Immigration Policy Regimes Research Articles

The effect of immigration policy regime change on state-level participation rates of the special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children in the United States

AbstractThe change in immigration policy in state-level participation rates of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) in the United States by citizenship and ethnicity was estimated over the period 2013-2018 using the Triple Difference estimate method. The principal finding was that the state-level WIC participation rate for Hispanic non-citizens was lower by 8.6% relative to all other groups (Hispanic citizens, non-Hispanic citizens, and non-Hispanic non-citizens). This study then not only provides quantitative evidence concerning the ongoing debate about the impact of the immigration policy changes under the Trump administration but also extends the extant literature by estimating the causal effects of immigration policy regime change on WIC participation of non-citizens.

AGE AND COHORT TRENDS OF RACIAL/ETHNIC DIFFERENCE IN RELIGIOUS PARTICIPATION AMONG MIDDLE-AGED AND OLDER AMERICANS

Abstract Religious involvement is an important way of maintaining social connectedness for older Americans. While large quantities of studies have explored age and cohort effects of religious participation separately, less is known about racial/ethnic disparities. Applying growth curve modeling to the 2004-2020 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (N=134,734 person-years), the current study examines how religious attendance changes across the life course and among recent birth cohorts, as well as how exposure to immigration policy regimes (IPR) shapes Hispanic immigrants’ religious participation behaviors. Results suggest an overall reversed U-shape age trajectory with lower average levels and faster declines among more recent cohorts. Compared to White older adults, Black and Hispanic populations attend religious activities more frequently, but their attendance declines at faster rates in later life, leading to minimal White-Nonwhite differences in the oldest ages. However, Hispanic immigrants display significantly less decline in religious participation among more recent cohorts relative to Whites, although no similar trend is found between White and Black/native Hispanic older adults. Further analyses of Mexican Hispanic immigrants suggest that longer exposure to restricted IPR (since the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, IRCA) is associated with increased religious attendance, but less restricted IPR (between 1964 and 1985) is associated with decreased religious participation net of age and cohort effects. These findings emphasize the importance of understanding the civic engagement experiences of Hispanic immigrants against the context of immigration policy regimes.

Leaving the Devil You Know: Crime Victimization, US Deterrence Policy, and the Emigration Decision in Central America

Following a sharp increase in the number of border arrivals from the violence-torn countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras in the spring and summer of 2014, the United States quickly implemented a strategy designed to prevent such surges by enhancing its detention and deportation efforts. In this article, we examine the emigration decision for citizens living in the high-crime contexts of northern Central America. First, through analysis of survey data across Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, we explore the role crime victimization plays in leading residents of these countries to consider emigration. Next, using survey data collected across twelve municipalities in Honduras, we evaluate the extent to which knowledge of heightened US immigration deterrence efforts influenced respondents’ emigration decision. Though a vast majority of these respondents were aware of the stricter US immigration policy regime, this awareness had no effect on their consideration of emigration as a viable strategy.

Disability and Older Age Return Migration: Evidence Against the Salmon Bias

Mexican immigrants make up an increasing proportion of the US population 65 and older. Whereas this population has among the lowest rates of disability at working ages, there is growing evidence of high rates of disability at older ages, findings which contradict what mechanisms of selection, namely the “salmon bias,” would predict. However, largely due to data limitations disability rates between those who stay in the US into older ages and those who return to Mexico are rarely compared. Here two waves of data from the US based Health and Retirement Study and the Mexican Health and Aging Study are combined to create a novel dataset that enables an interrogation of the widely held assumption of negative selection on health among return migrants. Investigating three measures of functional limitation and disability, results show higher prevalence of disability for stayers as compared to both younger and older returnees. These results are robust to controls for childhood background, adult socioeconomic status, and migration related variables and hold for those who immigrated during different immigration policy regimes. These findings are novel not only because they stand in opposition to previous assumptions about the direction of health selective return migration, but also because they mean that those remaining in the United States into older ages are among the most vulnerable.

