Pre-migration Period Research Articles

Bureaucracy and Immigrant Adjustment

Immigration, much as other social processes, has become increasingly bureaucratized. In the past, the immigrant's involvement in bureaucratic structures was largely limited to the pre-migration period of preparation of papers and transport and passage through customs. Thereafter, the immigrant's contact as an immigrant with formal organizations, if any, was with voluntary groups, largely ordered along ethnic lines. Advice, information and assistance was largely channeled through primary contacts throughout the immigration process.1 Without discounting the continuing significance of primary group rela? tions, there is little doubt that the contemporary immigrant is far more involved in contact with bureaucracy throughout the immigration process and well after he leaves the customs shed. This would be particularly true in those countries where the host country fosters immigration and immigrant absorption as a key policy. A number of observers have pointed out that the fact that the agencies dealing with new immigrants are bureaucratic in nature, rather than of a more informal character, can hinder the adjustment of the new immigrant.2 This is