migration essay on

2021 Theses Doctoral

Three Essays on International Migration

Huang, Xiaoning

Today, there are about 250 million international migrants globally, and the number is increasing each year. Immigrants have contributed to the global economy, bridged cultural and business exchanges between host and home countries, and increased ethnic, racial, social, and cultural diversity in the host societies. Immigrants have also been overgeneralized about, misunderstood, scapegoated, and discriminated against. Understanding what drives international migration, who migrate, and how immigrants fare in destination has valuable theoretical, practical, and policy implications. This dissertation consists of three essays on international immigration. The first paper aims to test a series of immigration theories by studying immigrant skill-selection into South Africa and the United States. Most of the research on the determinants of immigrant skill selection has been focusing on immigrants in the United States and other developed destination countries. However, migration has been growing much faster in recent years between developing countries. This case study offers insights into the similarities and differences of immigration theories within the contexts of international migration into South Africa and the US. This project is funded by the Hamilton Research Fellowship of Columbia School of Social Work. The second paper narrows down the focus onto Asian immigrants in the United States, studying how the skill-selection of Asian immigrants from different regions has evolved over the past four decades. Asian sending countries have experienced tremendous growth in their economy and educational infrastructure. The rapid development provides an excellent opportunity to test the theories on the associations between emigrants’ skill-selection and sending countries’ income, inequality, and education level. On the other hand, during the study period, the United States has had massive expansion employment-based immigration system, followed by cutbacks in immigration policies. I study the association between immigration patterns and these policies to draw inferences on how the changes in immigration policies have affected the skill selection of Asian immigrants. This research is funded by Columbia University Weatherhead East Asia Institute’s Dorothy Borg Research Program Dissertation Research Fellowship. The third paper centers on the less-educated immigrant groups in the US and investigates the gap in welfare use between less-educated immigrant and native households during 1995-2018, spanning periods of economic recessions and recoveries, changes in welfare policy regimes, and policies towards immigrants. I use “decomposition analysis” to study to what extend demographic factors, macroeconomic trends, and welfare and immigration policy could explain the disparities in welfare participation between immigrants and natives. This paper is co-authored with Dr. Neeraj Kaushal from Columbia School of Social Work and Dr. Julia Shu-Huah Wang from the University of Hong Kong. The work has been published in Population Research and Policy Review (doi.org/10.1007/s11113-020-09621-8).

Geographic Areas

• South Africa
• United States
• Social service
• Immigrants--Economic aspects
• Immigrants--Social conditions
• Race discrimination
• Immigrants--Education

More About This Work

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World history

Course: world history   >   unit 3, causes and effects of human migration.

• Key concepts: Human Migration
• Focus on causation: Human migration
• Migration is the movement of people from one place to another with the intent to settle
• Causes: In preindustrial societies, environmental factors, such as the need for resources due to overpopulation, were often the cause of migration
• Effects: As people migrated, they brought new plants, animals, and technologies that had effects on the environment

Causes of migration

• (Choice A)   Temporary movement that follows seasonal weather patterns A Temporary movement that follows seasonal weather patterns
• (Choice B)   Movement to a new region with the intent to settle there B Movement to a new region with the intent to settle there
• (Choice C)   Continuous movement to follow resources C Continuous movement to follow resources

Causes of migration in Africa

Causes of migration in the pacific.

• (Choice A)   Iron farming tools and weapons A Iron farming tools and weapons
• (Choice B)   Long-term food preservation techniques B Long-term food preservation techniques
• (Choice C)   Types of canoes that could sail in the open ocean C Types of canoes that could sail in the open ocean

Effects of migration

• (Choice A)   Rats eating eggs and greatly reducing the bird population A Rats eating eggs and greatly reducing the bird population
• (Choice B)   Intense storms that altered the landscape of the island B Intense storms that altered the landscape of the island
• (Choice C)   Human activity, such as hunting and cutting down trees C Human activity, such as hunting and cutting down trees
• Jerry Bentley, et al, Traditions and Encounters , Vol. 1 (New York: McGraw Hill, 2015), 284.
• Douglas L. Oliver, Polynesia in Prehistoric Times (Honolulu: Bess Press, 2002), 32-35.
• Oliver, 232, 239.

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Apr 10, 2023

How To Write Essays About Immigration (With Examples)

Immigrants bring diverse perspectives and skills that can enrich our societies and economies. If you want to gain insight into the impact of immigration on society and culture, keep reading!

Immigration, a subject deeply woven into the fabric of global discussions, touches on political, economic, and social nuances. As globalization propels many to seek new horizons, understanding the multifaceted impacts of migration is crucial. Crafting a compelling essay on such a vast topic requires more than just research; it demands the delicate weaving of insights into a coherent narrative. For those keen on delivering a polished essay on immigration, considering assistance from a reliable essay writing tool can be a game-changer. This tool not only refines the craft of writing but ensures your perspectives on immigration are articulated with clarity and precision.

Here are our Top 5 Essay Examples and Ideas about Immigration:

The economic impact of immigration on host countries, introduction.

In many nations, immigration has been a hotly debated issue, with supporters and opponents disputing how it would affect the home nation. The economic impact of immigration on host countries is one of the essential components of this discussion. Immigration's economic effects may be favorable or harmful, depending on many circumstances.

This article will examine the economic effects of immigration on the receiving nations, examining both the advantages and disadvantages that immigration may have. You will better know how immigration impacts a nation's economy and the variables that influence it after this article.

Immigration's effects on labor markets

An essential component of the total economic impact of immigration is how it affects labor markets. Immigration may affect labor markets, including shifting labor supply and demand, opening new job possibilities, and perhaps affecting local employees' earnings and prospects. This section will examine how immigration affects labor markets in receiving nations.

The shift in the labor supply is one of immigration's most apparent effects on labor markets. When more employees are available in the host nation due to immigration, there may be more competition for open positions. In fields that serve immigrant populations, such as ethnic food shops or language schools, immigrants can also generate new jobs.

Another significant impact of immigration on labor markets is its effect on wages and income distribution. Some studies have suggested that immigration can reduce wages for native workers, particularly those who are less educated or have lower skill levels. 

Immigrants can also contribute to economic growth and innovation, which can positively impact labor markets. Immigrants often have unique skills, experiences, and perspectives that can help drive innovation and create new job opportunities in the host country. Furthermore, immigrants are often more entrepreneurial and more likely to start businesses, which can generate new jobs and contribute to economic growth.

The effect of immigration on wages and income distribution

The effect of immigration on wages and income distribution is a crucial area of concern in the overall economic impact of immigration. Immigration can affect wages and income distribution in various ways, which can have significant implications for both native workers and immigrants. In this section, we will explore the effect of immigration on wages and income distribution in host countries.

One of the primary ways that immigration can impact wages and income distribution is by changing the supply and demand of labor. With an influx of immigrants, the labor supply increases, which can lead to increased competition for jobs. Some studies suggest that immigration harms wages for native workers, while others offer no significant effect.

Another way that immigration can impact wages and income distribution is through its effect on the composition of the workforce. Immigrants often fill low-skilled jobs in industries such as agriculture, construction, and hospitality, which tend to pay lower wages. 

Immigration can also impact income distribution by contributing to the overall level of economic inequality in a host country. While immigration can lead to lower wages for some native workers, it can also lead to higher wages and increased economic mobility for some immigrants. Furthermore, immigrants may face various barriers to upward mobility, such as discrimination or lack of access to education and training. This can lead to increased income inequality between native and immigrant workers.

The contribution of immigrants to economic growth and innovation

Immigrants have historically played a significant role in driving economic growth and innovation in host countries. In this section, we will explore the contribution of immigrants to economic growth and innovation and the factors that enable them to do so.

One of the primary ways that immigrants contribute to economic growth is through their entrepreneurial activities. Immigrants are often more likely to start their businesses than native-born individuals, and these businesses can create jobs and drive economic growth. Immigrant entrepreneurs have contributed to developing industries such as technology, healthcare, and hospitality. Additionally, immigrants are often overrepresented in STEM fields, which is critical to driving innovation and economic growth.

Another way that immigrants contribute to economic growth is through their impact on the labor force. Immigrants tend to be more mobile than native-born individuals, which can lead to a more flexible and adaptable workforce. Immigrants also tend to fill critical roles in industries such as healthcare and agriculture, which are essential to maintaining the functioning of the economy. By filling these roles, immigrants contribute to the overall productivity and growth of the economy.

The costs and benefits of social welfare programs for immigrants

The issue of social welfare programs for immigrants has been a controversial topic in many host countries. In this section, we will explore the costs and benefits of social welfare programs for immigrants and the policy implications.

One of the primary benefits of social welfare programs for immigrants is that they can help reduce poverty and promote social inclusion. Immigrants often face significant barriers to economic mobility, such as language barriers and discrimination. Social welfare programs can help provide a safety net for those struggling to make ends meet and promote social cohesion by reducing inequalities.

However, social welfare programs for immigrants also come with costs. One concern is that these programs may attract immigrants primarily seeking to access social welfare benefits rather than contributing to the economy. This can strain public finances and create resentment among native-born individuals who feel their tax dollars are being used to support immigrants.

Another concern is that social welfare programs may create disincentives for immigrants to work and contribute to the economy. If the benefits of social welfare programs are too generous, some immigrants may choose to rely on them rather than seek employment. This can create long-term dependence and reduce overall economic productivity.

The impact of immigration on public finances and fiscal policies

The effect of immigration on public finances and fiscal policies is a topic of significant interest and debate. This section will explore how immigration affects public finances and how host countries can implement budgetary policies to manage the impact.

One way that immigration can impact public finances is through taxes. Immigrants who are employed and pay taxes can contribute to the tax base of the host country, which can provide additional revenue for public services and infrastructure. However, immigrants who are not employed or earn low wages may contribute fewer taxes, which can strain public finances. 

Fiscal policies can be used to manage the impact of immigration on public finances. One guideline is to increase taxes on immigrants to offset the costs of public services they use. However, this can create a disincentive for highly skilled and educated immigrants to migrate to the host country. Another policy is to increase spending on public services to accommodate the needs of immigrants. However, this can strain public finances and lead to resentment among native-born individuals who feel their tax dollars are being used to support immigrants.

In conclusion, the economic impact of immigration is a complex issue with both costs and benefits for host countries. Immigration can impact labor markets, wages and income distribution, economic growth and innovation, social welfare programs, public finances, and fiscal policies. 

The social and cultural implications of immigration

Immigration has social and cultural implications that affect both immigrants and host countries. The movement of people from one place to another can result in a blending of cultures, traditions, and ideas. At the same time, immigration can also result in social and cultural tensions as different groups struggle to integrate and adjust to new environments. 

The social and cultural implications of immigration have become increasingly important in today's globalized world as the movement of people across borders has become more common. In this article, we will explore the various social and cultural implications of immigration and how they impact immigrants and host communities.

The impact of immigration on social cohesion and integration

Immigration has a significant impact on social cohesion and integration in host countries. Social cohesion refers to the degree to which members of a society feel connected and share a sense of belonging. In contrast, integration refers to the process by which immigrants become a part of the host society. Immigration can either enhance or hinder social cohesion and integration, depending on how it is managed and perceived by the host society.

Another factor that can impact social cohesion and integration is the level of diversity within the host society. Increased diversity can lead to greater cultural exchange and understanding but also social tensions and the formation of segregated communities. Promoting social interaction and cooperation among diverse groups can help mitigate these tensions and promote social cohesion.

The perception of immigrants by the host society also plays a significant role in social cohesion and integration. Negative stereotypes and discriminatory attitudes can hinder integration and create barriers to social cohesion. On the other hand, positive attitudes towards immigrants and their contributions to society can facilitate integration and promote social cohesion.

The role of language and communication in the integration of immigrants

Language and communication play a crucial role in integrating immigrants into host societies. Immigrants may need the ability to communicate effectively with others to overcome significant barriers to social and economic integration. Language and communication skills are essential for accessing education, finding employment, and participating in civic life.

Language is one of the primary barriers immigrants face when integrating into a new society. Without proficiency in the host country's language, immigrants may struggle to understand instructions, participate in conversations, and access essential services. This can lead to social isolation and hinder economic opportunities.

Language training programs are one way to address this issue. Effective language training programs can help immigrants learn the host country's language and develop the communication skills necessary for successful integration. These programs can also give immigrants the cultural knowledge and understanding essential to navigate the host society.

The effect of immigration on cultural diversity and identity

Immigration can significantly impact the cultural diversity and identity of both host societies and immigrant communities. The cultural exchange resulting from immigration can enrich societies and provide opportunities for learning and growth. However, immigration can also pose challenges to preserving cultural identities and maintaining social cohesion.

One of the primary ways in which immigration affects cultural diversity and identity is through the introduction of new customs, traditions, and beliefs. Immigrant communities often bring unique cultural practices, such as food, music, and art, that can enhance the cultural landscape of the host society. Exposure to new cultures can broaden the perspectives of individuals and communities, leading to greater tolerance and understanding.

The challenges and benefits of multiculturalism in host countries

Multiculturalism refers to the coexistence of different cultural groups within a society. It is a concept that has become increasingly important in modern societies characterized by race, ethnicity, religion, and language diversity. 

Multiculturalism is often promoted to promote tolerance, social cohesion, and the celebration of diversity. 

Challenges of multiculturalism

Multiculturalism presents a range of challenges that can impact host societies. These challenges include social division, discrimination, language barriers, and cultural clashes. For example, when immigrants share different values or traditions than the host society, this can lead to misunderstandings and conflict. Similarly, language barriers can limit communication and make it difficult for immigrants to integrate into the host society.

Benefits of multiculturalism

Multiculturalism can also bring a range of benefits to host societies. These benefits include increased cultural awareness and sensitivity, economic growth, and exchanging ideas and perspectives. For example, cultural diversity can provide opportunities for host societies to learn from different cultural practices and approaches to problem-solving. This can lead to innovation and growth.

Social cohesion

Social cohesion refers to the ability of a society to function harmoniously despite differences in culture, ethnicity, religion, and language. Multiculturalism can pose a challenge to social cohesion, but it can also promote it. Host societies can foster social cohesion by promoting the acceptance and understanding of different cultural groups. This can be achieved through policies and programs that promote intercultural dialogue, education, and community-building.

Discrimination and prejudice

Multiculturalism can also increase the risk of discrimination and prejudice. Discrimination can take many forms, including racial, religious, and cultural bias. Host societies can combat discrimination by implementing anti-discrimination laws and policies and promoting diversity and inclusion.

Economic benefits

Multiculturalism can also bring economic benefits to host societies. The presence of a diverse range of skills and talents can lead to innovation and economic growth. Immigrants can also get various skills and experiences contributing to the host society's economic development.

In conclusion, immigration has significant social and cultural implications for both host countries and immigrants. It affects social cohesion, integration, cultural diversity, and identity. Host countries face challenges and benefits of multiculturalism, including economic growth, innovation, and social change.

The role of immigration in shaping national identity

Immigration has always been a significant driver of cultural and social change, with immigrants often bringing their unique identities, values, and traditions to their new homes. As a result, immigration can play a crucial role in shaping national identity, as it challenges existing cultural norms and values and introduces new ideas and perspectives. 

In this article, we will explore the role of immigration in shaping national identity, including its effects on cultural diversity, social cohesion, and political discourse. We will also discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by immigration to national identity and the importance of embracing a diverse and inclusive national identity in today's globalized world.

Immigration and the evolution of national identity

The relationship between immigration and national identity is complex, as immigration can challenge and reinforce existing national identities. As immigrants bring new cultural practices and values, they challenge the existing norms and values of the host society, prompting a re-evaluation of what it means to be part of that society. This can create a more inclusive and diverse national identity as different cultural traditions and practices are recognized and celebrated.

At the same time, the influx of new immigrants can also create a sense of fear and anxiety among some members of the host society, who may view the changes brought about by immigration as a threat to their cultural identity. This can lead to calls for stricter immigration policies and a more limited definition of national identity, which can exclude or marginalize certain groups.

The role of immigrants in shaping cultural diversity

Immigrants have played a significant role in shaping cultural diversity in many countries. Their arrival in a new land brings their customs, traditions, beliefs, and practices, which contribute to society's richness and vibrancy. 

One of the key ways in which immigrants have shaped cultural diversity is through their contributions to the local community. Immigrants bring a wealth of knowledge, skills, and talents that can benefit the societies they move to. For example, they may introduce new cuisines, music, art, and literature that add to the cultural landscape of their new home. This can create a more diverse and inclusive society where different cultures are celebrated and appreciated.