Polish immigrants and their children in Canada and Sweden, employment status and income patterns

Using a combination of logit, and OLS regressions we ask if the labour force outcomes for Polish immigrants differ across two immigration policy regimes (Canada and Sweden). Specifically, we compare the employment and earnings prospects of Polish immigrants and their children in Canada and Sweden using data that is similar in quality and timing. We find that in general, Polish immigrants, while facing substantial penalties compared to native-born workers fare better in Canada than in Sweden in terms of employment and income. As expected, second generation Poles fare much better than their immigrant counterparts in terms of employment and earnings differentials and have similar outcomes to the native-born majority in both countries. Membership in the EU fundamentally changed migration flows from Poland. In light of this we also look at how post-2004 Polish migrants have fared in both Canada and Sweden.

Mexican immigrant health advantage in metabolic syndrome? Examining the contributions of demographic, socioeconomic, and health behavior characteristics

Although Mexican immigrants to the United States (US) have historically held health and mortality advantages over US-born groups, evolving population dynamics in Mexico paired with shifts in Mexico-US immigration patterns and policy regimes have raised new concerns about the metabolic health of recent cohorts of Mexican immigrants. Using a nationally representative sample of adults aged 20-years and older (n = 10,833) from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Study (NHANES, 1999–2016), we assess and seek to explain differences in metabolic syndrome (MetS) risk by race-ethnicity, country of origin, and duration of residence in the US and evaluate whether recent Mexican immigrants continue to exhibit a metabolic health advantage. We decompose the difference in MetS prevalence between US-born whites (45.5%) and recent Mexican immigrants (29.5%) to determine how demographic, socioeconomic, and health behavior characteristics contribute to the patterning of metabolic health. Findings reveal that recent Mexican immigrants hold a metabolic health advantage over all groups, which is accounted for by their younger age structure. Yet recent Mexican immigrants would retain a sizable age-adjusted MetS advantage if they were to achieve parity with US-born whites on education, income, and food security. To ensure that newly-arrived Mexican immigrants continue to experience historically favorable health and mortality prospects, modest policy changes could offer health-promoting protections in the form of increased economic and food security, as well as improved educational opportunities for younger immigrants.

‘When do states give voting rights to non-citizens? The role of population, policy, and politics on the timing of enfranchisement reforms in liberal democracies’

ABSTRACT Today the inclusion of non-citizens in the electorate is an increasingly common phenomenon. Yet, we know relatively little about under what conditions some states extend such voting rights to non-citizens earlier than others. In this paper, we investigate the timing of local enfranchisement policies for non-citizens in 28 democracies from 1980 to 2010 using event-history analysis. Adding to the conditions studied in earlier work, we examine the extent to which demographic composition, immigration policy regimes, and political partisanship relate to the timing of non-citizen suffrage. We find that higher shares of immigrant residents delay whereas EU membership and economic openness advance the timing of voting rights for non-citizens. At all demographic heterogeneity conditions, less permissive immigration regimes have been able to enfranchise non-citizens earlier. The findings suggest that, over time, having more left-wing parties in the government accelerates the timing of enfranchisement, while right-wing parties contribute to delays. The article brings forward new data and an original explanatory framework emphasising relevance of partisanship and immigration policy at different demographic contexts. Our analysis sheds light on the idiosyncratic state practices in the timing of enfranchisement reforms adding to the debates in migration and citizenship studies and the broader comparative politics field.

Особливості формування державної імміграційної політики окремих розвинених країн

The article is devoted to the issues of immigration policy, which is an important political tool for achieving social goals in the field of economy, demography, security and nation building. In today’s world, developed countries have joined the competition for highly skilled migrants and quality carriers of human capital, using immigration as an important resource for economic and demographic development. The unfavorable demographic situation formed in Ukraine before the beginning of the new millennium forces us to consider migration as an important resource, the use of which can compensate for the natural decrease in population. In traditional countries of reception of immigrants, there are serious problems in addressing the integration of migrants, national security, tolerance, socio-economic stability and intercultural dialogue. The immigration policy of Great Britain, Australia, Canada is studied and it is determined that any immigration policy is not without contradictions, its mechanism evolves and develops, and the institutional framework is formed within a certain political regime and reflects the political culture, values, goals of the nation. The essential characteristics of political regulation and levels of immigration policy of developed countries are formulated. Focus on the main components of the immigration policy of the studied countries, namely, issues related to the reception of migrants; the problems of their integration and socialization allow us to say that a special place among the factors that determine the process of development and implementation of immigration policy is occupied by the political regime. It is substantiated that the formation of a single immigration policy for member states does not exclude the existence of national models of integration of migrants into the host society within the supranational immigration policy regime. Preservation of national models of integration is due to the presence of political and cultural national and regional features of the national community with a predominance of either civil or ethnic vectors. Differentiation of integration policies of member states is due to the presence of political and cultural differences between them in the field of national identity, citizenship and naturalization.

