Immigration-related Issues Research Articles

Psychiatric symptom profiles of inpatient refugees in Egypt: insights from a single center study

BackgroundThe global surge in refugee populations has sparked considerable apprehension regarding their mental health. This study explores the symptom profile and associated factors among refugee patients admitted to Okasha Institute of Psychiatry, Ain Shams University, hospitals between 2018 and 2021.MethodsA retrospective analysis was conducted utilizing the medical records of refugee patients admitted to Okasha Institute of Psychiatry between 2018 and 2021. Data collection encompassed socio-demographic characteristics, diagnoses, reported stressors, and specific symptom profiles.ResultsThe study involved 36 refugee patients, averaging 26.7 years, predominantly female (61.1%), and predominantly of Sudanese origin (45.9%). Prevalent diagnoses included bipolar disorder (36.8%), schizophrenia (26.3%), and major depressive disorder (13.2%). A diverse array of stressors emerged, with immigration-related issues ranking highest (21.2%). Other noteworthy stressors comprised marital conflicts (15.2%) and house-related difficulties (15.2%).ConclusionThis study highlighted the prevalence of severe mental illnesses, varied stressors, and distinct symptom profiles in refugees with psychiatric admissions and underscored the imperative for culturally sensitive and trauma-informed mental health services. Further research is imperative to devise effective interventions and enhance the mental health outcomes of refugee populations.

Attention, shocks, and relevance judgements: the case of white nationalism in the U.S. South, 1980–2008

ABSTRACT Why do white nationalist organizations (WNOs) focus attention on the issues they do? I draw from social movement studies, organizational studies, and social psychology to explain why WNOs shift attention over time to one particular grievance domain: borders- and immigration-related issues. I propose a cognitive-environmental theory of attention shifts and argue that WNOs are more likely to shift attention to borders and immigration when there is a grievance-validating external shock that is likely to be interpreted as a threat. Using a unique dataset of digitized WNO literature between 1980 and 2008 and a combination of computational text analysis and panel models, I find that white nationalist organizations in this sample were more likely to shift attention to borders and immigration when there was a high number of non-right-wing terror threats or attacks in the U.S. in the previous year relative to the size of the organization’s non-Hispanic/Latinx community. I conclude with implications for work on attentional selection and the evolution of discursive fields.

Polish Mother and (Not) Her Children: Intersectional State-Violence against Minors in Poland

This article seeks to explain the political responsibility that Polish right-wing female politicians directly associated with the 2015–2023 Polish government and the then-ruling Law and Justice Party bear in the state-sanctioned violence against minors in the context of LGBT- and immigration-related issues. Its main assumption is that, in times of the nationalist surge that has been sweeping Poland, women using anti-LGBT and anti-immigration discourses helped to legitimize discriminatory state practices and, consequently, made a significant contribution to the enactment of white, Christian, and heteronormative identity on Polish children. Drawing upon Critical Discourse Analysis, this work examines the anti-LGBT and anti-immigration political talk by female politicians who, in their narrative strategies, adopt the position of a “Polish mother” on a mission to save a “child in danger”. Through my analysis, I aim to demonstrate that anti-LGBT and anti-immigration discourses are equally significant areas of women’s political engagement. Despite the prevalent cultural norms of caring motherhood, women do exercise their agency in political struggles as supporters of discriminatory state policies directed against minors by re-politicizing a symbolic figure of the “Polish mother”.

A war on prejudice: The role of media salience in reducing ethnic prejudice.