Another important aspect of cultural diversity is the challenges immigrants face when adapting to a new culture. Moving to a new country can be a daunting experience, especially if the culture is vastly different from one's own. Immigrants may struggle with language barriers, cultural norms, and social customs that are unfamiliar to them. This can lead to feelings of isolation and exclusion, which can negatively impact their mental health and well-being.

The challenges of maintaining social cohesion amidst diversity

Strengthening social cohesion amidst diversity is a complex challenge many societies face today. Cultural, ethnic, religious, and language diversity can lead to tensions and conflicts if managed poorly. 

One of the main challenges of maintaining social cohesion amidst diversity is the need to balance the interests of different groups. This involves recognizing and respecting the cultural, religious, and linguistic diversity of society while also promoting a sense of shared identity and common values. This can be particularly challenging in contexts with competing interests and power imbalances between different groups.

Another challenge is the need to address discrimination and prejudice. Discrimination can take many forms, including unequal access to education, employment, housing, hate speech, and violence. Prejudice and stereotypes can also lead to social exclusion and marginalization of certain groups. Addressing these issues requires a concerted effort from the government, civil society, and individuals to promote tolerance and respect for diversity.

Promoting inclusive policies is another crucial factor in maintaining social cohesion amidst diversity. This includes policies promoting equal opportunities for all, regardless of background. This can involve affirmative action programs, targeted social policies, and support for minority groups. Inclusive policies can also create a sense of belonging and ownership among different groups, which helps foster social cohesion.

In conclusion, immigration profoundly influences the formation of national identity. As individuals from various backgrounds merge into a new country, they not only introduce their distinct cultural and ethnic traits but also embark on a journey of personal growth and adaptation. This process mirrors the development of key skills such as leadership, character, and community service, essential for thriving in diverse environments. These attributes are not only vital for immigrants as they integrate into society but are also exemplified in successful National Honor Society essays , where personal growth and societal contribution are celebrated. Thus, the experiences of immigrants significantly enrich the societal tapestry, reflecting in our collective values, beliefs, and practices.

To sum it all up:

To recapitulate writing a five-paragraph essay about immigration can be challenging, but with the right approach and resources, it can be a rewarding experience. Throughout this article, we have discussed the various aspects of immigration that one can explore in such an essay, including the economic impact, social and cultural implications, and the evolution of national identity. 

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Eight brilliant student essays on immigration and unjust assumptions.

Read winning essays from our winter 2019 “Border (In)Security” student writing contest.

For the winter 2019 student writing competition, “Border (In)Security,” we invited students to read the YES! Magazine article “Two-Thirds of Americans Live in the “Constitution-Free Zone” by Lornet Turnbull and respond with an up-to-700-word essay. 

Students had a choice between two writing prompts for this contest on immigration policies at the border and in the “Constitution-free zone,” a 100-mile perimeter from land and sea borders where U.S. Border Patrol can search any vehicle, bus, or vessel without a warrant. They could state their positions on the impact of immigration policies on our country’s security and how we determine who is welcome to live here. Or they could write about a time when someone made an unfair assumption about them, just as Border Patrol agents have made warrantless searches of Greyhound passengers based simply on race and clothing.

The Winners

From the hundreds of essays written, these eight were chosen as winners. Be sure to read the author’s response to the essay winners and the literary gems that caught our eye.

Middle School Winner: Alessandra Serafini

High School Winner: Cain Trevino

High School Winner: Ethan Peter

University Winner: Daniel Fries

Powerful Voice Winner: Emma Hernandez-Sanchez

Powerful Voice Winner: Tiara Lewis

Powerful Voice Winner: Hailee Park

Powerful Voice Winner: Aminata Toure

From the Author Lornet Turnbull

Literary Gems

Middle school winner.

Alessandra Serafini

Brier Terrace Middle School, Brier, Wash.

Broken Promises

“…Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

These words were written by Emma Lazarus and are inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty. And yet, the very door they talk about is no longer available to those who need it the most. The door has been shut, chained, and guarded. It no longer shines like gold. Those seeking asylum are being turned away. Families are being split up; children are being stranded. The promise America made to those in need is broken.

Not only is the promise to asylum seekers broken, but the promises made to some 200 million people already residing within the U.S. are broken, too. Anyone within 100 miles of the United States border lives in the “Constitution-free zone” and can be searched with “reasonable suspicion,” a suspicion that is determined by Border Patrol officers. The zone encompasses major cities, such as Seattle and New York City, and it even covers entire states, such as Florida, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. I live in the Seattle area, and it is unsettling that I can be searched and interrogated without the usual warrant. In these areas, there has been an abuse of power; people have been unlawfully searched and interrogated because of assumed race or religion.

The ACLU obtained data from the Customs and Border Protection Agency that demonstrate this reprehensible profiling. The data found that “82 percent of foreign citizens stopped by agents in that state are Latino, and almost 1 in 3 of those processed are, in fact, U.S. citizens.” These warrantless searches impede the trust-building process and communication between the local population and law enforcement officers. Unfortunately, this lack of trust makes campaigns, such as Homeland Security’s “If You See Something, Say Something,” ineffective due to the actions of the department’s own members and officers. Worst of all, profiling ostracizes entire communities and makes them feel unsafe in their own country.

Ironically, asylum seekers come to America in search of safety. However, the thin veil of safety has been drawn back, and, behind it, our tarnished colors are visible. We need to welcome people in their darkest hours rather than destroy their last bit of hope by slamming the door in their faces. The immigration process is currently in shambles, and an effective process is essential for both those already in the country and those outside of it. Many asylum seekers are running from war, poverty, hunger, and death. Their countries’ instability has hijacked every aspect of their lives, made them vagabonds, and the possibility of death, a cruel and unforgiving death, is real. They see no future for their children, and they are desperate for the perceived promise of America—a promise of opportunity, freedom, and a safe future. An effective process would determine who actually needs help and then grant them passage into America. Why should everyone be turned away? My grandmother immigrated to America from Scotland in 1955. I exist because she had a chance that others are now being denied.

Emma Lazarus named Lady Liberty the “Mother of Exiles.” Why are we denying her the happiness of children? Because we cannot decide which ones? America has an inexplicable area where our constitution has been spurned and forgotten. Additionally, there is a rancorous movement to close our southern border because of a deep-rooted fear of immigrants and what they represent. For too many Americans, they represent the end of established power and white supremacy, which is their worst nightmare. In fact, immigrants do represent change—healthy change—with new ideas and new energy that will help make this country stronger. Governmental agreement on a humane security plan is critical to ensure that America reaches its full potential. We can help. We can help people in unimaginably terrifying situations, and that should be our America.

Alessandra Serafini plays on a national soccer team for Seattle United and is learning American Sign Language outside of school. Her goal is to spread awareness about issues such as climate change, poverty, and large-scale political conflict through writing and public speaking.

  High School Winner

Cain Trevino

North Side High School, Fort Worth, Texas

Xenophobia and the Constitution-Free Zone

In August of 2017, U.S. Border Patrol agents boarded a Greyhound bus that had just arrived at the White River Junction station from Boston. According to Danielle Bonadona, a Lebanon resident and a bus passenger, “They wouldn’t let us get off. They boarded the bus and told us they needed to see our IDs or papers.” Bonadona, a 29-year-old American citizen, said that the agents spent around 20 minutes on the bus and “only checked the IDs of people who had accents or were not white.” Bonadona said she was aware of the 100-mile rule, but the experience of being stopped and searched felt “pretty unconstitutional.”

In the YES! article “Two-Thirds of Americans Live in the ‘Constitution-Free Zone’” by Lornet Turnbull, the author references the ACLU’s argument that “the 100-mile zone violates Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.” However, the Supreme Court upholds the use of immigration checkpoints for inquiries on citizenship status. In my view, the ACLU makes a reasonable argument. The laws of the 100-mile zone are blurred, and, too often, officials give arbitrary reasons to conduct a search. Xenophobia and fear of immigrants burgeons in cities within these areas. People of color and those with accents or who are non-English speakers are profiled by law enforcement agencies that enforce anti-immigrant policies. The “Constitution-free zone” is portrayed as an effective barrier to secure our borders. However, this anti-immigrant zone does not make our country any safer. In fact, it does the opposite.

As a former student from the Houston area, I can tell you that the Constitution-free zone makes immigrants and citizens alike feel on edge. The Department of Homeland Security’s white SUVs patrol our streets. Even students feel the weight of anti-immigrant laws. Dennis Rivera Sarmiento, an undocumented student who attended Austin High School in Houston, was held by school police in February 2018 for a minor altercation and was handed over to county police. He was later picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and held in a detention center. It is unfair that kids like Dennis face much harsher consequences for minor incidents than other students with citizenship.

These instances are a direct result of anti-immigrant laws. For example, the 287(g) program gives local and state police the authority to share individuals’ information with ICE after an arrest. This means that immigrants can be deported for committing misdemeanors as minor as running a red light. Other laws like Senate Bill 4, passed by the Texas Legislature, allow police to ask people about their immigration status after they are detained. These policies make immigrants and people of color feel like they’re always under surveillance and that, at any moment, they may be pulled over to be questioned and detained.

During Hurricane Harvey, the immigrant community was hesitant to go to the shelters because images of immigration authorities patrolling the area began to surface online. It made them feel like their own city was against them at a time when they needed them most. Constitution-free zones create communities of fear. For many immigrants, the danger of being questioned about immigration status prevents them from reporting crimes, even when they are the victim. Unreported crime only places more groups of people at risk and, overall, makes communities less safe.

In order to create a humane immigration process, citizens and non-citizens must hold policymakers accountable and get rid of discriminatory laws like 287(g) and Senate Bill 4. Abolishing the Constitution-free zone will also require pressure from the public and many organizations. For a more streamlined legal process, the League of United Latin American Citizens suggests background checks and a small application fee for incoming immigrants, as well as permanent resident status for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients. Other organizations propose expanding the green card lottery and asylum for immigrants escaping the dangers of their home countries.

Immigrants who come to the U.S. are only looking for an opportunity to provide for their families and themselves; so, the question of deciding who gets inside the border and who doesn’t is the same as trying to prove some people are worth more than others. The narratives created by anti-immigrant media plant the false idea that immigrants bring nothing but crime and terrorism. Increased funding for the border and enforcing laws like 287(g) empower anti-immigrant groups to vilify immigrants and promote a witch hunt that targets innocent people. This hatred and xenophobia allow law enforcement to ask any person of color or non-native English speaker about their citizenship or to detain a teenager for a minor incident. Getting rid of the 100-mile zone means standing up for justice and freedom because nobody, regardless of citizenship, should have to live under laws created from fear and hatred.

Cain Trevino is a sophomore. Cain is proud of his Mexican and Salvadorian descent and is an advocate for the implementation of Ethnic Studies in Texas. He enjoys basketball, playing the violin, and studying c omputer science. Cain plans to pursue a career in engineering at Stanford University and later earn a PhD.  

High School Winner

Ethan Peter

Kirkwood High School, Kirkwood, Mo.

I’m an expert on bussing. For the past couple of months, I’ve been a busser at a pizza restaurant near my house. It may not be the most glamorous job, but it pays all right, and, I’ll admit, I’m in it for the money.

I arrive at 5 p.m. and inspect the restaurant to ensure it is in pristine condition for the 6 p.m. wave of guests. As customers come and go, I pick up their dirty dishes, wash off their tables, and reset them for the next guests. For the first hour of my shift, the work is fairly straightforward.

I met another expert on bussing while crossing the border in a church van two years ago. Our van arrived at the border checkpoint, and an agent stopped us. She read our passports, let us through, and moved on to her next vehicle. The Border Patrol agent’s job seemed fairly straightforward.

At the restaurant, 6 p.m. means a rush of customers. It’s the end of the workday, and these folks are hungry for our pizzas and salads. My job is no longer straightforward.

Throughout the frenzy, the TVs in the restaurant buzz about waves of people coming to the U.S. border. The peaceful ebb and flow enjoyed by Border agents is disrupted by intense surges of immigrants who seek to enter the U.S. Outside forces push immigrants to the United States: wars break out in the Middle East, gangs terrorize parts of Central and South America, and economic downturns force foreigners to look to the U.S., drawn by the promise of opportunity. Refugees and migrant caravans arrive, and suddenly, a Border Patrol agent’s job is no longer straightforward.

I turn from the TVs in anticipation of a crisis exploding inside the restaurant: crowds that arrive together will leave together. I’ve learned that when a table looks finished with their dishes, I need to proactively ask to take those dishes, otherwise, I will fall behind, and the tables won’t be ready for the next customers. The challenge is judging who is finished eating. I’m forced to read clues and use my discretion.

Interpreting clues is part of a Border Patrol agent’s job, too. Lornet Turnbull states, “For example, CBP data obtained by ACLU in Michigan shows that 82 percent of foreign citizens stopped by agents in that state are Latino, and almost 1 in 3 of those processed is, in fact, a U.S. citizen.” While I try to spot customers done with their meals so I can clear their part of the table, the Border Patrol officer uses clues to detect undocumented immigrants. We both sometimes guess incorrectly, but our intentions are to do our jobs to the best of our abilities.

These situations are uncomfortable. I certainly do not enjoy interrupting a conversation to get someone’s dishes, and I doubt Border Patrol agents enjoy interrogating someone about their immigration status. In both situations, the people we mistakenly ask lose time and are subjected to awkward and uncomfortable situations. However, here’s where the busser and the Border Patrol officer’s situations are different: If I make a mistake, the customer faces a minor inconvenience. The stakes for a Border Patrol agent are much higher. Mistakenly asking for documentation and searching someone can lead to embarrassment or fear—it can even be life-changing. Thus, Border Patrol agents must be fairly certain that someone’s immigration status is questionable before they begin their interrogation.

To avoid these situations altogether, the U.S. must make the path to citizenship for immigrants easier. This is particularly true for immigrants fleeing violence. Many people object to this by saying these immigrants will bring violence with them, but data does not support this view. In 1939, a ship of Jewish refugees from Germany was turned away from the U.S.—a decision viewed negatively through the lens of history. Today, many people advocate restricting immigration for refugees from violent countries; they refuse to learn the lessons from 1939. The sad thing is that many of these immigrants are seen as just as violent as the people they are fleeing. We should not confuse the oppressed with the oppressor.

My restaurant appreciates customers because they bring us money, just as we should appreciate immigrants because they bring us unique perspectives. Equally important, immigrants provide this country with a variety of expert ideas and cultures, which builds better human connections and strengthens our society.

Ethan Peter is a junior. Ethan writes for his school newspaper, The Kirkwood Call, and plays volleyball for his high school and a club team. He hopes to continue to grow as a writer in the future. 

University Winner

Daniel Fries

Lane Community College, Eugene, Ore.

Detained on the Road to Equality

The United States is a nation of immigrants. There are currently 43 million foreign-born people living in the U.S. Millions of them are naturalized American citizens, and 23 million, or 7.2 percent of the population, are living here without documentation (US Census, 2016). One in seven residents of the United States was not born here. Multiculturalism is, and always has been, a key part of the American experience. However, romantic notions of finding a better life in the United States for immigrants and refugees don’t reflect reality. In modern history, America is a country that systematically treats immigrants—documented or not—and non-white Americans in a way that is fundamentally different than what is considered right by the majority.

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment states,“No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” When a suspected undocumented immigrant is detained, their basic human rights are violated. Warrantless raids on Greyhound buses within 100 miles of the border (an area referred to by some as the “Constitution-free zone”) are clear violations of human rights. These violations are not due to the current state of politics; they are the symptom of blatant racism in the United States and a system that denigrates and abuses people least able to defend themselves.

It is not surprising that some of the mechanisms that drive modern American racism are political in nature. Human beings are predisposed to dislike and distrust individuals that do not conform to the norms of their social group (Mountz, Allison). Some politicians appeal to this suspicion and wrongly attribute high crime rates to non-white immigrants. The truth is that immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans. In fact, people born in the United States are convicted of crimes at a rate twice that of undocumented non-natives (Cato Institute, 2018).

