests that policies for managing and mitigating trauma among unaccompanied minors often led to negative consequences. These polices, above all, were often based on geopolitical and domestic political considerations rather than the welfare of children, according to Casavantes Bradford. Thus, during the 1980s, unaccompanied minors from Haiti and Central America reaching the United States faced detention and deportation, while Sudanese "lost boys" were granted preferential treatment that aligned with US national security interests in Africa. Since the 1930s, markers of difference such as race, class, and religion have also played fundamental roles in which unaccompanied minors have been given the "right to be traumatized" and resettlement. Casavantes Bradford cautions researchers against interpreting migrant children's experiences through biased or ahistorical notions of trauma that oversimplify individual young people's experiences and their potential resilience. Historians and others should critically examine their own assumptions when studying trauma and the experiences of unaccompanied migrant children.

Assessment of the migration processes on the example of Kazakhstan

Today's migration is a rather complex and controversial process. Having a number of advantages and positive results for the development of the receiving and sending countries, it also leads to negative consequences. The more a country's population is involved in migration processes, the more acutely its consequences manifest. The situation is also aggravated by the increasing economic and political crises, which negatively affect the ability of third countries to maintain internal stability. The issue does not exclude the Central Asian region in the context of the intensification of local armed conflicts in adjacent territories and current geopolitical aspects. The study purpose is to assess migration processes and their impact on the Republic of Kazakhstan as the one of the ‘host’ countries in Central Asia. A chronology of key economic events regarding strategic opportunities in the migration processes was carried out. Taking into account the current regional and global challenges, it has been established that the current trends in migration processes have a positive effect on the development of the labor market as an important component of the national economy, contributing to an increase in the welfare of the country. At the same time, the policy of Kazakhstan is also trying to pursue a pragmatic immigration policy to prevent the negative impact of immigrants on the local population.

INTERRELATIONSHIP OF MIGRATION AND WELFARE STATE IN NEO-LIBERAL ERA

The impact of neoliberalism on immigration policy is an area that needs to be studied for the crucial role it has in shaping the socio-economic and political direction of a nation. It is of vital signification because of the role it has in shaping the nature of human lives. This paper is an attempt to study the interrelationship between the welfare state and migration juxtaposed in the neo-liberal era. An attempt is made to delineate theoretically the relationship between migration and the welfare state.

How do intra-party dynamics impact the party elite’s immigration policy manoeuvres? The case of German Social Democrats

AbstractThis article examines the Social Democratic Party of Germany’s (SPD) approach to immigration and the role of party activists in shaping its policies. The article delves into the party’s response to the 2015 refugee crisis and its aftermath, utilising the discourse taken by the party’s leading figures and interviews with party elites, exploring their perceptions of activists and their constraints on immigration policies. The findings reveal that the influence of party activists is beyond their official power within the organisational structure, and their nestedness within the party affects the party elite’s policy- and decision-making on immigration. Given the potential backlash from activists, the study underscores the party elites’ cautious approach to policy shifts and emphasises the significance of leadership skills, the party’s image and electoral motivations in navigating intra-party dynamics and policy-making. Ultimately, the research highlights the delicate balance SPD elites seek in addressing immigration issues within its party structure.

Empathy and attitudes toward protecting migrants from criminal violence

AbstractMigrants in Latin America are increasingly vulnerable to organized crime violence while en route to their destination. Public opinion regarding how to address this problem varies. While many residents of countries along migration routes support policies protecting migrants from organized crime, others oppose them. What explains this variation? To investigate this situation, we draw on nationally representative survey data from one of Latin America's most important migrant corridors, Mexico, where sustained criminal violence makes migrants vulnerable to criminal predation en route. We integrate insight from theories about helping refugees amid political violence with studies about aiding migrants amid peace to develop and test hypotheses about an understudied research phenomenon, protecting migrants amid large‐scale criminal violence. We argue that attitudes toward protecting migrants are influenced by feelings of empathy. We test hypotheses related to two conduits of empathic perspective taking—crime victimization and imagining one could become a victim in the future. We find these channels of perspective taking are positively associated with support for migrant protective policies among crime victims and nonvictims alike. Our research reveals new information about attitudes toward immigration policy in criminally violent contexts and advances knowledge about the public endorsement of policies to preserve migrant rights and dignity.