Convergence, capitalist diversity, or political volatility? Immigration policy in Western Europe

ABSTRACT Are immigration policies in European countries converging? Or do some countries remain more open to immigrants than others? We address these questions through an analysis of labour migration policies in five European countries from 1990 to 2016. Using an original immigration policy index (ImPol) to measure policy restrictiveness we examine whether policies have converged, to what extent immigration regimes reflect distinct ‘varieties of capitalism’, and whether national policy trajectories are shaped by domestic politics. We find little evidence of convergence; mixed evidence that immigration policy regimes reflect capitalist diversity; and strong evidence that policies respond to changes in domestic political conditions. Whilst ‘varieties of capitalism’ may set the broad parameters for immigration regimes, the direction and timing of policy changes are determined by domestic political competition.

Geographies of Confinement for Immigrant Youth: Checkpoints and Immobilities along the US/Mexico Border

The containment of immigrants along the US/Mexico border illuminates the complex spatial implications associated with the securitization of migration enforcement. The production of marginalized, carceral national spaces has particular consequences for the people who inhabit them, as processes of spatial illegality shape their daily lives. Our analyses draw on five years of ethnographic study in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Here, we focus on the experiences of sixty‐one undocumented youth, including recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, to explore how the spatial violence created by checkpoints and everyday policing practices lead to experiences of confinement and accelerate processes of social exclusion. Spillover effects occur as all inhabitants must pass through inspection points and demonstrate proof of identity and legal residency; this contributes to the reformulation of citizenship. To this, our article adds insight into how social membership is experienced at the checkpoints so that “citizenship” and “authorization” become conflated. Early childhood and youth experiences of freely crossing spaces with school programs yet living with uncertain and precarious status contribute to persistent fear, instability, and confusion under a multilayered immigration policy regime.

U.S. Immigration Policy Regimes and Physical Disability Trajectories Among Mexico-U.S. Immigrants.

Although immigration policies have shifted dramatically over the course of U.S. history, few have examined their role as a source of health heterogeneity among immigrants. We address this gap by evaluating whether exposure to U.S. Immigration Policy Regimes (IPRs) corresponds with later-life disability disparities among Mexico-U.S. migrant women and men, and assess the degree to which observed differences may also be associated with immigration policies and occupational composition. We analyze 8 waves of data from the Hispanic Established Populations for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly (3,044 individuals and 14,474 observations from 1993/1994-2013). Using hierarchical linear models, we estimate trajectories of physical disability associated with gender, occupation, and IPR. We find differences in disability trajectories by IPR. Associations are not different between men and women, and are not mediated by occupational composition. We also observe an additive effect for certain occupations among women, but not among men. Findings demonstrate that exposure to different IPRs is associated with disparate disability trajectories among Mexico-U.S. migrants. Future research is needed to contextualize the role of IPRs amid other mechanisms of gendered racialization that powerfully contribute to cumulative health differences across the life course.

Immigration-induced effects of changes in size and skill distribution of the labor force on wages in the U.S.

We isolate the effect of immigration-induced changes in the size and skill distribution of the labor force on labor market outcomes using a model in which firms endogenously respond to these changes. We analytically show that while the immigration-induced increase in the size increases the relative wages, employment and output shares of the skill intensive sector, changes in the skill distribution lead to analytically ambiguous effects. We derive quantitative results for the US economy under different counter-factual scenarios with respect to immigration-induced changes in size and skill distribution of the labor force, where these changes resemble those of U.S. as a whole, New York, California and Canada, and reflect different immigration policy regimes. For example, immigration increases the mass of workers at the lower range of the skill distribution in the U.S., and the upper range in Canada. Regardless of these differences across scenarios, our quantitative results indicate that immigration increases the relative average wages of the skill intensive sector. Further, real wages of all workers increase due to reduced prices caused by the increased size of the labor force.