The majority of immigrants take high risks to seek a better life, giving them incentive to obey the laws of their new country. In many states, any contact with law enforcement may ultimately result in deportation and separation from family. While immigrants commit far fewer crimes, fear of violent crime by much of the U.S. population outweighs the truth. For some politicians, it is easier to sell a border wall to a scared population than it is to explain the need for reformed immigration policy. It’s easier to say that immigrants are taking people’s jobs than explain a changing global economy and its effect on employment. The only crime committed in this instance is discrimination.

Human rights are violated when an undocumented immigrant—or someone perceived as an undocumented immigrant—who has not committed a crime is detained on a Greyhound bus. When a United States citizen is detained on the same bus, constitutional rights are being violated. The fact that this happens every day and that we debate its morality makes it abundantly clear that racism is deeply ingrained in this country. Many Americans who have never experienced this type of oppression lack the capacity to understand its lasting effect. Most Americans don’t know what it’s like to be late to work because they were wrongfully detained, were pulled over by the police for the third time that month for no legal reason, or had to coordinate legal representation for their U.S. citizen grandmother because she was taken off a bus for being a suspected undocumented immigrant. This oppression is cruel and unnecessary.

America doesn’t need a wall to keep out undocumented immigrants; it needs to seriously address how to deal with immigration. It is possible to reform the current system in such a way that anyone can become a member of American society, instead of existing outside of it. If a person wants to live in the United States and agrees to follow its laws and pay its taxes, a path to citizenship should be available.

People come to the U.S. from all over the world for many reasons. Some have no other choice. There are ongoing humanitarian crises in Syria, Yemen, and South America that are responsible for the influx of immigrants and asylum seekers at our borders. If the United States wants to address the current situation, it must acknowledge the global factors affecting the immigrants at the center of this debate and make fact-informed decisions. There is a way to maintain the security of America while treating migrants and refugees compassionately, to let those who wish to contribute to our society do so, and to offer a hand up instead of building a wall.

Daniel Fries studies computer science. Daniel has served as a wildland firefighter in Oregon, California, and Alaska. He is passionate about science, nature, and the ways that technology contributes to making the world a better, more empathetic, and safer place.

Powerful Voice Winner

Emma Hernandez-Sanchez

Wellness, Business and Sports School, Woodburn, Ore.

An Emotion an Immigrant Knows Too Well

Before Donald Trump’s campaign, I was oblivious to my race and the idea of racism. As far as I knew, I was the same as everyone else. I didn’t stop to think about our different-colored skins. I lived in a house with a family and attended school five days a week just like everyone else. So, what made me different?

Seventh grade was a very stressful year—the year that race and racism made an appearance in my life. It was as if a cold splash of water woke me up and finally opened my eyes to what the world was saying. It was this year that Donald Trump started initiating change about who got the right to live in this country and who didn’t. There was a lot of talk about deportation, specifically for Mexicans, and it sparked commotion and fear in me.

I remember being afraid and nervous to go out. At home, the anxiety was there but always at the far back of my mind because I felt safe inside. My fear began as a small whisper, but every time I stepped out of my house, it got louder. I would have dreams about the deportation police coming to my school; when I went to places like the library, the park, the store, or the mall, I would pay attention to everyone and to my surroundings. In my head, I would always ask myself, “Did they give us nasty looks?,” “Why does it seem quieter?” “Was that a cop I just saw?” I would notice little things, like how there were only a few Mexicans out or how empty a store was. When my mom went grocery shopping, I would pray that she would be safe. I was born in America, and both my parents were legally documented. My mom was basically raised here. Still, I couldn’t help but feel nervous.

I knew I shouldn’t have been afraid, but with one look, agents could have automatically thought my family and I were undocumented. Even when the deportation police would figure out that we weren’t undocumented, they’d still figure out a way to deport us—at least that was what was going through my head. It got so bad that I didn’t even want to do the simplest things like go grocery shopping because there was a rumor that the week before a person was taken from Walmart.

I felt scared and nervous, and I wasn’t even undocumented. I can’t even imagine how people who are undocumented must have felt, how they feel. All I can think is that it’s probably ten times worse than what I was feeling. Always worrying about being deported and separated from your family must be hard. I was living in fear, and I didn’t even have it that bad. My heart goes out to families that get separated from each other. It’s because of those fears that I detest the “Constitution-free zone.”

Legally documented and undocumented people who live in the Constitution-free zone are in constant fear of being deported. People shouldn’t have to live this way. In fact, there have been arguments that the 100-mile zone violates the Fourth Amendment, which gives people the right to be protected from unreasonable searches and seizures of property by the government. Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently upheld these practices.

One question that Lornet Turnbull asks in her YES! article “Two-Thirds of Americans Live in the ‘Constitution-Free Zone’” is, “How should we decide who is welcome in the U.S and who is not?” Instead of focusing on immigrants, how about we focus on the people who shoot up schools, rape girls, exploit women for human sex trafficking, and sell drugs? These are the people who make our country unsafe; they are the ones who shouldn’t be accepted. Even if they are citizens and have the legal right to live here, they still shouldn’t be included. If they are the ones making this country unsafe, then what gives them the right to live here?

I don’t think that the Constitution-free zone is an effective and justifiable way to make this country more “secure.” If someone isn’t causing any trouble in the United States and is just simply living their life, then they should be welcomed here. We shouldn’t have to live in fear that our rights will be taken away. I believe that it’s unfair for people to automatically think that it’s the Hispanics that make this country unsafe. Sure, get all the undocumented people out of the United States, but it’s not going to make this country any safer. It is a society that promotes violence that makes us unsafe, not a race.

Emma Hernandez-Sanchez is a freshman who is passionate about literature and her education. Emma wan ts to inspire others to be creative and try their best. She enjoys reading and creating stories that spark imagination. 

  Powerful Voice Winner

Tiara Lewis

Columbus City Preparatory Schools for Girls,

Columbus, Ohio

Hold Your Head High and Keep Those Fists Down

How would you feel if you walked into a store and salespeople were staring at you? Making you feel like you didn’t belong. Judging you. Assuming that you were going to take something, even though you might have $1,000 on you to spend. Sometimes it doesn’t matter. This is because people will always judge you. It might not be because of your race but for random reasons, like because your hair is black instead of dirty blonde. Or because your hair is short and not long. Or just because they are having a bad day. People will always find ways to bring you down and accuse you of something, but that doesn’t mean you have to go along with it.

Every time I entered a store, I would change my entire personality. I would change the way I talked and the way I walked. I always saw myself as needing to fit in. If a store was all pink, like the store Justice, I would act like a girly girl. If I was shopping in a darker store, like Hot Topic, I would hum to the heavy metal songs and act more goth. I had no idea that I was feeding into stereotypes.

When I was 11, I walked into Claire’s, a well-known store at the mall. That day was my sister’s birthday. Both of us were really happy and had money to spend. As soon as we walked into the store, two employees stared me and my sister down, giving us cold looks. When we went to the cashier to buy some earrings, we thought everything was fine. However, when we walked out of the store, there was a policeman and security guards waiting. At that moment, my sister and I looked at one another, and I said, in a scared little girl voice, “I wonder what happened? Why are they here?”

Then, they stopped us. We didn’t know what was going on. The same employee that cashed us out was screaming as her eyes got big, “What did you steal?” I was starting to get numb. Me and my sister looked at each other and told the truth: “We didn’t steal anything. You can check us.” They rudely ripped through our bags and caused a big scene. My heart was pounding like a drum. I felt violated and scared. Then, the policeman said, “Come with us. We need to call your parents.” While this was happening, the employees were talking to each other, smiling. We got checked again. The police said that they were going to check the cameras, but after they were done searching us, they realized that we didn’t do anything wrong and let us go about our day.

Walking in the mall was embarrassing—everybody staring, looking, and whispering as we left the security office. This made me feel like I did something wrong while knowing I didn’t. We went back to the store to get our shopping bags. The employees sneered, “Don’t you niggers ever come in this store again. You people always take stuff. This time you just got lucky.” Their faces were red and frightening. It was almost like they were in a scary 3D movie, screaming, and coming right at us. I felt hurt and disappointed that someone had the power within them to say something so harsh and wrong to another person. Those employees’ exact words will forever be engraved in my memory.

In the article, “Two-Thirds of Americans Live in the ‘Constitution-Free Zone’,” Lornet Turnbull states, “In January, they stopped a man in Indio, California, as he was boarding a Los Angeles-bound bus. While questioning this man about his immigration status, agents told him his ‘shoes looked suspicious,’ like those of someone who had recently crossed the border.” They literally judged him by his shoes. They had no proof of anything. If a man is judged by his shoes, who else and what else are being judged in the world?

In the novel  To Kill a Mockingbird , a character named Atticus states, “You just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let’em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change.” No matter how much you might try to change yourself, your hairstyle, and your clothes, people will always make assumptions about you. However, you never need to change yourself to make a point or to feel like you fit in. Be yourself. Don’t let those stereotypes turn into facts.

Tiara Lewis is in the eighth grade. Tiara plays the clarinet and is trying to change the world— one essay at a time. She is most often found curled up on her bed, “Divergent” in one hand and a cream-filled doughnut in the other.

Hailee Park

 Wielding My Swords

If I were a swordsman, my weapons would be my identities. I would wield one sword in my left hand and another in my right. People expect me to use both fluently, but I’m not naturally ambidextrous. Even though I am a right-handed swordsman, wielding my dominant sword with ease, I must also carry a sword in my left, the heirloom of my family heritage. Although I try to live up to others’ expectations by using both swords, I may appear inexperienced while attempting to use my left. In some instances, my heirloom is mistaken for representing different families’ since the embellishments look similar.

Many assumptions are made about my heirloom sword based on its appearance, just as many assumptions are made about me based on my physical looks. “Are you Chinese?” When I respond with ‘no,’ they stare at me blankly in confusion. There is a multitude of Asian cultures in the United States, of which I am one. Despite what many others may assume, I am not Chinese; I am an American-born Korean.

“Then… are you Japanese?” Instead of asking a broader question, like “What is your ethnicity?,” they choose to ask a direct question. I reply that I am Korean. I like to think that this answers their question sufficiently; however, they think otherwise. Instead, I take this as their invitation to a duel.

They attack me with another question: “Are you from North Korea or South Korea?” I don’t know how to respond because I’m not from either of those countries; I was born in America. I respond with “South Korea,” where my parents are from because I assume that they’re asking me about my ethnicity. I’m not offended by this situation because I get asked these questions frequently. From this experience, I realize that people don’t know how to politely ask questions about identity to those unlike them. Instead of asking “What is your family’s ethnicity?,” many people use rude alternatives, such as “Where are you from?,” or “What language do you speak?”

When people ask these questions, they make assumptions based on someone’s appearance. In my case, people make inferences like:

“She must be really good at speaking Korean.”

“She’s Asian; therefore, she must be born in Asia.”

“She’s probably Chinese.”

These thoughts may appear in their heads because making assumptions is natural. However, there are instances when assumptions can be taken too far. Some U.S. Border Patrol agents in the “Constitution-free zone” have made similar assumptions based on skin color and clothing. For example, agents marked someone as an undocumented immigrant because “his shoes looked suspicious, like those of someone who had recently crossed the border.”

Another instance was when a Jamaican grandmother was forced off a bus when she was visiting her granddaughter. The impetus was her accent and the color of her skin. Government officials chose to act on their assumptions, even though they had no solid proof that the grandmother was an undocumented immigrant. These situations just touch the surface of the issue of racial injustice in America.

When someone makes unfair assumptions about me, they are pointing their sword and challenging me to a duel; I cannot refuse because I am already involved. It is not appropriate for anyone, including Border Patrol agents, to make unjustified assumptions or to act on those assumptions. Border Patrol agents have no right to confiscate the swords of the innocent solely based on their conjectures. The next time I’m faced with a situation where racially ignorant assumptions are made about me, I will refuse to surrender my sword, point it back at them, and triumphantly fight their ignorance with my cultural pride.

Hailee Park is an eighth grader who enjoys reading many genres. While reading, Hailee recognized the racial injustices against immigrants in America, which inspired her essay. Hailee plays violin in her school’s orchestra and listens to and composes music. 

Aminata Toure

East Harlem School, New York City, N.Y.

We Are Still Dreaming

As a young Muslim American woman, I have been labeled things I am not: a terrorist, oppressed, and an ISIS supporter. I have been accused of planning 9/11, an event that happened before I was born. Lately, in the media, Muslims have been portrayed as supporters of a malevolent cause, terrorizing others just because they do not have the same beliefs. I often scoff at news reports that portray Muslims in such a light, just as I scoff at all names I’ve been labeled. They are words that do not define me. 

In a land where labels have stripped immigrants of their personalities, they are now being stripped of something that makes them human: their rights. The situation described in Lornet Turnbull’s article, “Two-Thirds of Americans are Living in the ‘Constitution-Free Zone’,” goes directly against the Constitution, the soul of this country, something that asserts that we are all equal before the law. If immigrants do not have protection from the Constitution, is there any way to feel safe?

Although most insults are easy to shrug off, they are still threatening. I am ashamed when I feel afraid to go to the mosque. Friday is an extremely special day when we gather together to pray, but lately, I haven’t been going to the mosque for Jummah prayers. I have realized that I can never feel safe when in a large group of Muslims because of the widespread hatred of Muslims in the United States, commonly referred to as Islamophobia. Police surround our mosque, and there are posters warning us about dangerous people who might attack our place of worship because we have been identified as terrorists.

I wish I could tune out every news report that blasts out the headline “Terrorist Attack!” because I know that I will be judged based on the actions of someone else. Despite this anti-Muslim racism, what I have learned from these insults is that I am proud of my faith. I am a Muslim, but being Muslim doesn’t define me. I am a writer, a student, a dreamer, a friend, a New Yorker, a helper, and an American. I am unapologetically me, a Muslim, and so much more. I definitely think everyone should get to know a Muslim. They would see that some of us are also Harry Potter fans, not just people planning to bomb the White House.

Labels are unjustly placed on us because of the way we speak, the color of our skin, and what we believe in—not for who we are as individuals. Instead, we should all take more time to get to know one another. As Martin Luther King Jr. said in his “I Have a Dream” speech, we should be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin. To me, it seems Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream is a dream that should be a reality. But, for now, we are dreaming.

Aminata Toure is a Guinean American Muslim student. Aminata loves spoken-word poetry and performs in front of hundreds of people at her school’s annual poetry slam. She loves writing, language, history, and West African food and culture. Aminata wants to work at the United Nations when she grows up.

From the Author 

Dear Alessandra, Cain, Daniel, Tiara, Emma, Hailee, Aminata and Ethan,

I am moved and inspired by the thought each of you put into your responses to my story about this so-called “Constitution-free zone.” Whether we realize it or not, immigration in this country impacts all of us— either because we are immigrants ourselves, have neighbors, friends, and family who are, or because we depend on immigrants for many aspects of our lives—from the food we put on our tables to the technology that bewitches us. It is true that immigrants enrich our society in so many important ways, as many of you point out.

And while the federal statute that permits U.S. Border Patrol officers to stop and search at will any of the 200 million of us in this 100-mile shadow border, immigrants have been their biggest targets. In your essays, you highlight how unjust the law is—nothing short of racial profiling. It is heartening to see each of you, in your own way, speaking out against the unfairness of this practice.

Alessandra, you are correct, the immigration system in this country is in shambles. You make a powerful argument about how profiling ostracizes entire communities and how the warrantless searches allowed by this statute impede trust-building between law enforcement and the people they are called on to serve.

And Cain, you point out how this 100-mile zone, along with other laws in the state of Texas where you attended school, make people feel like they’re “always under surveillance, and that, at any moment, you may be pulled over to be questioned and detained.” It seems unimaginable that people live their lives this way, yet millions in this country do.

You, Emma, for example, speak of living in a kind of silent fear since Donald Trump took office, even though you were born in this country and your parents are here legally. You are right, “We shouldn’t have to live in fear that our rights will be taken away.”

And Aminata, you write of being constantly judged and labeled because you’re a Muslim American. How unfortunate and sad that in a country that generations of people fled to search for religious freedom, you are ashamed at times to practice your own. The Constitution-free zone, you write, “goes directly against the Constitution, the soul of this country, something that asserts that we are all equal before the law.”

Tiara, I could personally relate to your gripping account of being racially profiled and humiliated in a store. You were appalled that the Greyhound passenger in California was targeted by Border Patrol because they claimed his shoes looked like those of someone who had walked across the border: “If a man is judged by his shoes,” you ask, “who else and what else are getting judged in the world?”

