Immigration Issues Research Articles

The Peacebuilding Endeavours of Daniel Oliver and the Palestine Watching Committee in Mandate Palestine, 1930–48

This paper analyses the peacebuilding efforts of the official British Religious Society of Friends representative in Mandate Palestine, Daniel Oliver, and the Palestine Watching Committee (PWC). Previously unexamined documentation stored in the Friends House library and Haverford College archives details the extensive negotiations by Oliver and the PWC, which he co-founded, to influence British, Arab and Jewish senior political and royal officials. Combining individual and collective Quaker values concerning the Peace Testimony with a deep focus on British government colonial policies proved problematic. Internal fractions developed over the conduct of British forces in Palestine and the issue of Jewish immigration. Oliver defended the British government and continued to press for peace, demonstrating how patriotism significantly influenced his own spiritually guided message, while the PWC reduced its activities and became despondent over their lack of success and the decline of the Mandate.

Violence and Migration on the Arizona-Sonora Border

2010 was a significant year for immigration issues along the United States-Mexico border. In April, Arizona signed the most extreme law against undocumented immigrants. In August, 72 hopeful migrants were massacred in Tamaulipas by alleged drug traffickers, and the Arizona desert claimed a record 252 lives in fiscal year 2010. These events were part of the trend that began with border militarization in the mid-1990s and escalated in the wake of 9/11, resulting in the extremely violent character of the undocumented border crossing experience. This is manifest, not only in the frequent reports of abuses by various actors along the border, but also in the consolidation of undocumented migration with the trafficking of narcotics. The authors have documented many cases of robbery, kidnapping, physical abuse, rape, and manipulation by drug traffickers. In this article, we discuss these different manifestations of violence by understanding both the structural constraints that create and characterize violence, as well as the individual reactions to the factors. The authors propose the conceptualization of “post structural violence” as a manner of enhancing the discussion of agency within and as a reaction to the structural conditions generated by border security and immigration policy.

How Do Coronavirus Attitudes Fit into Britain’s Ideological Landscape?

Coronavirus upended British politics in 2020 but where does it fit into the ideological map of party competition? Recent British elections have seen a shift from economic left–right competition between the major parties to competition on the cultural (liberal–authoritarian) dimension, most notably in terms of the issues of immigration and membership of the European Union. Using British Election Study data from June 2020, we find that coronavirus attitudes fall primarily onto the traditional economic left–right dimension, with left-wing voters more willing to make economic sacrifices of various types to reduce infections. However, more draconian coronavirus measures (such as fining or imprisoning those who violate the coronavirus rules) are most supported by voters who score high on authoritarianism. We show that the structure of coronavirus attitudes puts the Conservative government in a difficult position where many steps it takes to reduce infections risk alienating its core economic right-wing vote.

Implications of Brexit for Skilled Migration from India to the UK

In June 2016, the United Kingdom took the world by surprise with the results of its referendum on whether to remain in the European Union (EU). With a 52% majority, the country decided to leave the bloc in which it had been a member since 1973. With this outcome began the long process of Brexit negotiations between UK and the EU. The UK officially ceased to be an EU member on 31 January 2020, with a transition period up to the end of 2020. The decision to leave the EU came on the back of rising bitterness among people. Membership in the EU was seen as expensive and not beneficial to the country. One of the major campaigning points of the leave camp was the issue of immigration. Given that free movement of people is an important part of being in the EU, the party argued that leaving the EU would help the country take back control of its borders. Immigration in the UK has been on the rise since the early 2000s. It shot up further with the accession of the eight East European economies into the EU. Figure 1 shows how, leading up to Brexit, immigration from the EU to the UK was constantly increasing. JEL Codes: F00, F30, F22, F23

Dance and Immigration: Eliciting Empathy

ABSTRACT Wax, taffy, immigration. Removal, alien, roots, belonging. Screendance. These apparently unrelated words were the inspiration for Uprooted, a screendance project that addresses issues of immigration through movement and metaphor. Developed with a cast and crew of college students, Uprooted became the nucleus for community workshops for young dancers (ages 11–17) in Mid-Michigan. We describe our points of departure, theoretical and pedagogical underpinnings, the creative process for the screendance, the process and outcomes for our community workshops, and some parting thoughts and future directions. We found that with a six-minute film and a two-hour workshop, we could impact participants regarding immigration. Participants were able to feel-with and feel-through kinesthetic empathy. We offer this reflection as a potential model for engaging dance and immigration, but also other social justice-related topics.