Immigration policy regimes, welfare states and urban inequality patterns: A comparison between Malmö and Genoa

There is a general consensus that welfare states influence urban inequality patterns in cities experiencing increases in immigration. Whereas much of the existing research focused on the extent to which welfare states affect the well-being of immigrants after their admission, this study focuses on how immigration policy regimes affect the extent to which immigrant flows, and subsequent labour supply, match variations and fluctuations in the composition of demand in urban labour markets. In particular, the article develops a comparison between Malmö and Genoa, an Italian and a Swedish city with similar urban histories that display considerably different patterns of urban inequality. Immigration to Malmö was fuelled largely by humanitarian emergencies in the countries of origin and occurred in a period of economic decline for the city. The growth of the immigrant population was associated with a worsening of the labour market situation for immigrants and an increase in ethnic residential segregation. Immigration to Genoa was mainly driven by demand for cheap labour, particularly in the private-care sector. Therefore, the growth of the immigrant population was associated with an ethnic segmentation of the labour market, but it also resulted in a more dispersed distribution of immigrants than in Malmö. The differences in the urban inequality patterns in Malmö and Genoa can be only partly explained by policies affecting the living conditions of admitted immigrants. An important role has also been played by the immigration policy regimes of the two countries, which prescribed the integration potential of immigrant flows.

Incomplete Inclusion: Legal Violence and Immigrants in Liminal Legal Statuses

Although US political discourse suggests otherwise, no simple dichotomy separates “documented” from “undocumented” immigrants. By examining the integration prospects of immigrants in “liminal” legal standings beyond undocumented status but short of permanent residency, we demonstrate that even when they are legally present, the implementation practices of a multilayered immigration policy regime may cause them harm. Our analyses draw on 108 qualitative interviews with immigrants who have been granted humanitarian relief, includingU Visa holders, beneficiaries of theViolence againstWomenAct provisions, political asylees, andTemporaryProtectedStatus recipients. As a result of “legal violence,” these legally present immigrants remain vulnerable to blocked mobility, persistent fear of deportation, and instability, confusion, and self‐blame.

Public Opinion, Responsiveness and Constraint: Britain's Three Immigration Policy Regimes

We examine the link between public opinion and policy in the UK over the past 30 years. We show that public views about immigration are responsive to changes in immigration levels and differences between migrant groups, and that policy-makers are sensitive to these changes. Policy-makers look to respond to the public mood on migration, but face growing constraints in doing so. The interaction of public opinion, policy and constraint has produced three distinct policy regimes. In the first, from 1982 to 1997, policy-makers faced few constraints, immigration was tightly controlled and the public were unconcerned about the issue. In the second, from 1997 to 2004, migration policy was selectively liberalised in response to external and interest group pressures, producing increasing inflows and growing public demands for restriction. In the third, from 2004 to the time of writing, public demand for restriction is strong but policy-makers face significant constraints in responding. In all periods, policy-makers seek to focus restriction on the migrant streams most opposed by the public, but as they have lost discretionary power over the issue they have been forced to take action against more economically valuable and socially accepted migrant streams. The growing constraints on policy-makers have therefore sharpened the trade-off between the ‘responsive’ government of meeting public demands for immigrations restriction and the ‘responsible’ government goal of providing for the needs of a flexible, globally integrated economy.

The Reluctant Cosmopolitanization of European Party Politics: The Case of Germany

While still vastly underrepresented and lagging behind political representation in several other European democracies, more ethnic minorities and immigrants have entered the German Bundestag in 2013 than ever before. This is one of several indicators of Germany's political departure from hegemonic ethnic self-understandings, signaling the nation's complicated, partly still-contested evolution towards political self-conceptions as a “country of immigration.” A significant unanswered question is how and how far this process, which can be conceived as cosmopolitanization, has transformed party politics. This article examines the scope and causes of cosmopolitanization in three dimensions of German party politics after the 2013 Bundestag election: political discourse and programmatic positions on immigration, citizenship, identity, and ethno-cultural diversity; the policy regime of mainstream parties on immigration and the inclusion of ethnic minorities; and the fielding of minority candidates for national public office. It is argued that a belated postethnic cosmopolitanization of German party politics is primarily caused by transformed demographic realities, value change, and new electoral demands. Mainstream political parties—including the center right—have been reluctant but ultimately rational strategic agents reacting to these transformations in the electoral market. Yet, the scope and character of cosmopolitanization also depends on external and internal supply side conditions that enable parties to make programmatic changes, depolarize key issues of the immigration and citizenship policy regime, and recruit ethnic minorities for political representation. In European comparative perspective, the German case may serve as a model for theorizing the cosmopolitanization of party politics.