Hailee, you write about the incorrect assumptions people make about you, an American born of Korean descent, based solely on your appearance and compared it to the assumptions Border Patrol agents make about those they detain in this zone.

Daniel, you speak of the role of political fearmongering in immigration. It’s not new, but under the current administration, turning immigrants into boogiemen for political gain is currency. You write that “For some politicians, it is easier to sell a border wall to a scared population than it is to explain the need for reformed immigration policy.”

And Ethan, you recognize the contributions immigrants make to this country through the connections we all make with them and the strength they bring to our society.

Keep speaking your truth. Use your words and status to call out injustice wherever and whenever you see it. Untold numbers of people spoke out against this practice by Border Patrol and brought pressure on Greyhound to change. In December, the company began offering passengers written guidance—in both Spanish and English—so they understand what their rights are when officers board their bus. Small steps, yes, but progress nonetheless, brought about by people just like you, speaking up for those who sometimes lack a voice to speak up for themselves.

With sincere gratitude,

Lornet Turnbull

Lornet Turnbull is an editor for YES! and a Seattle-based freelance writer. Follow her on Twitter  @TurnbullL .

We received many outstanding essays for the Winter 2019 Student Writing Competition. Though not every participant can win the contest, we’d like to share some excerpts that caught our eye:

After my parents argued with the woman, they told me if you can fight with fists, you prove the other person’s point, but when you fight with the power of your words, you can have a much bigger impact. I also learned that I should never be ashamed of where I am from. —Fernando Flores, The East Harlem School, New York City, N.Y.

Just because we were born here and are privileged to the freedom of our country, we do not have the right to deprive others of a chance at success. —Avalyn Cox, Brier Terrace Middle School, Brier, Wash.

Maybe, rather than a wall, a better solution to our immigration problem would be a bridge. —Sean Dwyer, Lane Community College, Eugene, Ore.

If anything, what I’ve learned is that I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to change our world. I don’t know how to make a difference, how to make my voice heard. But I have learned the importance of one word, a simple two-letter word that’s taught to the youngest of us, a word we all know but never recognize: the significance of ‘we.’ —Enna Chiu, Highland Park High School, Highland Park, N.J.

Not to say the Border Patrol should not have authorization to search people within the border, but I am saying it should be near the border, more like one mile, not 100. —Cooper Tarbuck, Maranacook Middle School, Manchester, Maine.

My caramel color, my feminism, my Spanish and English language, my Mexican culture, and my young Latina self gives me the confidence to believe in myself, but it can also teach others that making wrong assumptions about someone because of their skin color, identity, culture, looks or gender can make them look and be weaker. —Ana Hernandez, The East Harlem School, New York City, N.Y.

We don’t need to change who we are to fit these stereotypes like someone going on a diet to fit into a new pair of pants. —Kaylee Meyers, Brier Terrace Middle School, Brier, Wash.

If a human being with no criminal background whatsoever has trouble entering the country because of the way he or she dresses or speaks, border protection degenerates into arbitrariness. —Jonas Schumacher, Heidelberg University of Education, Heidelberg, Germany

I believe that you should be able to travel freely throughout your own country without the constant fear of needing to prove that you belong here . —MacKenzie Morgan, Lincoln Middle School, Ypsilanti, Mich.

America is known as “the Land of Opportunity,” but this label is quickly disappearing. If we keep stopping those striving for a better life, then what will become of this country? —Ennyn Chiu, Highland Park Middle School, Highland Park, N.J.

The fact that two-thirds of the people in the U.S. are living in an area called the “Constitution-free zone” is appalling. Our Constitution was made to protect our rights as citizens, no matter where we are in the country. These systems that we are using to “secure” our country are failing, and we need to find a way to change them. —Isis Liaw, Brier Terrace Middle School, Brier, Wash.

I won’t let anyone, especially a man, tell me what I can do, because I am a strong Latina. I will represent where I come from, and I am proud to be Mexican. I will show others that looks can be deceiving. I will show others that even the weakest animal, a beautiful butterfly, is tough, and it will cross any border, no matter how challenging the journey may be. —Brittany Leal, The East Harlem School, New York City, N.Y.

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Global migration’s impact and opportunity

Migration is a key feature of our increasingly interconnected world . It has also become a flashpoint for debate in many countries, which underscores the importance of understanding the patterns of global migration and the economic impact that is created when people move across the world’s borders. A new report from the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), People on the move: Global migration’s impact and opportunity , aims to fill this need.

Refugees might be the face of migration in the media, but 90 percent of the world’s 247 million migrants have moved across borders voluntarily, usually for economic reasons. Voluntary migration flows are typically gradual, placing less stress on logistics and on the social fabric of destination countries than refugee flows. Most voluntary migrants are working-age adults, a characteristic that helps raise the share of the population that is economically active in destination countries.

By contrast, the remaining 10 percent are refugees and asylum seekers who have fled to another country to escape conflict and persecution. Roughly half of the world’s 24 million refugees are in the Middle East and North Africa, reflecting the dominant pattern of flight to a neighboring country. But the recent surge of arrivals in Europe has focused the developed world’s attention on this issue. A companion report, Europe’s new refugees: A road map for better integration outcomes , examines the challenges and opportunities confronting individual countries.

While some migrants travel long distances from their origin countries, most migration still involves people moving to neighboring countries or to countries in the same part of the world (exhibit). About half of all migrants globally have moved from developing to developed countries—indeed, this is the fastest-growing type of movement. Almost two-thirds of the world’s migrants reside in developed countries, where they often fill key occupational shortages . From 2000 to 2014, immigrants contributed 40 to 80 percent of labor-force growth in major destination countries.

Moving more labor to higher-productivity settings boosts global GDP. Migrants of all skill levels contribute to this effect, whether through innovation and entrepreneurship or through freeing up natives for higher-value work. In fact, migrants make up just 3.4 percent of the world’s population, but MGI’s research finds that they contribute nearly 10 percent of global GDP. They contributed roughly $6.7 trillion to global GDP in 2015—some $3 trillion more than they would have produced in their origin countries. Developed nations realize more than 90 percent of this effect.

Would you like to learn more about the McKinsey Global Institute ?

Employment rates are slightly lower for immigrants than for native workers in top destinations, but this varies by skill level and by region of origin. Extensive academic evidence shows that immigration does not harm native employment or wages, although there can be short-term negative effects if there is a large inflow of migrants to a small region, if migrants are close substitutes for native workers, or if the destination economy is experiencing a downturn.

Realizing the benefits of immigration hinges on how well new arrivals are integrated into their destination country’s labor market and into society. Today immigrants tend to earn 20 to 30 percent less than native-born workers. But if countries narrow that wage gap to just 5 to 10 percent by integrating immigrants more effectively across various aspects of education, housing, health, and community engagement, they could generate an additional boost of $800 billion to $1 trillion to worldwide economic output annually. This is a relatively conservative goal, but it can nevertheless produce broader positive effects, including lower poverty rates and higher overall productivity in destination economies.

People on the move: Migrant voices

A series of portraits tells migrants’ stories—part of the 'i am a migrant' campaign.

The economic, social, and civic dimensions of integration need to be addressed holistically. MGI looked at how the leading destinations perform on 18 indicators and found that no country has achieved strong integration outcomes across all of these dimensions, though some do better than others. But in destinations around the world, many stakeholders are trying new approaches. We identify more than 180 promising interventions that offer useful models for improving integration. The private sector has a central role to play in this effort—and incentives to do so. When companies participate, they stand to gain access to new markets and pools of new talent.

The stakes are high. The success or failure of integration can reverberate for many years, influencing whether second-generation immigrants become fully participating citizens who reach their full productive potential or remain in a poverty trap.

Lola Woetzel , Jacques Bughin , and James Manyika are directors of the McKinsey Global Institute, where Anu Madgavkar is a partner and Ashwin Hasyagar is a fellow; Khaled Rifai is a partner in McKinsey’s New York office, Frank Mattern is a senior partner in the Frankfurt office, and Tarek Elmasry and Amadeo Di Lodovico are senior partners in the Dubai office.

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5 Essays about Immigration

According to the UN, the number of international migrants surpassed 270 million in 2019. This represents an increase of 51 million since 2010. Nearly half of all international migrants moved to one of 10 countries. 19% of the world’s total immigrant population lives in the United States. One of every seven international migrants is younger than 20 years old. What are the stories behind these statistics? What does the world think of immigrants? To start answering these questions, here are five essays about immigration:

“Out of Eden Walk” (2013-present) – Paul Salopek

At the time of this 2019 essay, Paul Salopek has been walking for seven years. In 2013, he started from an ancient fossil site north of Ethiopia. His plan? Cover 21,000 miles over ten years, retracing humankind’s walk out of Africa. While he’s walking through the past, his project is also timely. Numbers-wise, we’re living with the largest diaspora in human history. More than 1 billion people are on the move, both within their own countries and beyond borders. During his journey, Salopek covers climate change, technological innovation, mass migration, and more. Through essays, photographs, audio, and video, he creates a vivid tapestry of stories from people rarely heard from. This essay is a great introduction to Salopek’s “slow journalism.” You can find more at OutofEdenWalk.org.

Journalist and writer Paul Salopek is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. He has reported for publications like The Atlantic and National Geographic Magazine. John Stanmeyer, who took the photos for this essay, is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and photographer.

“Mohsin Hamid: why migration is a fundamental human right” (2014)

Author Mohsin Hamid was born in Pakistan and educated in the US. He lives in the UK. In this essay, he explains how he wishes for “a world without borders.” He believes the right to migrate (which includes emigration and immigration) is as vital as other human rights, like freedom of expression. People have always moved, crossing borders and sharing cultures. Humans are also migrants in that simply by living, we move through time. Unfortunately, this human right has been denied all over the world. Hamid looks forward to a day when migration is respected and welcomed.

Mohsin Hamid is the author of several books, including Discontent and Its Civilizations: Dispatches from Lahore, New York, and London. He writes both fiction and nonfiction.

“I’m a Dreamer. Ask my 80+ Employees if I should be deported.” (2020) – Victor Santos

Young and brilliant, Victor Santos is the founder of Airfox, a Boston-based tech startup. On the surface, Santos is living the American Dream. In this essay in the Boston Globe, he describes that for the past 10 years, he’s worried about ICE taking him away. He’s an undocumented immigrant dependent on DACA. Santos briefly describes his experience growing up in the US, working through college, and getting opportunities because of DACA. Following the publication of this piece, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration cannot immediately end DACA. For now, Santos and the other hundreds of thousands of Dreamers are protected.

Victor Santos is the founder and CEO of Airfox, a loan app that uses mobile data to estimate credit risk. He was on the list of MIT Technology Review in Spanish’s Innovators Under 35 Latin America 2018.

“My Life As An Undocumented Immigrant” (2011) – Jose Antonio Vargas

Vargas opens this essay describing how, at 12-years old, he left the Philippines for the US in 1993. At 16, while going to get his driver’s permit, he was told his green card was fake. He realized he was undocumented. In this essay from 2011, partially inspired by four students who walked from Miami to Washington to lobby for the DREAM Act, he spoke out. The essay describes Vargas’ life and career in America, navigating the system with his secret. It’s a vivid, personal look at Vargas’ experience of “hiding” in plain sight and an act of courage as he owns his story.

Jose Antonio Vargas is a former reporter for the Washington Post. He shared a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting. He is also a filmmaker, writer, and immigrant rights activist. He founded Define American, a nonprofit that strives for dialogue about immigration, in 2011.

“A Young Immigrant Has Mental Illness, And That’s Raising His Risk of Being Deported” – Christine Herman

Immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, deal with a variety of challenges. One of them is the mental health care system. Those with untreated mental illnesses are at higher risk of getting in trouble with the law. When the person who is mentally ill is also undocumented, things get even more complicated. Deportation to a country with an even worse mental healthcare system could be a death sentence. This story from NPR is about a specific family, but it highlights issues that affect many.

Christine Herman is Ph.D. chemist and award-winning audio journalist. She’s a 2018-2019 recipient of a Rosalyn Carter fellowship for mental health journalism.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

• Media Resources
• 2030 Agenda

World Migration Report 2024 Reveals Latest Global Trends and Challenges in Human Mobility 

• International remittances surged by 650 per cent, from USD 128 billion to USD 831 billion between 2000 and 2022. 
• Migrant remittances surpass foreign direct investment in boosting the GDP of developing nations. 
• 281 million international migrants globally; number of those displaced hit a record high by the end of 2022 at 117 million.  

Dhaka/Geneva, 7 May – The International Organization for Migration (IOM) today launched the World Migration Report 2024 , which reveals significant shifts in global migration patterns, including a record number of displaced people and a major increase in international remittances.  

IOM Director General Amy Pope formally released the report in Bangladesh, which stands at the forefront of migration challenges, including emigration, immigration and displacement.   

“The World Migration Report 2024 helps demystify the complexity of human mobility through evidence-based data and analysis,” IOM Director General Amy Pope said at the launch. “In a world grappling with uncertainty, understanding migration dynamics is essential for informed decision-making and effective policy responses, and the World Migration Report advances this understanding by shedding light on longstanding trends and emerging challenges.” 

The report highlights that international migration remains a driver of human development and economic growth, highlighted by a more than 650 per cent increase in international remittances from 2000 to 2022, rising from USD 128 billion to USD 831 billion. The growth continued despite predictions from many analysts that remittances would decrease substantially because of COVID-19.  

Of that 831 billion in remittances, 647 billion were sent by migrants to low– and middle-income countries. These remittances can constitute a significant portion of those countries' GDPs, and globally, these remittances now surpass foreign direct investment in those countries. 

Highlighting key findings, the report reveals that while international migration continues to drive human development, challenges persist. With an estimated 281 million international migrants worldwide, the number of displaced individuals due to conflict, violence, disaster, and other reasons has surged to the highest levels in modern-day records, reaching 117 million, underscoring the urgency of addressing displacement crises.  

Migration, an intrinsic part of human history, is often overshadowed by sensationalized narratives. However, the reality is far more nuanced than what captures headlines. Most migration is regular, safe, and regionally focused, directly linked to opportunities and livelihoods. Yet, misinformation and politicization have clouded public discourse, necessitating a clear and accurate portrayal of migration dynamics.  

By choosing Dhaka as the report's launch site, IOM not only highlights the country's efforts in supporting vulnerable migrants and fostering pathways for regular migration but also recognizes Bangladesh's important role in shaping global migration discourse and policy.  

As a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration Champion country, Bangladesh has demonstrated a strong commitment to addressing migration issues and implementing policies that safeguard migrants' rights. This proactive engagement aligns with IOM's strategic objectives, making Bangladesh an ideal location to launch the 2024 World Migration Report.  

IOM’s World Migration Report, with its innovative digital tools and comprehensive analysis, aims to help dispel myths, provide critical insights, and inspire meaningful action in addressing the challenges and opportunities of human mobility.  

"We hope the report inspires collaborative efforts to harness the potential of migration as a driver for human development and global prosperity," DG Pope said. 

“As one of the GCM champion countries, Bangladesh will not only continue to act upon the pledges it has made for its domestic context but would also take up emerging issues and challenges pertaining to migration and development for informed deliberations at the international level,” said Dr. Hasan Mahmud, Honourable Foreign Minister, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.

Notes to editors: 

This launch is part of IOM Director General’s first three-day visit to Bangladesh. 

For more information, please contact: 

Marie McAuliffe, World Migration Report Editor at [email protected]  

For media requests: Florence Kim at [email protected]  

RELATED NEWS

Iom's world migration report shows global displacement rising despite covid-19 mobility limits, iom’s world migration report 2020  wins  international  design  awards , world migration report launches dynamic new data visualization platform, world migration report 2020 launched.

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An Introduction to Migration Studies: The Rise and Coming of Age of a Research Field

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• First Online: 04 June 2022

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• Peter Scholten 2 ,
• Asya Pisarevskaya 3 &
• Nathan Levy 3  

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Migration studies has contributed significantly to our understanding of mobilities and migration-related diversities. It has developed a distinct body of knowledge on why people migrate, how migration takes place, and what the consequences are of migration in a broad sense, both for migrants themselves and for societies involved in migration. As a broadly-based research field, migration studies has evolved at the crossroads of a variety of disciplines. This includes disciplines such as sociology, political science, anthropology, geography, law and economics, but increasingly it expands to a broader pool of disciplines also including health studies, development studies, governance studies and many more, building on insights from these disciplines.