Ethnic prejudice poses a great challenge to the cohesion of current multicultural societies. Prior research has found that media portrayals of immigration-related issues might skew individual attitudes and feelings toward ethnic minorities. While these studies have focused on negative representations of ethnic minorities, less is known about the effects of media reports of unfortunate events affecting the victims of war, as in the case of the Ukrainian group in the Russia-Ukraine war. Therefore, the current research aims to examine whether media salience of this situation might change adolescents' ethnic prejudice against the Ukrainian minority. A total of 1016 ethnic-majority Italian adolescents (Mage = 15.66, SDage = 1.17, 49.61% females) completed online questionnaires during school hours before (T1: January/February 2022) and after (T2: April/May 2022) the Russia-Ukraine war onset. Additionally, the media salience of the war was quantified separately for the national newspaper and Twitter. Levels of prejudice significantly decreased from T1 to T2 for multiple ethnic minority groups but especially so for the Ukrainian group. The results of bivariate Latent Change Score models highlighted that increased salience of the war in the national newspaper was significantly associated with decreased prejudice against Ukrainians, regardless of adolescents' levels of self-reported newspaper consumption. Conversely, changes in the salience of the war on Twitter were not associated with changes in prejudice. These findings highlight the importance of media attention for the war's victims in skewing individuals' outgroup perceptions and feelings.

Immigration, society, and the national economy

International migration has never stopped throughout human history, no matter how large it may have been. With the advancement of globalization, immigration has become more accessible and common. The number of people residing outside of their countries of origin has reached its highest levels most recently and is still growing. According to Duncan, this growth can be partially attributed to technological advancements that make travel and communication easier, cheaper, and faster, thereby bringing global partners closer together. The migration of people between countries will naturally affect different countries in diverse ways. Since immigration is more prevalent in today's world and it’s already become a topic that cannot be ignored, researching more immigration-related issues is crucial. This paper will discuss the effects of migration on emigrating as well as immigrating countries from the viewpoints of economics and sociology. The main findings of this paper suggest that nations that receive immigrants can benefit greatly, in fact much more than nations that lose these migrants. While nations that lose migrants generally face difficulties from the exodus, they can also benefit in various other ways. In the final analysis, immigration offers a mixed bag for both sender and receiver nations.

Safe-zone schools and the academic performance of children in mixed-status households: Evidence from the 'between the lines' study.

In response to the intensification of immigration enforcement in the interior of the USA, some school districts have implemented 'safe-zone' policies to protect students' academic progression and well-being. Using primary data from a sample of US-born children of unauthorized migrants, we document the detrimental effect of stricter immigration enforcement on children's educational outcomes and the benefits of safe-zone policies. Our analyses show that restricting immigration authorities' access to schools and providing counseling on immigration-related issues are crucial policy components in strengthening children's focus, effort, expectations, parental involvement, and relationships. These findings highlight the damaging impact of immigration enforcement on US-citizen children in mixed-status households and advance our understanding of the role of local policies in mitigating these effects.

Migrants as “Objects of Care”: Immigration Coverage in Russian Media During the Covid-19 Pandemic

For over 20 years, Russia has been within the top five most attractive countries for immigrants. Before the pandemic, the federal policies that stimulated the immigration of cheap workforce contradicted the public perception and the media coverage of immigrants as problematic communities. Unlike labor immigrants, the EU refugees from the Middle East were depicted as a challenge for the disunited and unhospitable EU, and re-settlers from Donbass were portrayed highly sympathetically. These differences remain virtually unstudied. We explore the coverage of immigrants and refugees in Russia during the Covid-19 pandemic to see whether, under its impact, the coverage was equal and humanistic rather than different and politically induced. Based on content analysis of 12 Russian federal and regional textual media and four TV channels in 2020, we show that the differences described above have persisted and even intensified during the pandemic, supported by pro-state media, with only marginal counterbalancing from oppositional news outlets. The discourse about labor immigrants pragmatically focused on immigration-related problems for businesses and the state, channeling the authorities’ position on immigrants as “objects of proper care,” while the EU refugees were depicted as “objects of improper treatment.” In both discourses, immigrants were equally deprived of their subjectivity. In general, the immigration-related issues were not a major focus, especially for regional media, and the pandemic has not led to the re-humanization of immigration coverage.