Voter responses to refugee arrivals: Effects of settlement policy

AbstractIn this paper we leverage a sudden shift in refugee settlement policy to study the electoral consequences of refugee settlements. After the 2013 Norwegian parliamentary election, the newly elected right‐wing government made a concerted effort to spread newly arrived immigrants across the country, with the consequence that some municipalities with limited experience in settling refugees accepted to do so. We propose that such policy changes have political consequences, increasing the salience of immigration issues and shifting voters’ preferences to the right. We further propose that successful refugee integration can move (parts of) the electorate to the left, with stronger political polarization as a possible effect of the policy change. Applying difference‐in‐differences techniques, we find no evidence of unidirectional shifts in voter sentiments, but support for the hypothesis of stronger political polarization.

PRESUPPOSITION AND IDEOLOGY: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF JOE BIDEN’S INAUGURAL SPEECH

The 2020 U.S presidential election came with the result of Joe Biden’s victory. This research is aimed at investigating Biden’s ideology manifested in his inaugural speech which was delivered on January 20, 2021. The analysis in this research was conducted under the theory of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). In finding the ideology, the researcher worked on the microstructure level by studying the presupposition as proposed by Dijk. The result of this research shows that there are three types of presupposition present in Biden’s inaugural speech i.e. lexical, existential, and factive in which lexical presupposition appear to be the most frequent one. The analysis of the presupposition also result to the finding of Biden’s ideology manifestation towards the issue of immigrants, healthcare, racism, democracy, and climate change.

The Substance and Circumstances of Race and Immigration Talk in High School Gender and Sexuality Alliances.

Gender & Sexuality Alliances (GSAs) are school-based clubs that support youth of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. As identity-centered spaces, GSAs could also foster discussions related to race and immigration (i.e., race and immigration talk). We conducted semi-structured interviews from 2016 to 2018 with 38 GSA members (ages 13-20years old) of diverse racial/ethnic, immigrant-origin (first and second generations in the United States born of immigrant parents), sexual orientation, and gender identities. Race and immigration talk often occurred when discussing current events (e.g., the 2016 US Presidential Election). Students reported that race and immigration talk depended on representation (i.e., GSA demographics), if it was deemed personally relevant to members, and whether students perceived issues of race and immigration as part of the agenda of the GSA. Some students indicated motivation to discuss racism and nativism yet refrained from doing so due to discomfort or fear of misspeaking. Overall, youth primarily viewed the GSA as a space for LGBTQIA+-oriented discussions and support yet expressed potential for fostering productive race and immigration talk in GSAs given the ongoing US sociopolitical climate. Discussions facilitated by advisors focusing on inter-connected oppression (e.g., intersections of racism and heterosexism) and that leverage brave space discussion dynamics may help students develop competencies to engage in race and immigration talk.

Documentation status socialization among Latinx immigrant parents.

Discriminatory legislation targeting Latinx immigrants in the United States has shifted how parents communicate with their children about the hostile political climate. One way that Latinx parents talk about and prepare their children to face prejudice is through ethnic-racial socialization, which can promote children's positive development. Few scholars, however, have focused on how Latinx immigrant families with precarious documentation status socialize their children around issues of immigration, documentation status, and the potential for family separation. The current study seeks to broaden our understanding and conceptualization of ethnic-racial socialization practices among Latinx immigrant families living in the United States to include documentation status socialization to better capture the messages parents transmit to their children about the causes and potential impacts of their documentation status. Thirty-nine Latinx immigrant mothers aged 35-53 (M = 41.66), (22 undocumented, 17 documented) were interviewed regarding the ways in which their documentation status informs their ethnic-racial socialization practices. Five subthemes of Documentation Status Socialization were identified among both undocumented and documented parents. Example of subthemes included Limitations and Restrictions of Undocumented Status, and Documentation Privilege, in which parents discussed the limitation of being undocumented as well as the privilege that comes with the legal documentation status with their youth. Our findings yield important implications for practice and research alike.

POLITICAL RHETORIC RELATED TO IMMIGRATION IN THE 2017 FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN

This article discusses the political rhetoric regarding immigration and the presence of immigrants declared by the French presidential candidates in the 2017 French presidential election. The issue of immigration is one of the most important aspects of French domestic and foreign policy. The purpose of this study is to determine the perceptions and acceptance of immigrants from the 2017 French presidential candidates, and their impact on the French public. The theory used in this research is Norman Fairclough's three-dimensional models, namely the microstructural, mesostructural, and macrostructural dimensions. The data taken is the first source in the form of newspapers, online media, books, and journal articles. The results of this study indicate that the political rhetoric by presidential candidates in the 2017 French presidential election campaign forms its own identity and acceptance of immigrants in the French public view. Five French presidential candidates presented rhetoric related to immigration and the existence of immigrants with different framing according to the party ideology they adhere to. However, the rhetoric presented by presidential candidate Macron from En Marche! is more acceptable to French society than other presidential candidates.