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Changing Perspectives on Migration History and Research in Switzerland: An Introduction

15 Internal Migration

Introduction: Contemporary Insights on Migration and Population Distribution

Migration is itself in no way a new phenomenon; but the specific and interdisciplinary study of migration is relatively recent. Although the genesis of migration studies goes back to studies in the early twentieth century, it was only by the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century that the number of specialised master programmes in migration studies increased, that the number of journal outlets grew significantly, that numerous specialised research groups and institutes emerged all over the world, and that in broader academia migration studies was recognised as a distinct research field in its own right. By 2018 there were at least 45 specialised journals in migration studies (Pisarevskaya et al., 2019 , p. 462). The field has developed its own international research networks, such as IMISCOE (International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion in Europe), NOMRA (Network of Migration Research on Africa), and the global more policy-oriented network Metropolis. Students at an increasingly broad range of universities can study dedicated programs as well as courses on migration studies. Slowly but gradually the field is also globalising beyond its European and North American roots.

Migration studies is a research field, which means that it is not a discipline in itself with a core body of knowledge that applies to various topics, but an area of studies that focus on a specific topic while building on insights from across various disciplines. It has clear roots in particular in economics, geography, anthropology and sociology. However, when looking at migration publications and conferences today, the disciplinary diversity of the field has increased significantly, for instancing bringing important contributions from and to political sciences, law, demography, cultural studies, languages, history, health studies and many more. It is hard to imagine a discipline to which migration studies is not relevant; for instance, even for engineering studies, migration has become a topic of importance when focusing on the role that social media play as migration infrastructures. Beyond being multidisciplinary (combining insights from various disciplines), the field has become increasing interdisciplinary (with its own approach that combines aspects from various disciplines) or even transdisciplinary (with an approach that systematically integrates knowledge and methods from various disciplines).

1 A Pluralist Perspective on Migration Studies

Migration studies is a broad and diverse research field that covers many different topics, ranging from the economics of migration to studies of race and ethnicity. As with many research fields, the boundaries of the field cannot be demarcated very clearly. However, this diversity does also involve a fair degree of fragmentation in the field. For instance, the field features numerous sub-fields of study, such as refugee studies, multicultural studies, race studies, diversity studies, etc. In fact, there are many networks and conferences within the field with a specific focus, for instance, on migration and development. So, the field of migration studies also encompasses, in itself, a broad range of subfields.

This diversity is not only reflected in the topics covered by migration studies, but also in theoretical and methodological approaches. It is an inherently pluralistic field, bringing often fundamentally different theoretical perspectives on key topics such as the root causes of integration. It brings very different methods, for instance ranging from ethnographic fieldwork with specific migrant communities to large-n quantitative analyses of the relation between economics and migration.

Therefore, this book is an effort to capture and reflect on this pluralistic character of field. It resists the temptation to bring together a ‘state of the art’ of knowledge on topics, raising the illusion that there is perhaps a high degree of knowledge consensus. Rather, we aim to bring to the foreground the key theoretical and methodological discussions within the field, and let the reader appreciate the diversity and richness of the field.

However, the book will also discuss how this pluralism can complicate discussions within the field based on very basic concepts. Migration studies stands out from most other research fields in terms of a relatively high degree of contestation of some of its most basic concepts. Examples include terms as ‘integration’, ‘multiculturalism’, ‘cohesion’ but perhaps most pertinent also the basic concept of ‘migration.’ Many of the field’s basic concepts can be defined as essentially contested concepts. Without presuming to bring these conceptual discussions to a close, this book does bring an effort to map and understand these discussions, aiming to prevent conceptual divides from leading to fragmentation in the field.

This conceptual contestation reflects broader points on how the field has evolved. Various studies have shown that the field’s development in various countries and at various moments has been spurred by a policy context in which migration was problematised. Many governments revealed a clear interest in research that could help governments control migration and promote the ‘integration’ of migrants into their nation-states (DeWind, 2000 ). The field’s strong policy relevance also led to a powerful dynamic of coproduction in specific concepts such as ‘integration’ or ‘migrant.’ At the same time, there is also clear critical self-reflection in the field on such developments, and on how to promote more systematic theory building in migration studies. This increase of reflexivity can be taken as a sign of the coming of age of migration studies as a self-critical and self-conscious research field.

An introduction to migration studies will need to combine a systematic approach to mapping the field with a strong historical awareness of how the field has developed and how specific topics, concepts and methods have emerged. Therefore, in this chapter, we will do just that. We will start with a historical analysis of how the field emerged and evolved, in an effort to show how the field became so diverse and what may have been critical junctures in the development of the field. Subsequently, we will try to define what is migration studies, by a systematic approach towards mapping the pluralism of the field without losing grip of what keeps together the field of migration studies. Therefore, rather than providing one sharp definition of migration studies, we will map that parts that together are considered to constitute migration studies. Finally, we will map the current state of the research field.

To provide a comprehensive overview of such a pluralist and complex field of study, we employ a variety of methods. Qualitative historical analysis of key works that shaped the formation and development of the field over the years is combined with novel bibliometric methods to give a birds-eye view of the structure of the field in terms of volume of publications, internationalisation and epistemic communities of scholarship on migration. The bibliometric analysis presented in this chapter is based on our previous articles, in which we either, used Scopus data from 40 key journals (Pisarevskaya et al., 2019 , or a complex key-word query to harvest meta-data of relevant publications from Web of Science (Levy et al., 2020 ). Both these approaches to meta-data collection were created and reviewed with the help of multiple experts of migration studies. You can consult the original publications for more details. Our meta-data contained information on authors, years of publication, journals, titles, and abstracts of articles and books, as well as reference lists, i.e. works that were cited by each document in the dataset.

In this chapter you will see the findings from these analyses, revealing the growth trends of migration specific journals, and yearly numbers of articles published on migration-related topics, number and geographical distribution of international co-authorships, as well as referencing patterns of books and articles – the “co-citation analysis”. The colourful network graphs you will see later in the chapter, reveal links between scholars, whose writings are mentioned together in one reference list. When authors are often mentioned together in the publications of other scientists, it means that their ideas are part of a common conversation. The works of the most-cited authors in different parts of the co-citation networks give us an understanding of which topics they specialise in, which methods they use in their research, and also within which disciplinary traditions they work. All in all, co-citation analysis provides an insight on the conceptual development of epistemic communities with their distinct paradigms, methods and thematic foci.

In addition, we bring in some findings from the Migration Research Hub, which hosts an unprecedented number of articles, book chapters, reports, dissertation relevant to the field. All these items are brought together with the help of IT technologies, integration with different databases such as Dimensions, ORCID, Crossref, and Web of Science, as well as submitted by the authors themselves. At the end of 2020, this database contains around 90,000 of items categorised into the taxonomy of migration studies, which will be presented below.

2 What Is Migration Studies?

The historical development of migration studies, as described in the next section, reveals the plurality of the research field. Various efforts to come up with a definition of the field therefore also reflect this plurality. For instance, King ( 2012 ) speaks of migration studies as encompassing ‘all types of international and internal migration, migrants, and migration-related diversities’. This builds on Cohen’s ( 1996 , p. xi–xii) nine conceptual ‘dyads’ in the field. Many of these have since been problematised – answering Cohen’s own call for critical and systematic considerations – but they nonetheless provide a skeletal overview of the field as it is broadly understood and unfolded in this book and in the taxonomy on which it is based:

Individual vs. contextual reasons to migrate

Rate vs. incidence

Internal vs. international migration

Temporary vs. permanent migration

Settler vs. labour migration

Planned vs. flight migration

Economic migrants vs. political refugees

Illegal vs. legal migration

Push vs. pull factors

Therefore, the taxonomy provides the topical structure—elaborated below—by which we approach this book. We do not aim to provide a be-all and end-all definition of migration studies but rather seek to capture its inherent plurality by bringing together chapters which provide a state-of-the-art of different meta-topics within the field.

The taxonomy of migration studies was developed as part of a broader research project, led by IMISCOE, from 2018 to 2020 aimed at comprehensively taking stock of and providing an index for the field (see the Migration Research Hub on www.migrationresearch.com ). It was a community endeavour, involving contributors from multiple methodological, disciplinary, and geographical backgrounds at several stages from beginning to end.

It was built through a combination of two methods. First, the taxonomy is based on a large-scale computer-based inductive analysis of a vast number—over 23,000—of journal articles, chapters, and books from the field of migration studies. This led to an empirical clustering of topics addressed within the dataset, as identified empirically in terms of keywords that tend to go together within specific publications.

Secondly, this empirical clustering was combined with a deductive approach with the aim of giving logical structure to the inductively developed topics. Engaging, at this stage, with several migration scholars with specific expertise facilitated a theory-driven expansion of the taxonomy towards what it is today, with its hierarchical categorisation not only of topics and sub-categories of topics, but also of methods, disciplines, and geographical focuses (see Fig. 1.1 below).

The structure of the taxonomy of migration studies

In terms of its content, the taxonomy that has been developed distinguishes various meta-topics within migration studies. These include:

Why do people migrate ? This involves a variety of root causes of migration, or migration drivers.

How do people migrate ? This includes a discussion of migration trajectories but also infrastructures of migration.

What forms of migration can be distinguished ? This involves an analytical distinction of a variety of migration forms

What are major consequences of migration , and whom do these consequences concern? This includes a variety of contributions on the broader consequences of migration, including migration-related diversities, ethnicity, race, the relation between migration and the city, the relation between migration and cities, gendered aspects of migration, and migration and development.

How can migration be governed ? This part will cover research on migration policies and broader policies on migration-related diversities, as well as the relation between migration and citizenship.

What methods are used in migration studies ?

All the topics in the taxonomy are grouped into several branches: Migration processes, Migration Consequences, Migration governance and Cross-cutting. In Fig. 1.2 below you can see how many journal articles, books, book chapters and reports can be found in the migration research hub just for the period of the last 20 years. The number of items belonging to each theme can vary significantly, because some of them are broader than others. Broader themes can be related to larger numbers of items, for instance ‘migration forms’ is very broad, because it includes many types and forms of migration on which scientific research in this field chooses to focus on. On the contrary, the theme of ‘governance processes’ is narrower because less studies are concerned with specific processes of migration management, such as criminalisation, externalisation or implementation.

Distribution of taxonomy branches in the Migration Research Hub

The various chapters in this book can of course never fully represent the full scope of the field. Therefore, the chapters will include various interactive links with the broader literature. This literature is made accessible via the Migration Research Hub, which aims to represent the full scope of migration studies. The Hub is based on the taxonomy and provides a full overview of relevant literature (articles, chapters, books, reports, policy briefs) per taxonomy item. This not only includes works published in migration journals or migration books, but also a broader range of publications, such as disciplinary journals.

Because the Hub is being constantly updated, the taxonomy—along with how we approach the question of ‘what is migration studies?’ in this book—is interactive; it is not dogmatic, but reflexive. As theory develops, new topics and nomenclature emerge. In fact, several topics have been added and some topics have been renamed since “Taxonomy 1.0” was launched in 2018. In this way, the taxonomy is not a fixed entity, but constantly evolving, as a reflection of the field itself.

3 The Historical Development of Migration Studies

3.1 an historical perspective on “migration studies”.

A pluralist perspective on an evolving research field, therefore, cannot rely on one single definition of what constitutes that research field. Instead, a historical perspective can shed light on how “migration studies” has developed. Therefore, we use this introductory chapter to outline the genesis and emergence of what is nowadays considered to be the field of migration studies. This historical perspective will also rely on various earlier efforts to map the development of the field, which have often had a significant influence on what came to be considered “ migration studies ”.

3.2 Genesis of Migration Studies

Migration studies is often recognised as having originated in the work of geographer Ernst Ravenstein in the 1880s, and his 11 Laws of Migration ( 1885 ). These laws were the first effort towards theorising why (internal) migration takes place and what different dynamics of mobility look like, related, for instance, to what happens to the sending context after migrants leave, or differing tendencies between men and women to migrate. Ravenstein’s work provided the foundation for early, primarily economic, approaches to the study of migration, or, more specifically, internal or domestic migration (see Greenwood & Hunt, 2003 ; Massey et al., 1998 ).

The study of international migration and migrants can perhaps be traced back to Znaniecki and Thomas’ ( 1927 ) work on Polish migration to Europe and America. Along with Ravenstein’s Laws , most scholars consider these volumes to mark the genesis of migration studies.

The Polish Peasant and the Chicago School

The Polish Peasant in Europe and America —written by Florian Znaniecki & William Thomas, and first published between 1918 and 1920—contains an in-depth analysis of the lives of Polish migrant families. Poles formed the biggest immigrant group in America at this time. Thomas and Znaniecki’s work was not only seminal for migration research, but for the wider discipline of sociology. Indeed, their colleagues in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago, such as Robert Park, had a profound impact on the discipline with their groundbreaking empirical studies of race and ethnic relations (Bulmer, 1986 ; Bommes & Morawska, 2005 ).

Greenwood and Hunt ( 2003 ) provide a helpful overview of the early decades of migration research, albeit through a primarily economic disciplinary lens, with particular focus on America and the UK. According to them, migration research “took off” in the 1930s, catalysed by two societal forces—urbanisation and the Great Depression—and the increased diversity those forces generated. To illustrate this point, they cite the bibliographies collated by Dorothy Thomas ( 1938 ) which listed nearly 200 publications (119 from the USA and UK, 72 from Germany), many of which focused on migration in relation to those two societal forces, in what was already regarded as a “broadly based field of study” (Greenwood & Hunt, 2003 , p. 4).

Prior to Thomas’ bibliography, early indications of the institutionalisation of migration research came in the US, with the establishment of the Social Science Research Council’s Committee on Scientific Aspects of Human Migration (see DeWind, 2000 ). This led to the publication of Thornthwaite’s overview of Internal Migration in the United States ( 1934 ) and one of the first efforts to study migration policymaking, Goodrich et al’s Migration and Economic Opportunity ( 1936 ).

In the case of the UK in the 1930s, Greenwood and Hunt observe an emphasis on establishing formal causal models, inspired by Ravenstein’s Laws . The work of Makower et al. ( 1938 , 1939 , 1940 ), which, like Goodrich, focused on the relationship of migration and unemployment, is highlighted by Greenwood and Hunt as seminal in this regard. The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics regards Makower and Marschak as having made a “pioneering contribution” to our understanding of labour mobility (see also the several taxonomy topics dealing with labour).

3.3 The Establishment of a Plural Field of Migration Studies (1950s–1980s)

Migration research began to formalise and expand in the 1950s and 1960s (Greenwood & Hunt, 2003 ; Pedraza-Bailey, 1990 ). A noteworthy turning point for the field was the debate around assimilation which gathered pace throughout the 1950s and is perhaps most notably exemplified by Gordon’s ( 1964 ) typology of this concept.

Gordon’s Assimilation Typology and the Problematisation of Integration

Assimilation, integration, acculturation, and the question of how migrants adapt and are incorporated into a host society (and vice versa), has long been a prominent topic in migration studies.

Gordon ( 1964 ) argued that assimilation was composed of seven aspects of identification with the host society: cultural, structural, martial, identificational, behavioural, attitudinal, and civic. His research marked the beginning of hundreds of publications on this question of how migrants and host societies adapt. The broader discussions with which Gordon interacted evolved into one of the major debates in migration studies.

By the 1990s, understandings of assimilation evolved in several ways. Some argued that process was context- or group-dependent (see Shibutani & Kwan, 1965 ; Alba & Nee, 1997 ). Others recognised that there was not merely one type nor indeed one direction of integration (Berry, 1997 ).

The concept itself has been increasingly problematised since the turn of the century. One prominent example of this is Favell ( 2003 ). Favell’s main argument was that integration as a normative policy goal structured research on migration in Western Europe. Up until then, migration research had reproduced what he saw as nation-state-centred power structures. It is worth reading this alongside Wimmer and Glick Schiller (2003) to situate it in broader contemporary debates, but there is plenty more to read on this topic.

For more on literature around this topic, see Chaps. 19 , 20 , and 21 of this book.