Localising social work practice for migrant workers’ children in China: An action research learning from other countries

Abstract While literature abounds in studying the phenomenon of migrant workers in China and offering policy suggestions from a macro perspective, this article proposes an inspiration for clinical social workers by developing a comprehensive case management model which aims at improving the well-being of migrant workers’ children. It is argued that lessons could be learned from theories, methods and strategies to address immigration-related issues in the USA, Canada and some European countries, because migration patterns of China’s migrant workers and international immigrants are similar. An action research approach is adopted. Unstructured interviews are conducted with clinical social workers, heads of social work organisations and schoolteachers. Based on the findings, a draft version of the case management model is constructed by borrowing immigrant social work methods selectively. As licensed social workers, the authors offer case management services to migrant workers’ children and families under a social work agency’s supervision in two urban–suburban-integrated schools. In the service process, the model is finished by modifications and localisation. The revised version of the model is elaborated in four steps. In each step, specific methods for migrant workers’ children and families are presented with related case examples attached.

Disrupted Education?: A Latent Profile Analysis of Immigration-Related Distractions and Academic Engagement among Undocumented College Students

ABSTRACT Prior research has established that legal vulnerability affects undocumented students’ educational experiences. Building on this work, we examine how undocumented immigration status may disrupt academic performance through students’ behavioral engagement in their coursework. Drawing on a survey of nearly 1,277 undocumented college students in California, we use latent profile analysis to identify student profiles based on their experiences of immigration-related distractions. We then assess the role of self and family demographics on profile membership, and the relationship between immigration-related distraction profiles and students’ behavioral engagement outcomes. We identify five distraction profiles that indicate a wide variation in frequency of immigration-related distractions and suggest that these distractions result from both students’ own and their parents’ immigration-related issues. These distractions are consequential as students with more frequently distracted profiles are more likely to report negative behavioral engagement outcomes. Ultimately, we argue that academic distractions and behavioral disengagement are key ways in which legal vulnerability disrupts the academic success and educational experiences of undocumented students.

A country of immigrants no more? The securitization of immigration in the National Security Strategies of the United States of America

ABSTRACT This article studies the securitization of immigration in the United States of America (U.S.), through the analysis of the National Security Strategies (NSS) published between 2002 and 2017, using a two-layered analytical framework that combines securitization theory and agenda setting theory. A discursive analysis of each NSS documents shed some light on how immigration and immigration-related issues emerged, were removed or were prioritized in the security agenda, and how they were framed (or not) as threats. Different contexts in which these documents were published were also taken into consideration, including major crisis or “shocks,” as well as political or institutional changes. The article also considered shifts in the conception of American identity, and the prevailing public opinion on immigration. The main findings demonstrate that the securitization of immigration should be understood as a dynamic process that depends on a variety of factors that change over time.

The impact of empathy and perspective-taking instructions on proponents and opponents of immigration

In many societies, immigration is a conflictual topic, leading to heated exchanges between proponents and opponents of immigration. Such debates on immigration might benefit from the engagement of the discussants in empathy and perspective taking. Although empathy and perspective-taking exercises can be beneficial in some contexts, previous research shows marked differences in people with a rightist versus a leftist political orientation when it comes to their motivation to engage in empathy. The degree to which this applies to perspective taking and to the context of debates on immigration has not yet been tested. The current study, conducted in Switzerland, tested how proponents or opponents of immigration react to instructions for empathy and perspective taking in debates on immigration. The results reveal that, compared with participants in the control condition who had no instructions, proponents of immigration who received instructions were more motivated or willing to engage in empathy and perspective taking. Furthermore, proponents of immigration showed decreases in their positive and negative emotions under the perspective-taking instructions. Conversely, for opponents of immigration, perspective-taking instructions increased their perception of other’s competitiveness compared with participants in the control condition. Taken together, these results underline the importance of taking an individual’s views on immigration into account when implementing interventions for conflict resolution in immigration-related issues.

Intimate Partner Violence Prevention and Intervention Group-Format Programs for Immigrant Latinas: a Systematic Review.

Immigrant Latinas (IL) experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) often experience barriers to accessing formal support systems due to immigration-related issues (e.g., fear of deportation, language proficiency, lack of family support in the U.S.). This paper contains a systematic review of peer-reviewed published articles within the past 25 years addressing IPV prevention and intervention programming designed for this vulnerable population. We examined specific group-format programs and curricula conducted at community-based agencies with social services across the country. Qualitative analysis of the 10 articles that met search criteria (i.e., programs must be culturally specific, designed to serve IL, conducted in group-format, focused on IPV intervention or prevention) generated information regarding the nature of group interventions addressing this issue and population. Several themes emerged upon completion of the qualitative review describing key characteristics of each intervention. All reviewed articles reported generally positive outcomes using a variety of methods. Studies using quantitative methods found statistically significant outcomes for constructs including depression, self-esteem, and knowledge of wellness. Professionals from diverse practice settings working with IL would likely benefit by developing intervention and prevention group-format programming to address this problem.

