Non-citizen Groups Research Articles

Policing Christianity in Cameroon, Nigeria, and Angola: Spiritual Incorporation as Therapy and Threat in Africa

Abstract This article investigates the work of Christian churches in Cameroon, Nigeria, and Angola among refugee, migrant, and displaced persons communities and their support of two principal undertakings that allow these groups to reconceptualize belonging and reconstitute communal identities: (1) transnational family building and (2) therapeutic forms of emotional expression and communion. This article also demonstrates how the governments of Cameroon, Nigeria, and Angola perceive such noncitizen groups’ innovative communal practices as inherently destabilizing to fragile national identities, and how state security forces work to dismantle ties of affinity and restrain or apprehend religious authorities in order to preserve social and political boundaries among increasingly diverse and composite societies.

Undocumented: An examination of legal identity and education provision for children in Malaysia.

Education is a fundamental human right. Yet there remain gaps in our understanding of undocumented children in Malaysia and their vulnerabilities in education access. This study aims to describe and contextualise undocumented children in Malaysia and their access to education. We conducted a desk review and in-depth interviews with 33 key stakeholders from June 2020 to March 2021. Framework analysis was conducted. Salient themes were geographical location and legal identity in terms of citizenship and migration status. We found that the lack of legal identity and non-recognition by the State was the root cause of vulnerability, experienced uniformly by undocumented populations in Malaysia. Only undocumented children with Malaysian parents or guardians can enter public schools under the Malaysian government's 'Zero Reject Policy'. Most undocumented and non-citizen children must rely on informal education provided by alternative or community learning centres that typically lack standardised curricula, resources, and accreditation for education progression beyond primary levels. Nevertheless, as non-citizen groups are diverse, certain groups experience more privilege, while others are more disadvantaged in terms of the quality of informal education and the highest level of education accessible. In Peninsular Malaysia, a very small proportion of refugees and asylum-seekers may additionally access tertiary education on scholarships. In Sabah, children of Indonesian migrant workers have access to learning centres with academic accreditation supported by employers in plantations and the Indonesian Consulate, whereas Filipino migrants who were initially recognised as refugees are now receiving little government or embassy support. Stateless Rohingya refugees in Peninsular Malaysia and Bajau Laut children at Sabah are arguably the most marginalised and have the poorest educational opportunities at basic literacy and numeracy levels, despite the latter receiving minimal governmental education support. Implementing a rights-based approach towards education would mean allowing all children equal opportunity to access and thrive in high-quality schools.

Canada’s Treatment of Non-Citizens through the Lens of the United Nations Individual Complaints Mechanisms

AbstractThe United Nations (UN) human rights treaty bodies play an important role in defining the scope and the nature of non-citizens’ rights. This article offers a critical overview of the UN human rights case law from 2008 to 2018 pertaining to non-citizens — notably undocumented migrants, refused asylum seekers, and permanent residents ordered deported — in Canada. It examines the jurisprudence of the three UN human rights treaty bodies recognized by Canada as having competence to receive and consider individual complaints — namely, the UN Human Rights Committee, the Committee against Torture, and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. The purpose of this examination is two-fold. First, it intends to foster a better understanding of the cases lodged by non-citizens before the UN human rights treaty bodies. The second aim is to explore the substantive issues that the UN committees’ jurisprudence on non-citizens reveals about Canada’s immigration decision-making and enforcement. It is argued that some groups of non-citizens in Canada are at risk of being deported to persecution or hardship in violation of the non-refoulement principle and Canada’s international human rights obligations. The article illuminates several loopholes identified by the UN treaty bodies in Canada’s immigration and refugee protection system that heighten the risk of refoulement.

Making Foreigners: Immigration and Citizenship Law in America, 1600–2000

In Making Foreigners, Kunal M. Parker synthesizes four hundred years of American immigration and nationality law and posits that the law marginalizes certain groups of noncitizens, particularly people of color, the poor, women, and others, in ways similar to the subordination of disfavored minorities in American social life. The book considers “the multiple processes of rendering foreign that have been at work vis-à-vis outsiders and insiders over the long span of American history” (pp. ix–x, emphasis in original). Chapter 2 summarizes seventeenth-century English conceptions of birthright citizenship and perpetual allegiance: “Most British subjects were slotted into legal statuses that meant that they shared legal disabilities with aliens when it came to voting, holding office, and even exercising rights over property” (p. 47). Chapter 3 probes the emerging conception of volitional citizenship in the fledgling United States after the American Revolution. Focusing on the pre–Civil War period, chapter 4 describes the adoption of universal white male suffrage combined with second-class citizenship for women, the poor, and free blacks, and noncitizenship for certain free blacks and Native Americans. Foreigners had limited legal rights as well. Chapter 5 analyzes the “rise of the federal immigration order” in the late 1800s with the enactment by Congress of a series of discriminatory acts known as the Chinese Exclusion Laws, which the Supreme Court immunized from ordinary constitutional review. Not surprisingly, “Chinese Americans were frequently subjected to the same treatment as Chinese immigrants” (p. 119). Chapter 6 summarizes the emergence in the early twentieth century of a system of immigration controls, including ceilings on immigration from southern and eastern Europe. Minorities already living in the United States suffered similar legal disabilities and controls. The internment of persons of Japanese ancestry, including U.S. citizens and immigrants, during World War II was “the most egregious instance of impressing non-belonging upon Asian-American citizens” (p. 179). Chapter 7 reviews the post–World War II “rights revolution,” a period when immigration and nationality laws became color-blind but, as implemented, had racially disparate impacts.