Indeed, these debates and discussions were emblematic of wider shifts in approaches to the study of migration. The first of these was towards the study of international (as opposed to internal) migration in the light of post-War economic dynamics, which also established a split in approaches to migration research that has lasted several decades (see King & Skeldon, 2010 ). The second shift was towards the study of ethnic and race relations, which continued into the 1970s, and was induced by the civil rights movements of these decades (Pedraza-Bailey, 1990 ). These two shifts are reflected in the establishment of some of the earliest journals with a migration and diversity focus in the 1960s—the establishment of journals being an indicator of institutionalisation—as represented in Fig. 1.3 . Among these are journals that continue to be prominent in the field, such as International Migration (1961-), International Migration Review (1964-), and, later, the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (1970-) and Ethnic & Racial Studies (1978-).

Number of journals focused on migration and migration-related diversity (1959–2018). (Source: Pisarevskaya et al., 2019 , p. 462) ( R&C Race & Class, IM International Migration, IMR International Migration Review, SE Studi Emigrazione, PP Patterns of Prejudice, JBS Journal of Black Studies, JEMS Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, PDR Population and Development Review, IJIR International Journal of Intercultural Relations, ERS Ethnic & Racial Studies, JIS Journal of Intercultural Studies, RSQ Refugee Survey Quarterly, REMI Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, MW Migration World, JRS Journal of Refugee Studies, LCC Language, Culture, and Curriculum, APMJ Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, HM Hommes et Migrations, Id . Identities, PSP Population, Space, and Place, CDEMP Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, IMIS IMIS-Beitrage, EH Ethnicity & Health, CS Citizenship Studies, JSIE Journal of Studies in International Education, REE Race, Ethnicity, and Education, EJML European Journal of Migration and Law, JIMI Journal of International Migration and Integration, NJMR Norwegian Journal of Migration Research, Ethn . Ethnicities, GN Global Networks, JIRS Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, ML Migration Letters, ZAA Zeitschrift für Ausländerrecht und Ausländerpolitik, IJMHSC International Journal of Migration, Health, and Social Care, LS Latino Studies, FJEM Finnish Journal of Ethnicity and Migration, Mob . Mobilities, JDHE Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, NJMR Nordic Journal of Migration Research (merger of NJMR and FJEM), IZAJM IZA Journal of Migration, CEEMR Central and Eastern European Migration Review, MS Migration Studies, CMS Comparative Migration Studies, Mov . Movements, JMH Journal of Migration History, M&S Migration & Society. For more journals publishing in migration studies, see migrationresearch.com )

By the 1970s, although several new journals of migration studies had emerged and the field was maturing in terms of theory-building, there remained a lack of interdisciplinary “synthesis” (Kritz et al., 1981 ; King, 2012 ). This is reflected in the research of Levy et al. ( 2020 ). Based on citation data showing who migration researchers cited over the years, Fig. 1.4 maps the embryo-like development of migration studies every half-decade from 1975 to the present day. In the early decades it shows distinct “epistemic communities” (represented by colours) clustered together based on disciplines in migration research. For example, the earlier decades show economists focused on development (sky blue); economic sociologists analysing the labour market behaviour of migrants (royal blue); demographers (green); and sociologists studying the assimilation topic (red) mentioned above. By the late 1980s, a new cluster of social psychologists (yellow) emerged, with a combination of demographers and economists clustering (pink) in the 1990s. The figure shows an increasing coherence to the field since then, as the next section elaborates, but the 1970s and 1980s was a period of disciplinary differentiation within migration studies.

Co-citation clusters of authors cited in migration studies literature 1975–2018. (From Levy et al., 2020 , p. 18)

Although the field may not have been interdisciplinary in the 1980s, it was indeed multi disciplinary, and research was being conducted in more and more countries: This period entailed a “veritable boom” of contributions to migration research from several disciplines, according to Pedraza-Bailey ( 1990 ), along with a degree of internationalisation, in terms of European scholarship “catching up” with hitherto dominant North American publications, according to Bommes & Morawska, ( 2005 ). English-language migration research was still, however, dominated by institutes based in the global North and the ‘West’.

Interdisciplinarity and Internationalisation in Migration Studies: Key Readings

There have been several publications dealing with the development of migration studies over the years. These readings identify some of the key points related to interdisciplinarity in the field, and how the field has evolved internationally.

Brettell, C. B., & Hollifield, J. F. (2000). Migration theory: Talking across disciplines (1st ed.). Abingdon: Routledge; 2 nd ed. (2008); 3 rd ed. (2015).

Talking Across Disciplines has been used as a standard textbook in migration studies for several years. It represents the first effort towards highlighting the key ideas of the multiple disciplines in the field. It offers an introduction to the contributions these disciplines, as well as critical reflections on how those disciplines have interacted.

Bommes, M., & Morawska, E. (2005). International migration research: Constructions, omissions and the promises of Interdisciplinarity. Farnham: Ashgate.

International Migration Research is one of the first attempts to explore and synthesise migration studies from an interdisciplinary perspective. In this book, scholars from multiple disciplines provide a state of the art of the field which illuminates the contrasts between how these disciplines approach migration studies. It is one of the first works in which migration studies is understood to be an institutionalised field of study.

Thränhardt, D., & Bommes, M. (2010). National Paradigms of migration research. Osnabrück: V&R.

In this book, readers are introduced to the idea that migration studies developed as a policy-driven field in several countries in the twentieth century. Not only did this entail diverse policy priorities, but also diverse “paradigms” of knowledge production in terms of terminology, concepts, and measures. This diversity reflects different national science policies. There are chapters reflecting on these processes from multiple continents, and from both “old” and “new” immigration countries.

In the decades before the 1990s—with a heavy reliance on census and demographic data—quantitative research abounded in migration studies (Greenwood & Hunt, 2003 ). But by the beginning of the 1990s, a “qualitative turn”, linked more broadly to the “cultural turn” in social sciences, had taken place (King, 2012 ). In other words, migration studies broadly shifted from migration per se, to migrants. King notes the example of geographical research: “human geography research on migration switched from quantitatively inclined population geography to qualitatively minded cultural geographers […] this epistemological shift did not so much re-make theories of the causes of migration as enrich our understanding of the migrant experience ” (King, 2012 , p. 24). Indeed, this is also reflected in how Pedraza-Bailey ( 1990 , p. 49) mapped migration research by the end of the 1980s into two main categories: (i) the migration process itself and (ii) the (subjective) processes that follow migration.

Even though it is clear that migration studies is made up of multiple communities—we have already made the case for its pluralist composition—it is worth re-emphasising this development through the changing shape and structure of the ‘embryos’ in Fig. 1.4 above. The positioning of the clusters relative to each other denotes the extent to which different epistemic communities cited the same research, while the roundness of the map denotes how the field can be considered an integrated whole. We clearly see that in the period 1975–1979, the disciplinary clusters were dispersed, with loose linkages between one another. In the 1980s through to the mid-1990s, while some interdisciplinarity was emerging, several clusters, such as demographers and psychologists, were working largely within their own disciplines. In other words, in the 1970s and 1980s, authors working on migration referred to and were cited by other scholars primarily within their own disciplinary traditions. In this time, although a few migration journals had been established, this number was small compared to today. Without many scientific journals specialised in their topic, migration scholars were largely reading and publishing in disciplinary journals. By today—particularly in Europe—this has changed, as the increasing roundness of the maps demonstrate and as the rest of this chapter substantiates.

3.4 Expansion of Migration Studies Since the Turn of the Century

In the 2000s the expansion of migration studies accelerated further (see Fig. 1.5 ). In 1975, there were just under 350 articles published on migration; there were 900 published in 2000; in 2017, over 3000 articles were published. This growth not only involved a diversification of the field, but also various critical conceptual developments and the rise of an increasingly self-critical approach to migration studies. One of these critical developments involved a move beyond a strong focus on the national dimension of migration and diversities, for example in terms of understanding migration as international migration, on integration as a phenomenon only within nation-states, and on migrants as either being connected to the ‘home’ or ‘host’ society.

Number of articles, per year, in migration studies dataset based on advanced query of Web of Science for Migration Research Hub, 12 March 2019. (Based on Levy et al., 2020 , p. 8)

Several key publications marked this important turn. Wimmer and Glick-Schiller ( 2002 ) refer to “ methodological nationalism ” and critique the notion of taking the nation-state as a given as if it were a natural entity. In fact, for Wimmer and Glick Schiller, this way of understanding reality helps contribute to nation-state building more than it enhances scientific knowledge. In a similar contribution, Favell ( 2003 ) critiques the concept of ‘integration’ as naturalising the nation-state in relation to migration. Favell’s main argument was that integration as a normative policy goal structured research on migration in Western Europe. Up until then, migration research had reproduced what he saw as nation-state-centred power structures. Thranhardt and Bommes ( 2010 ) further substantiate this point by showing empirically how migration studies developed within distinct national context leading to the reification of distinct national models of integration/migration.

Where did this turn beyond methodological nationalism lead to? Several important trends can be defined in the literature. One involves the rise of perspectives that go beyond nation-states, such as transnationalist (Faist 2000 , Vertovec 2009 ) and postnationalist (Soysal & Soyland, 1994 ) perspectives. Such perspectives have helped reveal how migration and migrant communities can also be shaped in ways that reach beyond nation-states, such as in transnational communities that connect communities from across various countries or in the notion of universal personhood that defines the position of migrants regardless of the state where they are from or where they reside.

Another perspective takes migration studies rather to the local (regional, urban, or neighbourhood) level of migration and diversity. Zapata-Barrero et al. speak in this regard of the local turn in migration studies (2010). They show how migration-related diversities take shape in specific local settings, such as cities or even neighbourhoods, in ways that cannot be understood from the traditional notion of distinct national models.

Also, in the study of migration itself, an important trend can be identified since the 2000s. Rather than focusing on migration as a phenomenon where someone leaves one country to settle in another, the so-called “mobility turn” (Boswell & Geddes, 2010 ) calls for a better comprehension of the variation in mobility patterns. This includes for instance variation in temporalities of migration (temporary, permanent, circular), but also in the frequency of migration, types of migration, etc. In this book we will address such mobilities in the forms of different types of migration, frequencies and temporalities by discussing very different migration forms .

3.5 Growing Self-Critical Reflection in Migration Studies

Since the 2000s, there has also been a growing reflexive and self-critical approach within migration studies. Studies like those of Wimmer and Glick-Schiller, Favell, and Dahinden are clear illustrations of this growing conceptual self-consciousness. The field of migration studies has itself become an object of critical reflection. In the context of this book, we take this as a signal of the coming of age of migration studies.

This critical reflection touches upon a variety of issues in the field. One is how the field has conceptualised ethnicity, which was criticised as “ethnic lensing” (Glick Schiller & Çağlar, 2009 ). This would involve an inherent tendency to connect and problematise a broad range of issues with ethnicity, such as studies on how ethnic communities do on the labour market or the role that ethnicity plays in policies. The core argument to move beyond ethnic lensing is that focusing only on ethnicity risks defying social complexity and the importance of intersectionalities between ethnicity and, for instance, class, citizenship, education, location, cultural, or political disposition, etc. Dahinden ( 2016 ) calls in this context for a “ de-migrantisation ” of migration studies to avoid the naturalisation of migrants in relation to all sorts of issues and problems. Vertovec ( 2007 ) develops the concept “ super-diversity ” in this context to capture the social complexity of migration-related diversities.

Another strand of critical reflection concerns the field’s relationship to policymaking . Studies like those by Scholten et al. ( 2015 ) and Ruhs et al. ( 2019 ) offer critical reflection on the role that the relationship between migration studies and broader policy settings has played in the conceptual and methodological development of the field. On the one hand, the evolution of the field has been spurred on in its policy relevance, for instance in research on migration management or ‘migrant integration’. This relationship has contributed to the co-production of knowledge and key concepts, such as ‘integration’, and impeded the critical and independent development of the field. On the other hand, the field also leaves important gaps in research-policy relations, leaving important areas of knowledge production hardly connected to knowledge utilisation. Such studies have raised awareness of the necessity of research-policy relations for the societal impact of the field, while also problematising the nature of research-policy relations and their impact on the development of the field itself.

Finally, also in the context of growing public awareness on racism, the field has increasingly become self-reflexive in terms of how it deals with issues of discrimination and racism . This includes a growing awareness of institutional racism in the field itself, such as in institutes or training programs. Besides contributing to the broader field, there has been an increase of instances where institutes revise their own management and procedures in order to enhance racial justice. This includes participation of scholars from the global south, but also a proliferation of diversity policies in the field. At the same time, criticism remains on the extent to which the field has acknowledged issues of racial justice, for instance in studies on integration, migration management, or social cohesion.

4 Mapping Migration Studies Today

4.1 co-citation communities.

Nowadays, migration studies has become a more interdisciplinary field. In the last 15 years, as the “embryo” development in Fig. 1.4 shows, it became more oval-shaped without sharp “tails”. This form indicates a cross-disciplinary osmosis ; a growing interlinkage of epistemic communities. Co-referencing of authors from different disciplinary orientations became more common in the twenty-first century. Such developments can be attributed, on one hand, to the rapid digitisation of libraries and journals, as well as the multiplication of migration-focused journals, which accepted relevant contributions to discussion on migration, no matter the discipline. On the other hand, interdisciplinary endeavours were encouraged externally, for instance via grants (see European Union, 2016) and interdisciplinary master programmes created in various universities. It became fashionable to work at the intersection of disciplines, to an extent that nowadays it is often difficult to determine the disciplinary origin of a publication about migration. Whether such developments have yielded any theoretical or empirical breakthroughs is yet to be seen. In any case, it is clear that migration studies moved from being a multi-disciplinary field (with few connections between them) to an interdisciplinary field (with more connections between multiple disciplines) (Levy et al., 2020 ).

Let us now dive into the most recent co-citation clusters. Such clusters are, of course, not only categorised in terms of disciplines. They also have certain topical focuses. Figure 1.6 below zooms in to the data from Fig. 1.4 and shows the co-citation network in the period 2005–2014 in more detail. We can see seven different groups of migration scholarship that are nevertheless rather interlinked, as the oval shape of the network indicates. At 1 o’clock we can see the cluster we have elsewhere called the “Global systems school”, which has developed around such scholars as Vertovec, Soysal, Levitt, Favell, Faist, and Glick-Schiller, who introduced and developed the concept of transnationalism since the late 1990s. Contrasting with longstanding conventions of looking at migration as having an ‘endpoint’ in the countries of reception, they developed a different view of migration as a global, on-going, and dynamic process impacting receiving as well as sending societies, along with the identities, belonging, and ‘sense of home’ of migrants themselves. Nowadays, this cluster includes a very diverse group of scholars with different thematic focuses, such as the migration-development nexus (see also Chap. 18 , this volume) including de Haas, Carling, and Castles; prominent scholars on Asian migration, such as Ong and Yeoh; and many others, Guarnizo, King, Anderson, Sassen, Joppke and Baubock. Yet, the fact that they all belong to one cluster, proves that their work has been cited in the same reference lists, thus constituting an interlinked conversation on migration as global phenomenon.

Co-citation map of authors with 10+ citations in migration research in the period 2005–2014. (From Levy et al. 2020 , p. 17)

Closer to the centre of the network, we find a blue cluster, centred around Portes, a widely-cited founding father of migration studies in the USA. Next to him we also see other leading American scholars such as Waldinger, Alba and Zhou, Waters, Rumbaut, and Putnam, whose primary concern is the (economic) integration of immigrants. This cluster of scholars has elsewhere been understood as the “Michigan-Wisconsin” school of migration research, given the two universities’ success in training migration scholars in the US (cf. Hollifield, 2020 ). Traditionally this scholarship has developed in the USA and has been very prominent in the field for decades. Especially Portes is cited extensively, and widely co-cited across the epistemic communities of the whole field.

This cluster is closely interlinked with the neighbouring (at 4 o’clock) cluster of economists, demographers, and other quantitative social scientists (turquoise). At the centre of it is Massey , another giant of migration studies, who mainly conducted his migration research from a demographic perspective. Here we also see economists such as Borjas, Chiswick, and Stark, who predominantly studied the immigration reality of the USA.

Then, at 6 o’clock, we see a light-green cluster. The highly cited scholars in its core are Williams and Krieger, who study migration- and race-related differences in health. For instance, Williams’ highly-cited paper is about the experiences of racism and mental health problems of African Americans, while Krieger investigated how racism and discrimination causes high-blood pressure. Health is one of the ‘younger’ topics in contemporary migration studies; the amount of research on the intersection of migration and health has increased significantly in the last decade (Pisarevskaya et al., 2019 ).