“They Threatened to Call Immigration”: Challenges Faced by Civil Protection Order Applicants and Respondents

The current study seeks to better understand the challenges faced by immigrant applicants and respondents as they enter the civil court system for the purpose of obtaining protection orders. Structured observations of protection order hearings in a civil court are analyzed and include cases in which immigration-related issues were discussed. Through qualitative data analysis, three themes emerged. These include (1) threats of parental kidnapping and child abduction across country borders; (2) concerns over legal immigration documents; and (3) worries and/or threats of deportation. Findings suggest that battered immigrant victims have an acute vulnerability to experiencing multiple types of abuse. Implications for future research directions, policy recommendations, and strategies for improving the experiences of battered immigrants within the civil court system are also discussed.

Beyond access: Psychosocial barriers to undocumented students’ use of mental health services

RationaleLittle is known about how undocumented immigrants navigate healthcare utilization issues apart from access. ObjectiveWe examine a unique population of undocumented immigrants who have access to healthcare - college students at the University of California - to identify how immigration status hinders mental health service utilization in the absence of barriers related to eligibility and insurance coverage. MethodWe conducted semistructured interviews between March and July 2017 with 30 undocumented students at a University of California campus. ResultsWe argue that undocumented immigration status informs mental health-related illness cognitions to negatively affect students' ability to assess their own mental health and need for services. Students expressed low perceived need because they normalized mental strain as a natural product of their unstable immigration status. Many viewed treatment as futile because it could not address underlying immigration-related issues. They also anticipated stigmas associated with mental illness as well as their own undocumented status. ConclusionSolutions to address utilization disparities must go beyond eliminating formal barriers to health access and address such psychosocial barriers, as well as the larger political and social context that produces them.

Moral and Affective Differences in U.S. Immigration Policy Debate on Twitter

Understanding ideological conflict has been a topic of interest in CSCW, for example in Value Sensitive Design research. More specifically, understanding ideological conflict is important for studying social media platforms like Twitter, which provide the ability for people to freely express their thoughts and opinions on contentious political events. In this work, we examine Twitter data to understand the moral, affective, and cognitive differences in language use between two opposing sides of the political debate over immigration related issues in the United States in the year since the 2016 presidential election. In total, we analyzed and compared the language of 45,045 pro-immigration tweets and 11,213 anti-immigration tweets spread across this period. Based on Moral Foundations Theory used to understand ideological conflict, we found pro-immigration tweets to contain more language associated with moral foundations of harm, fairness, and loyalty. Anti-immigration tweets contained more language associated with moral foundations of authority, more words associated with cognitive rigidity and more 3rd person pronouns and negative emotion. We discuss the implications of our research for political communication over social media, and for incorporating Moral Foundations Theory into other CSCW research. We discuss the potential application of this theory for Value Sensitive Design research.

The Political Incorporation of Undocumented Youth

AbstractThis article develops and empirically tests a model of political incorporation for undocumented youth in the United States, focusing on nonvoting forms of political engagement. Using one of the first nationwide surveys of undocumented millennials between the ages of 18 and 35 (n = 1,472), we show that (1) undocumented youth express much higher levels of political efficacy and participation than the literature on immigrant political incorporation leads us to expect, (2) membership in organizations that work on immigration-related issues is a main determinant of this sense of political efficacy, and (3) through mediation analysis, that organizational membership (the mediator) influences how political efficacy affects political participation, and not the other way around. The literature on immigrant political incorporation is vast, but precedent studies too often focus on formal acts of political participation, such as naturalization and voting, by those with lawful immigration status. With an analytical focus on youth without lawful immigration status, this article contributes to theoretical and empirical knowledge about how and to what extent undocumented youth become politically active and engaged despite the many obstacles that exist to their formal participation in politics.