Benefits for immigrant‐origin and nonimmigrant‐origin youth of discussing immigration in gender and sexuality alliances

AbstractIn a time of unprecedented polarization in the United States, particularly concerning immigration, schools are uniquely positioned to help students understand the consequences of drastic policy changes. Beyond formal settings such as social studies classes, extracurricular activities may be important for fostering discussions about sociohistorical and policy issues. Such discussions could serve to empower youth from marginalized populations and raise their critical consciousness. Yet the potential outcomes of discussions in these extracurricular settings have not been studied in depth. Using data collected in school‐based Gender‐and‐Sexuality‐Alliances (GSAs) throughout Massachusetts during the periods leading up to and following the 2016 US Presidential election, we examined whether discussions of immigration issues in GSAs were associated with greater empowerment and critical consciousness among 580 youth (M Age = 15.59, range = 10–20 years). Multilevel structural equation models showed that the frequency with which youth discussed immigration, relative to their fellow members, was positively associated with residualized change in perceived peer validation for members in general and with residualized change in hope for immigrant‐origin members only. Contrary to our expectations, we did not find significant associations for critical consciousness. Findings suggest how groups addressing issues of equity and justice can promote members' empowerment.

Local context and immigrant bureaucratic incorporation: insights from Amsterdam and New York City

ABSTRACT This article explains how bureaucratic inertia and resistance to accommodating immigrants were overcome in Amsterdam and New York City. Scholarship on ‘immigrant bureaucratic incorporation’ is based largely on research conducted in U.S. suburban and rural areas and tends to highlight the importance of bureaucrats’ professional ethos – at times amplified by inclusive state and federal policies. Building on this work, our examination of Amsterdam school policies and New York City language access policies underscores instead the importance of local political and civic context in explaining why and how bureaucracies responded to the needs of immigrant communities in these established gateway cities. While Amsterdam and New York City bureaucrats initially resisted accommodating immigrants’ needs largely due to big-government inertia, their interactions, synergies, and conflicts with other local governmental and nongovernmental actors active on immigrant issues eventually resulted in more inclusive school and language access policies and practices.

Fulfilling Campaign Promises or Following Public Opinion: Does the Size of the Majority Matter?

AbstractWe perform a survey experiment on the issue of immigration. People are presented with a situation where public opinion is at odds with the election promise. In our control group, no information is given about public opinion. In the treatment groups, respondents are told that 55 per cent or 80 per cent of the people are against the project. When respondents are informed about the election promise but are not told about public opinion, 64 per cent say that the party should fulfill its promise. That percentage drops to 51 per cent when people are informed that a slight majority (55 per cent) are opposed to the project and to 42 per cent when they are told that a strong majority (80 per cent) are opposed. Citizens thus believe that politicians should pay attention not only to the majority view but also to the size of that majority.

Sobre migração internacional, crianças pequenas e educação infantil: algumas questões

Este artigo tem como objetivo refletir sobre as crianças pequenas imigrantes nas instituições de educação infantil, buscando problematizar a questão da imigração, da pequena infância, do acolhimento e demais relações sociais presentes nesta etapa da educação. Para tanto, traz a produção acadêmica sobre infância e imigração, apresenta recorte de pesquisa realizada em uma Escola Municipal de Educação Infantil (EMEI), na cidade de São Paulo, entre 2018 e 2019, com crianças bolivianas, nacionalidade bastante expressiva na cidade de São Paulo. Ao final, aponta a pouca pesquisa sobre crianças pequenas imigrantes e propõe política de acolhimento e permanência destas crianças nos centros e escolas de educação infantil, derivada e em consonância com a legislação já construída pelo município.

Ethical Theories and Approaches to Immigration in the United States: A Focus on Undocumented Immigrants

The United States has dealt with issues on immigration for over a century. The largest wave of immigration before the late 20th century began in the 1870s and peaked in 1910 (Foley & Hoge, 2007). In the past few decades, the United States has dealt overwhelmingly with the issue of undocumented immigrants. This challenge has led to different approaches to immigration reform and to help regulate the influx of immigrants across its borders. Generally, however, there have been two major sets of voices indicative of the opinion of the American populace. One group has called for tighter immigration rules to prevent the easy entry of undocumented immigrants who have been branded as criminals. The other group has taken a moral and ethical stance to permit the entry of immigrants and to formulate a process for their legal residency. These two opposing views have triggered an ongoing discussion on undocumented immigrants.

“Tough on immigration”: social democratic parties, group interests and the ethnic minority vote

ABSTRACT As social democratic parties reposition themselves on immigration and integration issues to appeal to anti-immigrant voters, ethnic minority voters may switch to parties that are perceived to better protect their group interests. The Flemish social democrats in Antwerp adopted several policies that were perceived as discriminatory by ethnic minorities in response to the electoral growth of the radical right party, while the francophone social democrats in Liege faced no such threat. Evidence from the Belgian Ethnic Minority Election Study 2014 confirms that ethnic minority voters who perceive their group to be more discriminated in everyday life more likely turn to the radical left in Antwerp but not in Liège, supporting the claim that social democrats cannot adopt assimilationist integration policies unpunished. Besides, findings suggest that ethnic minorities distinguish between different group interests in evaluating parties, contributing to the study of the role of group interests in ethnic minority voting.