Closely interlinked with ‘health’ is the cluster of ‘acculturationists’, positioned at 7 o’clock. The cluster is formed around J.W. Berry, a social-psychologist who introduced a theory of immigrant acculturation ( 1997 ). Scholars in this cluster investigate cross-cultural and intercultural communication from the psychological perspective. Other prominent authors in this cluster include Phinney, Pettigrew, Ward and Tajfel who studied cognitive aspects of prejudice, and Stephan famous for their integrated threat theory of prejudice (Stephan & Stephan, 2000 ).

Another significant group of scholars is positioned between 9 and 12 o’clock of the co-citation network. These are scholars focused on the politics of ethnic and race relations; prominent critical sociologists such as Foucault and Bourdieu are frequently co-cited in this cluster. Among the key authors in this group are Hall, Gilroy, Brubaker, Kymlicka, Asante, Du Bois, and Bonilla-Silva.

At 12 o’clock, we can see an orange cluster, positioned between the ethnic/race relations cluster and the “Global systems school” – this is a relatively new cluster of scholars working on the topic of mobility, developed by Urry, Scheller, and T. Cresswell. Other researchers within this loosely connected cluster focus in their research on mobilities from related to work and studies from the perspective of social and economic geography. The focus on mobility has been on the rise; it entered top three most prominent topics in migration studies in the period 2008–2017 (Pisarevskaya et al., 2019 ).

Overall, in the twenty-first century, the scholarship of migration in its variety of approaches and intertwined themes has seemed to move away from “‘ who’- and ‘what’- questions, to ‘how’- and ‘why’-questions”, compared to the early days of this field. Efforts towards quantifying and tracing geographies of migration flows and describing migrant populations in the receiving countries have somewhat declined in academic publications, while research on the subjective experiences of migrants, perceptions of migrants’ identity and belonging, as well as attention to the cultural (super)diversity of societies has become more prominent (ibid. ).

4.2 Internationalisation

Since migration is a global phenomenon, it is important that it is studied in different countries and regions, by scholars with different academic and personal backgrounds, as well as for knowledge to be transferred around the world. Only by bringing together the diversity of perspectives and contexts in which migration is studied we can achieve a truly global and nuanced understanding of migration, its causes, and its consequences.

Over the course of the field’s development, migration studies has internationalised. Even though analysis of internationalisation trends has only been conducted on English-language literature, the trends seem to be rather coherent. The number of the countries producing publications on migration has increased from 47 to 104 in the past 20 years. Publications from non-Anglophone European countries have increased by 15%, to constitute by today almost a third of English-language publications on migration, while the relative share of developed Anglophone countries (USA, UK, Canada, Australia) has declined (Pisarevskaya et al., 2019 ). The proportion of migration research that is internationally co-authored has also increased over the past 20 years, from 5% of articles in 1998 to over 20% in 2018 (Levy et al., 2020 ).

Nevertheless, international collaboration is not equally spread across the world. European and North American migration scholars have produced the highest absolute number of international collaborations between 1998 and 2018, though the relative share of collaborations among Europe-based scholars is much higher (36%) than that of their North American colleagues (15%). The suggested reasons behind these trends could be that critiques of national paradigms in migration studies have been taken up in Europe more eagerly than in North America. This has not happened without facilitation by broader science policies , particularly in the European Union, which funded the creation of the IMISCOE Network of Excellence, a network which intensified international collaborations between the research institutes working on migration and integration issues in various European countries.

In the global south, similar initiatives have been established, such as the Network for Migration Research on Africa and the Asia Pacific Knowledge Network on Migration. In these regions, international co-authorships are not uncommon, but the absolute number of publications in English compared to those from the north is small. We have thus observed an “uneven internationalisation” of migration studies (Levy et al., 2020 ); in the case of the gender and migration nexus, for instance, Kofman ( 2020 ) argues that the concentration of institutions and publishers in migration studies headquartered in the north perpetuates such inequalities.

5 An Outlook on This Interactive Guide to Migration Studies

This book is structured so as to provide an overview of key topics within the pluralist field of migration studies. It is not structured according to specific theories or disciplines, but along topics, such as why and how people migrate, what forms of migration are there, what the consequences of migration are, and how migration can be governed. Per topic, it brings an overview of key concepts and theories as well as illustrations of how these help to understand concrete empirical cases. After each chapter, the reader will have a first overview of the plurality of perspectives developed in migration studies on a specific theme as well as first grasp of empirical case studies.

The book is designed as an ‘interactive guide’; it will help connect readers to readings, projects, and reports for the selected themes via interactive links. To this aim, the book outline largely follows the official taxonomy of migration studies at migrationresearch.com . Throughout the text, there will be interactive links to overview pages on the Migration Research Hub, as well as to specific key readings. This marks the book as a point of entry for readers to get to know the field of migration studies.

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Scholten, P., Pisarevskaya, A., Levy, N. (2022). An Introduction to Migration Studies: The Rise and Coming of Age of a Research Field. In: Scholten, P. (eds) Introduction to Migration Studies. IMISCOE Research Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92377-8_1

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Illegal Immigrants: Huge Controversial in the United States

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Human trafficking comes in many different forms such as sex trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Sex exploitation is based on the interaction between a trafficker selling an individual, victim being smuggled to customers for sexual services. Labor trafficking includes situations of debt bondage, forced labor, and involuntary child labor. Labor trafficking uses violence, threats, lies, and other forms of coercion to force people to work against their will in which most cases have no knowledge on the activities […]

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One of the biggest problems that is being discussed in the United States of America is illegal immigrants. An illegal immigrant is someone who lives or works in another country when they do not have the legal right to do so, this is according to the Cambridge dictionary. Now you made wonder why someone would just want to get up and leave their country to just work and live? Or why is this such a big issue in the United […]

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In the past few years, the topic of immigration has been a cause for much conversation and debate. While many people have discussed the morals of immigration, many have also assessed how exactly immigration affects the United States at both smaller and larger levels. Currently, there is much debate among scholars, politicians, economists and citizens regarding immigration and the economic effects that arise from it. Immigration has been discussed at great lengths for the past few years, and based off […]

Benefits of Immigration Essay

Combined picture of five years Syrian boy Omran injured during the airstrike in Aleppo and unbreathing body, faced down of three years old Alan Kurdi founded drowned in Mediterranean sea become a symbol of emigrant crisis1. This artwork of Syrian artist Rehman Siddiq very spectacularly and emotionally illustrated dilemma of every immigrant - stay or run. Immigration crisis become a social phenomenon that keep spreading all over the world. From mass media we can hear basically about two main streams […]

Mexican Immigration

At the wake of 1930, the Great Depression hit the United States hard. There was a serious job crisis as well as food shortages that affected the Mexican immigrants as well as all American dwellers. During this time, most of the Mexican immigrants and the Mexicans Americans were subjected to additional threats and hostility as the American migrants believed the Mexicans were taking their jobs (Gratton & Merchant, 2013). The American government came up strongly with deportation threats and they […]

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How To Write an Essay About Immigration

Understanding the intricacies of immigration.

Writing an essay on how to write an essay about immigration requires a deep understanding of the multifaceted nature of immigration itself. Immigration is a complex topic, encompassing legal, economic, cultural, and humanitarian aspects. It's essential to recognize that essays about immigration should address its diverse implications – from the challenges faced by immigrants to the impacts on host countries. This foundational understanding is crucial for guiding the exploration of how to approach various narratives, policies, and theories related to immigration. Consider including aspects such as the reasons behind immigration, the experiences of immigrants, the policies of different countries, and the societal reactions to immigration.

Structuring the Immigration Essay

The structure of your essay about writing an essay on immigration is key. Start with a compelling introduction that highlights the importance of accurately and empathetically discussing immigration. The thesis statement here should reflect the purpose of your guidance – whether to inform, argue, or analyze different aspects of immigration. The body of your essay should then be divided into coherent sections, each focusing on a key aspect of writing about immigration. Discuss how to construct an argument, the importance of using reliable data and sources, and the need for presenting a balanced view that considers both the challenges and contributions of immigrants. Ensure each part of the essay seamlessly connects to create a cohesive guide.

Addressing Challenges and Offering Strategies

In this part of the essay, focus on the challenges writers may face when crafting an essay on immigration and propose strategies to overcome these. One major challenge is the politicization of immigration, requiring a careful and unbiased approach. Another is the sensitivity of the topic, as it often involves vulnerable populations. Offer advice on maintaining objectivity while being empathetic, and stress the importance of cultural sensitivity. Suggest methods for thorough research and analysis, emphasizing the need to understand immigration laws and policies, as well as the socio-economic factors involved. Discuss the importance of acknowledging diverse perspectives and experiences in the essay to provide a comprehensive view of immigration.

Concluding with Purpose

The conclusion of your essay should do more than summarize the main points about writing an essay on immigration. It's an opportunity to reflect on the importance of understanding and discussing immigration in a responsible and informed manner. Emphasize the role of such essays in shaping public opinion and policy. Encourage writers to approach the topic of immigration with a commitment to fairness, accuracy, and empathy. A strong conclusion will not only wrap up your essay effectively but also inspire and guide future writers to approach the topic of immigration with the depth and respect it deserves.

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Illegal Immigration — Causes and Effects of Immigration

Causes and Effects of Immigration

• Categories: Illegal Immigration

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Words: 731 |

Published: Jan 29, 2024

Words: 731 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Causes of immigration, effects of immigration, a. economic factors, b. political factors, c. social factors, a. economic effects, b. social effects, c. political effects.

• National Academy of Sciences. (2017). The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration .
• Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD). (2019). International Migration Outlook 2019 .
• Peri, G., & Shih, K. (2019). "The Economic Contribution of Unauthorized Workers: An Industry Analysis". National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series.

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Immigration's Effect on US Wages and Employment Redux

In this article we revive, extend and improve the approach used in a series of influential papers written in the 2000s to estimate how changes in the supply of immigrant workers affected natives' wages in the US. We begin by extending the analysis to include the more recent years 2000-2022. Additionally, we introduce three important improvements. First, we introduce an IV that uses a new skill-based shift-share for immigrants and the demographic evolution for natives, which we show passes validity tests and has reasonably strong power. Second, we provide estimates of the impact of immigration on the employment-population ratio of natives to test for crowding out at the national level. Third, we analyze occupational upgrading of natives in response to immigrants. Using these estimates, we calculate that immigration, thanks to native-immigrant complementarity and college skill content of immigrants, had a positive and significant effect between +1.7 to +2.6\% on wages of less educated native workers, over the period 2000-2019 and no significant wage effect on college educated natives. We also calculate a positive employment rate effect for most native workers. Even simulations for the most recent 2019-2022 period suggest small positive effects on wages of non-college natives and no significant crowding out effects on employment.

We are grateful for Rebecca Brough for her research assistance and suggestions. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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Essay on Migration | Causes and Effects of Migration

December 3, 2017 by Study Mentor Leave a Comment

Animals and man have been ever travelling. From grassy plains to fertile land, in search of better food, better opportunities. ‘Migration’ means the movement of population from one place to another for better opportunities.

Table of Contents

What is Migration?

Everyone wishes to lead a happy and secure life. A place where they can offer security to their family and a better future both for themselves and family. Migration many be of two types- permanent and temporary. Some migration may also occur annually, seasonally, or diurnally. According to certain census it has been found that migration mostly happens in three stages- (a) rural to rural , (b) rural to urban , (c) urban to urban , and (d) urban to rural

Maximum migration is from rural to urban, especially in developing countries like India. Even urban to urban migration happens quite a lot. But migration of the type (a), (d) is very rare. Migration of type (a) happens only when a person goes from another village to sell his items during bazaar or Melas. Some migration also happens from rural to small then from small town to urban. Such type of migration is called step wise migration.

In India there is a crazy race of the population travelling from the rural areas to the metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi, Bangalore etc, seeking for better employment and better work opportunities. And this craze is increasing more and more in the coming years.

That is why competition in the job sector is increasing in the urban sphere. Metropolitan cities act a crowd puller. People are attracted to the vibrant colours of life in the cities. They fall in the wrong notion that they can pull up something big or great in the cities and earn a living but not everyone gets equal opportunities. Some end up rag-pickers, some end up as street dwellers, and some end up beggars who don’t get any means of livelihood.

Another term that comes along with migration is commutation. Commutation is the means of travelling on a daily schedule of the people to cities from the neighbouring towns and villages for the purpose of job and other works. This is a type of temporary migration.

Some people commute seasonally- incase or family gathering or wedding ceremonies. While some immigrants migrate annually. Migration is not just a re-location of human resources and settlements but it is a process which has three-fold impact:

(a) On the area experiencing immigration,

(b) On the area experiencing out-migration, and

(c) On the migrants themselves, the purpose of migration may be employment, business, education, family movement, marriage, calamity, etc.

These migrants have very little skill and professional expertise, moreover they lack literacy. They mostly get involved in the low grade activities and fields of manual labour, where there is not much sophistication or use of literary capabilities.

Very few are in administrative, professional or technical sphere. The condition of women migrants is worse. Majority of them are illiterate or have very little literacy. Such people take up even lower grade of jobs like the domestic maid servants, hawkers or vendors. This change has been termed by many as ‘evolutionary urbanization’.

This sudden migration burst has led in detoriation in the look of the city and spreading of cities. Rapid human pressure has led to the unprecedented growth of shabby towns, slums and bastees and squatter settlements. Cities are spreading far beyond its boundary limits.

There are also other evils like the overflow of urban unemployment, rapid exploitation of the items of daily necessity like- food, clothing and shelter and their unavailability and there is a very sharp decline of human values and moral and it is increasing over the years( as observed its increase from 1981-1999 and will steadily increase over the 21st century).

Hence the metropolitan cities are becoming like blown-up urban villages which fail to offer basic necessities of life to the people residing in it. Due to unchecked or unprecedented human growth the cities lack in urban functions, characteristics, urban infrastructure and services, and without a strong economic base.

They are slowly stepping towards what is called as ‘degeneration’ or ‘decay’.

The urban areas not only attract the poor and the illiterate class but it has become a place for the educated and elite class to earn a living and lead a comfortable and relaxed life. There have been many cases where students from villages have come in cities to get higher education, managed with a good job and become a part of the city itself.

Even some big landlords and rich farmers have shown their interest in investing a good part of their agricultural profits in the different businesses that goes on in the city and also commercial activities. Hence the cities of developing countries like India are developing on the plunder or the remains of the rural parts (both natural and human). Unless this exploitation of blood-sucking trend is terminated for once and for all, the development or the revival of the ‘desi’ villages is a farfetched dream.

Not just there are rural immigrants to deal with. There are international migrants as well. Majority of the international migrants to India come from Asian countries, which are in turn followed by Europeans, Africans, etc. The neighbouring countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Russia etc. have contributed large number of migrants to India.

Since there is no restriction along Indo-Nepal international boundary large numbers of Nepali people come to India for seeking employment, education, business etc. Assam, West Bengal and north eastern states attract large number of legal and illegal migrants from Bangladesh.

This has created a number of social, economic and political problems in these areas. Nepalese are seen in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra and Delhi. Similarly migrants from Sri Lanka are most frequented in South India especially in Tamil Nadu

Migration not only creates confusion and commotion, but also an ill-growth of cities. That does not mean that we will shun away the immigrants.

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*New* Call for Papers: Scholarly Migration and Mobility Symposium (Due 5/25/24)

Posted: 5/2/2024 ()

The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research invites submissions from researchers working on or interested in scholarly migration and mobility to attend a one-day symposium in Rostock on October 15, 2024. The symposium aims to promote lively exchange and collaboration among a group of interdisciplinary scientists with interests related to scholarly migration and scientific mobility. Read more here and apply by May 25th.

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Guest Essay

The Cruel Spectacle of British Asylum Policy

By Daniel Trilling

Mr. Trilling is the author, most recently, of “ Lights in the Distance: Exile and Refuge at the Borders of Europe .” He wrote from London.

Last week Britain’s Parliament passed a law that seeks to redefine reality.

The Safety of Rwanda Act declares Rwanda a “safe” country, regardless of the evidence to the contrary — and orders British courts to do the same. Its purpose is to allow the British government to finally, after two years, enact its policy to permanently deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Some of the most vulnerable people in Britain will be rounded up, detained and then — in theory — flown some 4,000 miles to Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. What to do about people seeking asylum is one of the most complex policy issues facing governments around the world, and the British government insists it has the answer: promise cartoonish cruelty.

In April 2022, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a multimillion-pound deal with Rwanda that would allow the British government to put “ tens of thousands ” of asylum seekers on one-way flights to Kigali.