Twenty Years after IIRIRA: The Rise of Immigrant Detention and its Effects on Latinx Communities across the Nation

This paper studies the dynamics of detention, deportation, and the criminalization of immigrants. We ground our analyses and discussion around the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996's (IIRIRA's) detention mandate, the role of special interest groups and federal policies. We argue that these special interest groups and major federal policies have come together to fuel the expansion of immigrant detention to unprecedented levels. Moreover, we aim to incite discussion on what this rapid growth in detention means for human rights, legislative representation and democracy in the United States. This study analyzes two main questions: What is the role of special interests in the criminalization of immigrants? And does the rapid increase in detention pose challenges or risks to democracy in the United States? Our study is grounded within the limited, yet growing literature on immigrant detention, government data, and “gray” literature produced by nonprofits and organizations working on immigration-related issues. We construct a unique dataset using this literature and congressional reports to assess what factors are associated with the rise of immigrant detention. A series of correlations and a time series regression analysis reveal that major restrictive federal immigration policies such as IIRIRA, along with the increasing federal immigration enforcement budget, have had a significant impact on immigrant detention rates. Based on these findings, we recommend three central policy actions. First, the paper recommends increased transparency and accountability on behalf of the Department of omeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and on lobbying expenditures from for-profit detention corporations. Second, it argues for the repeal of mandatory detention laws. These mandatory laws have led to the further criminalization and marginalization of undocumented immigrants. And lastly, it argues that repeal of the Congressional bed mandate would allow for the number of detainees to mirror actual detention needs, rather than providing an incentive to detain. However, we anticipate that the demand for beds will increase even more given the current administration's push for the criminalization and increased arrests of undocumented individuals. The rhetoric used by the present administration further criminalizes immigrants. 1

Strangers No More: Immigration and the Challenges of Integration in North America and Western Europe. By Richard Alba and Nancy Foner. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015. Pp. 336. $35.00 (cloth); $24.95 (paper).

Strangers No More: Immigration and the Challenges of Integration in North America and Western Europe. By Richard Alba and Nancy Foner. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015. Pp. 336. $35.00 (cloth); $24.95 (paper).

How people organise cultural attitudes: cultural belief systems and the populist radical right

Political scientists generally agree that all individuals structure their cultural attitudes in the same unidimensional fashion. However, various populist radical right parties remarkably combine moral progressiveness with conservatism regarding immigration-related issues. This suggests that the structuring of cultural attitudes among the electorate may also be more complex than typically assumed. Applying Correlational Class Analysis to representative survey data, the study uncovers three cultural belief systems. For individuals adhering to an integrated one, all cultural attitudes are interdependent, as typically assumed. However, two alternative belief systems are also uncovered: intermediate and partitioned. In the latter, positions on one cultural attitude (e.g. ethnocentrism) are barely related to positions on others (e.g. rejecting Islam or opposing homosexuality). The existence of multiple cultural belief systems challenges the widely held assumption that all people organise their cultural attitudes similarly. Both political party agendas and individuals’ education level and religion appear key to understanding variation in belief systems.

Ethnic and immigrant politics vs. mainstream politics: the role of ethnic organizations in shaping the political participation of immigrant-origin individuals in Europe

ABSTRACTPrevious scholarship has reported contradictory results regarding the impact of involvement by immigrant-origin individuals (IOIs) in ethnic organizations on political participation. In this article, we assess the effect of involvement in different types of organizations (ethnic, pan-immigrant and native) on participation in various types of political activities. We use cross-national micro-data from a population survey undertaken in 2004–2008 to IOIs in nine European cities. Our findings indicate that ethnic organizations perform an integrative function for IOIs in the political sphere, but they mainly affect participation linked to immigration-related issues concerning specific ethnic groups and IOIs. Moreover, most effects of involvement in ethnic organizations on the different types of political participation examined are similar in closed and in open political opportunity structures (POS). We only find evidence that involvement in ethnic organizations depresses conventional political action in open POS settings while it increases political action in closed POS settings.