Moroccans' Assimilation in Spain: Family-Based Versus Labor-Based Migration

An important immigration policy question is to identify the best criteria to select among potential migrants. At least two methodological problems arise: the host country's immigration policy regime endogeneity, and immigrants' unobserved heterogeneity. To address the first problem, we focus in a country with an unprecedented immigration boom that lets immigrants freely into a country: Spain. To address the second problem, we focus on a large and homogenous group of immigrants: Moroccans. Using the 2007 Encuesta Nacional de Immigracion (ENI), we find that, even when focusing on a very homogenous group of migrants (Moroccans) who tend to be low-skilled, and after controlling for migrants' self-selection with employment history prior to and at arrival, family-based immigrants are less likely to work than their labor-based counterparts both at arrival and ten years later. Our Heckman-corrected estimates highlight that there are no monthly earnings differences by reason of arrival, and that failure to correct for labor force participation strongly biases these results.

Political Ideology and Individual-Level Attitudes Towards Immigration in the European Union: Evidence from the European Values Study, 2008/2009

Using data from the 2008/2009 wave of the European Values Study, I examine the determinants – demographic, socio-economic and ideological – of individual-level attitudes towards immigrants and of preferences over variously restrictive immigration policy regimes in the European Union (EU-27). In addition to testing the predictions of factor-proportions models with new data, I perform an innovative analysis of the role of political ideology: Using principal components analysis (PCA), I decompose political ideology along three dimensions – social traditionalism, national pride and attachment to laissez-faire views. My results confirm that predictions from factor-proportions models generally hold, but there appears to be a great deal of variation in the effect of individuals' political ideology: In the pooled EU-27 sample, higher degrees of social traditionalism, national pride and, perhaps surprisingly, stronger attachment to laissez-faire views are associated with less favorable views of immigrants, and with a higher likelihood of supporting restrictions on immigration. There is, however, a great deal of heterogeneity across countries in both the direction and magnitude of these ideological components' effects.

Moroccans’ Assimilation in Spain: Family-Based Versus Labor-Based Migration

An important immigration policy question is to identify the best criteria to select among potential migrants. At least two methodological problems arise: The host country’s immigration policy regime’s endogeneity and immigrants’ unobserved heterogeneity. To address the first problem, we focus on a country with an unprecedented immigration boom that lets immigrants freely into the country, for example Spain. To address the second problem, we focus on a large and homogenous group of immigrants: Moroccans. Using the 2007 Encuesta Nacional de Immigración (ENI), we find that family-based immigrants are less likely to work than their labor-based counterparts both upon their arrival and ten years later. This conclusion was made by focusing on a very homogenous group of migrants (Moroccans) who tend to be low-skilled, and after controlling for the migrants’ self-selection with employment history prior to and at arrival. Our Heckman-corrected estimates highlight that there are no monthly earnings differences by reason of arrival, and that failure to correct for labor force participation strongly biases these results.

Speaking of citizenship

The Dutch language has become the key technology of the Netherlands' new integration and immigration policy regime. Given the impassioned debates that accompanied language-planning policies in the 1980s, what is most remarkable about the stringent new language policy initiatives is the consensus regarding their necessity. This article analyzes the most ambitious program of the integration regime, inburgering, in the context of the transition to a post-industrial economy and the concomitant restructuring of the labor market. Introduced under the Third Way social democrats in the mid-1990s, the inburgering program was designed to produce the literate laborer of late modernity. This article traces the shift from the 'one nation, one language' ideology associated with welfare state forms of governance to the 'language as commodity' ideology promoted by the Third Way regime. I argue that the inburgering program acted as the Trojan horse of integration politics, introducing the necessity for Dutch language skills into an integration regime that has become the basis for a new politics of exclusion under the current neo-conservative administration.