Asylum seekers have been crossing to Britain from France for decades, often hiding in trucks going through the Channel Tunnel. But increased security checks on those routes, and a temporary fall in traffic during Covid lockdowns, had led to a sharp rise in the proportion of people crossing the English Channel in small boats. This highly visible and dangerous method has caused much controversy in Britain. The Rwanda policy would help, the government claimed, because deporting some of those who succeeded in reaching Britain would deter others from trying.

The deal was condemned by human rights groups and the United Nations refugee agency, which urged both countries to rethink the plans, and then it was delayed by legal challenges. In November last year, Britain’s highest court found the policy unlawful on the grounds that Rwanda — where the police shot dead 12 Congolese refugees during a protest in 2018 — was not a safe place to deport asylum seekers. Rwanda, the court said, might send them back to countries where their lives could be at risk.

That might have spelled an end to the policy. But Rishi Sunak, who had become prime minister in October 2022, vowed to revive it. The law that passed last week aims to override that court ruling by declaring that Rwanda is safe. As one former senior government lawyer observed last week , “What the act is doing is making it lawful to send people to Rwanda whether it is safe or not.” More legal challenges may follow.

Legality aside, it has never been clear that the policy is even capable of working. In a 2022 letter to Priti Patel, then the home secretary and in charge of immigration, the most senior civil servant in her department wrote that “evidence of a deterrent effect is highly uncertain.” It’s also not clear that Rwanda can to accommodate people at scale — 70 percent of the homes in a Kigali housing development that the British government said was being prepared to accommodate deportees have reportedly been sold to local buyers.

So what is the point of the Rwanda policy? Mr. Sunak’s government appears to see it as politically useful. The Conservative Party, in power for 14 years, is polling some 20 points behind Labour, and a general election must be held by January. Mr. Sunak is a former investment banker who is seen as coming from the Conservative Party’s center, and he has tried hard to project an image of competence since taking over from his predecessor, Liz Truss — she of the disastrous “mini-budget.” Mr. Sunak made stopping small boats one of his key priorities for 2023 and told voters that they could and should judge him on whether he achieved those priorities.

He’s had mixed success on some others: Inflation has gone down, and the economy is barely growing. But Mr. Sunak — under pressure from his party’s right to accede to their demands on immigration — needs an emphatic win, or at least something that looks like one.

Indeed, the news, first reported in The Sun , a tabloid known for its conservative politics, that a failed asylum seeker had been given more than $3,000 to fly to Rwanda under an entirely different policy seemed cynically timed to coincide with local elections in England on Thursday. As did a government news release on Wednesday announcing that some migrants had already been detained ahead of flights that won’t depart for at least two months, if ever, along with video of dawn raids released by the Home Office.

The news and the video are a stark reminder that there are real people at the sharp end of this policy. Nearly 30,000 people traveled on small boats to Britain last year alone, and deaths have become more common . Five people, including a child, died making the crossing last week , hours after the bill passed.

Few, if anyone, think this is an acceptable state of affairs. It is one facet of a global problem — an international failure to provide displaced people with the safety and security that would remove the need for such journeys. More safe routes to asylum, along with greater international cooperation to support refugees, are an essential part of the solution, yet governments in many parts of the world are instead choosing deterrence.

Britain, however, stands out not just for doubling down on punishment, but for making a spectacle of it. The government has also banned refugees who enter Britain without permission from ever claiming asylum here, putting tens of thousands of people who are already here in legal limbo , many of whom are already on the edge of destitution.

According to polling last week, 41 percent of Britons support the Rwanda policy in principle, but 50 percent think it’s unlikely anyone will actually be deported there. The British public’s response to seeing people actually rounded up and put on flights may not be the reaction Mr. Sunak is counting on.

Daniel Trilling is the author, most recently, of “ Lights in the Distance: Exile and Refuge at the Borders of Europe .”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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Immigration Issues in the United States Essay

Introduction, national concerns, self-identity, benefits of immigration, discussion and recommendations.

Immigration is a vital context of the American Dream and national identity. However, the outdated immigration system and globalization trends have led to a shift in perception of immigration as white nationalism is on the rise. There are socio-political concerns about the impact of immigration on self-identity and security of the United States. This report seeks to investigate these fears and compare them to the benefits for the country to determine if immigration should be curbed. A discussion is held regarding the perceptions and realities of international migration and its principles from a political and ethical perspective. Recommendations are then provided regarding reform of the national immigration system.

Immigration is the foundation of the United States as a country. It was built on the labor, ideas, and cultural melting pot of immigrants coming to the US in the hopes of achieving the American dream, finding a new life, and establishing a home for their families. This report seeks to investigate whether the United States should be defined as a nation of immigrants or should it take extensive efforts to curb foreign entry into the country. The United States has built its self-identity on immigration and its extraordinary socio-economic and technological progress depends on it, but in the realities of an unstable global society, measures should be taken to ensure neutrality and competence in immigration policy.

The US has one of the largest immigrant populations in the world, exceeding 40 million individuals, which is around 14% of the total population (Migration Policy Institute, 2019). In recent years, there has been a rise in nationalism which places the blame on the nation’s socio-economic issues on immigration and challenging the concept of the US self-identity. There is an overwhelming public debate and policymakers are commonly unable to reach an agreement on immigration due to the complexity of economic, security, and humanitarian concerns.

From an economic standpoint, anti-immigration critics consider immigrants to be taking away jobs and creating a strain on public services funded by taxes. Security is being challenged as a significant amount of violence and drug crime is attributed to immigrants, particularly those illegally entering the country. The current Trump administration was elected and continues to gather massive support on its strong anti-immigration policies, particularly targeting Muslim and Hispanic migrants for security purposes (Felter & Renwick, 2018).

The words of an identity crisis are unheard of in other parts of the world where everyone is classified based on their characteristics, family, or religion. Mukherjeee (1997) recalls “The concept itself — of a person not knowing who he or she is — was unimaginable in our hierarchical, classification-obsessed society” (par. 6). However, the United States and many countries in Europe have been or becoming increasingly culturally pluralistic and diverse.

As a result of populations and cultures intertwining, influences and opinions coming from many directions, and new generations being born into varied mixed backgrounds, identity is becoming lost. Some regions are experiencing violence, instability, and lack of direction due to immigration and pluralism (Chua, 2007). This is concerning for the core white population of the United States, not just due to the concern about the loss of control and privilege, but also the prolonged effect immigration has on national stability, value system, and institutions.

Immigration has been studied for centuries, and in the United States, it has been a vital part of cultural and economic development. First, it is considered to be almost universally by experts to be an economic driver to the country by contributing to demographic growth, human capital, talent acquisition, and innovation. If the immigrant flow is managed flexibly and efficiently, it can generate U.S. economic growth at times of relative stagnation.

A restrictive policy is detrimental as the legislation limits legal work-related immigration among highly-educated scientists and engineers as well as the less educated labor force in construction and agriculture that few core Americans would participate in (Orrenius, 2016). The mobility, specialization, and motivational drive of immigrants have proven continuously to be a significant economic benefit.

In terms of self-identity and national culture, immigration holds various benefits as well. It introduces new customs, beliefs, and ideas into the general folklore and traditions of the nation. Many of the things that are considered innately American have their origins from immigrants bringing these aspects into the country for centuries and celebrating them in local communities. Immigrants are also known for their rich and active culture and civic lives as they participate in the American democratic process and local communities, allowing for the establishment of international and tolerant networks.

Furthermore, it is important to consider that migrants often link together, and a healthy immigration base in the country that actively engages in the aspects described above ensures that incoming immigrants are more likely to do so and less willing to participate in radical or criminal activity (McCarthy, 2018).

In a modern liberal society, free movement is considered to be an inalienable right, which if limited would provide a precedent for limitation of other human rights. However, these rights are realistically only observed within country borders. International migration is often done to improve lives and those of their families; therefore, instilling a system of migration control would be coercion, that has historically and will continue to produce violence at the borders. This not only applies to border checkpoints and building the “Wall”, but various aspects such as measures that peaceful migrants attempt to gain entry into the country and threats that they face once settled down, for both legal and illegal aliens (Waldinger, 2018).

The reality is that there is no country without borders, and although such boundaries do imply discrimination, it is necessary to protect U.S. citizens. In a world where the number of immigrants exceeds the capacity of a country to take them in, choices must be made regarding admissions criteria of whom the country would be willing to accept as residents. This remains to be the primary socio-political debate from which the U.S. society will never find an escape. However, should be considered that immigration serves as both, a source for international integration and national fragmentation (Waldinger, 2018).

In the context of immigration, with its threats and benefits, it is evident that the immigration system requires comprehensive and intelligible reform. In her essay, Chua (2007) suggests, “if the U.S. immigration system is to reflect and further our ethnically neutral identity, it must itself be ethnically neutral, offering equal opportunity to [all]” (p. 3). Based on the discussion earlier, there should be more concrete criteria that would allow for a modern rules-based approach to immigration.

Most Americans support legal immigration and accept it as part of the American social contract despite the highly emotional nature of it. Historically, there have always been regulations in place regarding nationality and family ties, with very few people being able to afford passage to the United States. These rules were relaxed in the late 20th century, and it is ultimately left to the voters whether a new system should be re-established again.

The U.S. should bring forward incentives for immigration that were present in the past while laying down harsh penalties for violations of the law by individuals and companies. The aspects of immigration that are commonly exploited such as birthright tourism should be eliminated. Meanwhile, incentives such as professional opportunities under a legal status and safety if following proper refugee procedures would help establish a competent system (Gray, 2019). Although there would be challenges and undoubtedly, debate, the system eventually will balance out if a non-ideological and politically correct approach is taken to reforming it.

Immigration is a critical issue in the current political agenda. There are legitimate national concerns regarding security and national identity. However, immigration brings tremendous benefits economically, socially, and culturally, allowing to form a unique melting pot that promotes inclusivity and tolerance while driving forward economic growth and innovation. Nevertheless, the United States had been built on immigration and it should not be curbed significantly, but rather strong measures taken in policy reform to incentivize legal and dedicated immigrants while eliminating those seeking to use it for enrichment or illegal purposes.

Chua, A. (2007). The right road for America? Washington Post. Web.

Felter, C., & Renwick, D. (2018). The U.S. immigration debate . Web.

Gray, M. W. (2019). America’s immigration policy needs an overhaul . National Interest. Web.

McCarthy, J. (2018). 5 ways immigration enhances a country’s culture . Global Citizen . Web.

Migration Policy Institute. (2019). Frequently requested statistics on immigrants and immigration in the United States . Web.

Mukherjee, B. (1997). American dreamer . Mother Jones . Web.

Orrenius, P. (2016). Benefits of immigration outweigh the costs . The Catalyst, 2 . Web.

Waldinger, R. (2018). Immigration and the election of Donald Trump: Why the sociology of migration left us unprepared … And why we should not have been surprised. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 41 (8), 1411-1426. Web.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2021, June 8). Immigration Issues in the United States. https://ivypanda.com/essays/immigration-issues-in-the-united-states/

"Immigration Issues in the United States." IvyPanda , 8 June 2021, ivypanda.com/essays/immigration-issues-in-the-united-states/.

IvyPanda . (2021) 'Immigration Issues in the United States'. 8 June.

IvyPanda . 2021. "Immigration Issues in the United States." June 8, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/immigration-issues-in-the-united-states/.

1. IvyPanda . "Immigration Issues in the United States." June 8, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/immigration-issues-in-the-united-states/.

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IvyPanda . "Immigration Issues in the United States." June 8, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/immigration-issues-in-the-united-states/.

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• Immigration

Republican-Led States Across the Country Are Copying Texas’ Radical Anti-Immigration Law

Is this the return of “show me your papers”.

Isabela Dias

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Governors Greg Abbott of Texas, Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, and Kim Reynolds of Iowa. Bob Daemmrich/ZUMA

On April 30, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma signed HB 4156, enabling state law enforcement to arrest undocumented immigrants. The measure was, in many ways, radical. For more than a century, immigration enforcement has been almost exclusively the domain of the federal government. But, across the country, Republicans on the state level are attempting to undo settled law to take immigration policing and deportations into their hands. 

The most infamous example is in Texas. In 2023, lawmakers passed SB 4, which makes it a state crime to cross the border into Texas between ports of entry. The law allows police officers to detain people suspected of entering the state illegally and empowers state judges to order deportations. (Initial punishment for a misdemeanor would carry jail time and repeat offenders could face felony charges and up to 20 years in prison.) Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), has called the measure “the most extreme anti-immigrant state law in the last 50 years, bar none.”

And this extreme law is spreading, with copycat anti-immigration bills cropping up in Republican-led states across the country. At least nine states have considered bills mirroring SB 4 so far this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. In March, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds approved legislation, to go into effect in July, criminalizing “illegal re-entry.” Just last month, Louisiana lawmakers pushed through a bill allowing local law enforcement to enforce immigration law.

These anti-immigration laws raise the spectrum of an infamous measure adopted by Arizona in the not-so-distant past. In 2010, Arizona enacted SB 1070, a “ show me your papers ” law that, among other things, required state law enforcement to determine the immigration status of people under “reasonable suspicion” of being in the country without legal authorization. Following legal challenges, the United States Supreme Court struck down several provisions of the discriminatory law—with the exception of the mandate that authorities routinely ask for proof of legal status.

Crucially, the justices concluded in Arizona v. United States that “federal power to determine immigration policy is well settled.” But Texas, and other states, are hoping to challenge the current legal framework and, if it topples, have laws ready to go to police immigration.

Oklahoma’s legislation makes it a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail or a maximum fine of $500 “if the person is an alien and willfully and without permission enters and remains in the State of Oklahoma without having first obtained legal authorization to enter the United States.” (It also requires them to leave the state within 72 hours of being convicted or released from custody.)

Stitt said upon signing the bill that the measure would not give “law enforcement the authority to profile individuals.” But opponents say the new legislation is one of the most extreme anti-immigrant laws in all of the United States—weaponizing state authorities against communities of color and potentially leading to racial profiling. “Local law enforcement lacks the expertise and the constitutional authority to interpret and enforce immigration law,” the ACLU of Oklahoma said in a press release critical of the legislation.

In both Texas and Oklahoma, Republican governors have called the laws necessary amid inaction from a Democratic administration at the federal level. But the bills represent a challenge to both well-established law and constitutional provisions.

SB 4 has been embroiled in a back-and-forth legal battle . The US Department of Justice, El Paso county, and two nonprofit groups have sued the state of Texas challenging SB 4 as unconstitutional because it violates the Supremacy Clause establishing that federal laws take precedent over state acts that conflict with the exercise of federal power. SB 4, the Biden administration argued, also ignores US Supreme Court’s precedents reaffirming federal authority to regulate immigration. “SB 4 impedes the federal government’s ability to enforce entry and removal provisions of federal law and interferes with its conduct of foreign relations,” according to the DOJ.

In February, a federal judge blocked SB 4 from going into effect, ruling that the law “threatens the fundamental notion that the United States must regulate immigration with one voice.” Texas appealed and the conservative Fifth Circuit granted an administrative stay suspending the lower court’s decision. The Supreme Court later allowed Texas to enforce the law pending ongoing litigation over its legality. But then a Fifth Circuit panel placed the implementation of SB 4 on temporary hold. “For nearly 150 years, the Supreme Court has held that the power to control immigration—the entry, admission, and removal of noncitizens—is exclusively a federal power,” the court wrote.

If SB 4 prevails, immigrant rights advocates worry it could present the conservative supermajority on the US Supreme Court with an opportunity to reverse its own previous ruling. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, whose power grab aspirations knows few boundaries, suggested as much to CNN, saying the state would “welcome a Supreme Court decision that would overturn the precedent set in the Arizona case.” He has argued that the enforcement of SB 4 is supported by Scalia’s dissent in the 2012 case, where the late justice wrote that Arizona was entitled to “its own immigration policy” as long as it didn’t conflict with federal law and found no reason why the state couldn’t make it a state crime to deport people. (Both Justice Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented in part with the majority, with Thomas’ opinion indicating he would have upheld all provisions of SB 1070.)

SB 4, Kate Melloy Goettel, senior legal director at the American Immigration Council, stated , “ sets a disastrous  precedent” for other states across the country to enact bills that could “r esult in significant civil rights abuses, leading to widespread arrests and deportations by state actors  without key federal protections.” 

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