MEDIA AT MIGRATION CRIME AND LAW TRIANGLE: MIGRATION CITIES

In this study, based on some striking examples, migration, which is one of the biggest problems of the modern age, and the relationship of crime in expanding cities have been investigated and the impact of immigration on crime, the legal regulations in this context and the media reflections of migration and crime relations, and the legal regulations in the expanding cities via migration have been evaluated. Increasing tension, conflicts, wars, hunger, poverty, economic imbalance, oppression, inequality and unrest based on religion, sects, and culture in the world have increased migration and caused many more problems. The borders that states have determined regarding their sovereign rights over their countries have brought along problems related to the issue of immigration, although they exist throughout history. The severe violations of human rights caused by the torture and deaths experienced during the Second World War caused population mobility all over the world and as a result, the issue of migration has become an important agenda item in our recent history. While international organizations and states try to solve the problems arising from immigration with legal regulations, they cannot keep up with the pace of the problems caused by migration and the increase in crime rates. In this context, the problems faced by immigrants who take their cultural luggage with them to the destination country, especially xenophobia, make the lives of immigrants difficult and at the same time position them in the world of others. From this point of view, cities that grow with migration reach a cosmopolitan structure, if not metropolitan, and transform into places of necessary living, dissatisfaction and chaos. Unemployment, incompatibility, unrest, conflict and problems are experienced to a great extent in overgrown cities. Legal regulations have been insufficient.

Adolescents' use of online texts about US immigration: recognizing deeply personal meaning‐making

AbstractAdolescents need help locating and evaluating information about immigration that reflects a panoply of views – particularly views that have been ignored in traditional texts. The purpose of this study was to gain insight into adolescents' engagement with online texts on the topic of immigration and associated concepts as they worked to develop critical digital literacies. The research question for this study was: How do adolescents make meaning about the political issue of immigration as they engage with and respond to online texts? As a theoretical framework, we used Barthes' notions of punctum and studium to illuminate how meaning was made in moments of deep engagement versus momentary reflection. During this study, meaning was made as students (1) clarified collective understandings in small groups, (2) confirmed or contrasted using personal experiences, and (3) held conclusions against a multiplicity of conceptual understandings about immigrants and immigration. These findings illustrate the need to support adolescents, not only with multiple texts but also with multiple opportunities to consider and reconsider the texts in the context of their own experience with immigration.

Are cities ever more cosmopolitan? Studying trends in urban-rural divergence of cultural attitudes

Many scholars and pundits have argued that there is a growing urban-rural divide in political attitudes in the US and Europe. However, it is an empirical question whether and how differences in political attitudes between urban and rural areas have changed over time. In this study, we investigate the urban-rural divergence in cosmopolitan-nationalist attitudes in the Netherlands over the last four decades. We focus on attitudes towards issues of immigration, multiculturalism and European integration. We use individual-level survey data from the Dutch Parliamentary Election Study (1994–2017) and the Cultural Changes Study (1979–2016). We find consistent support for divergence on cosmopolitan-nationalist issues between inhabitants of more- and less-urbanised municipalities over the last decades in the Netherlands, also when controlling for sociodemographic composition. This divergence is mostly due to the fact that the attitudes of people in the larger cities differ increasingly from people living in other parts of the country. Trends in smaller towns and villages are very similar to those in the most rural areas.

From governmental success to governmental breakdown: how a new dimension of conflict tore apart the politics of migration of the Swedish centre-right

ABSTRACT The 2018 election made it clear the Swedish politics of migration no longer was an outlier in comparative European perspective. In this contribution, we analyse some of the reasons behind this development, which trace back a decade earlier We focus on the troubled relationship the centre-right has had with the issue of immigration and draw attention to two critical junctures in order to explain it. First, the entry of a populist radical party to the national legislature in 2010 meant immigration and integration were reframed as multi-dimensional issues, and, second, the collapse of the centre-right Alliance for Sweden in 2014 led parties with different ideologies to scramble for common ground to be able to co-operate. The move from uni- to multi-dimensional competition, along with the absence of a formal coalition, allowed dormant ideological tensions to emerge and enabled parts of the centre-right to discuss immigration and integration in distinctly socio-cultural terms. The signature solutions of the populist radical right were thereby fast-tracked into the mainstream, and the Swedish party system is likely to experience increased (ideological) turmoil in the future.