- Center for Comparative Immigration Studies
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Dr.
La Jolla, CA
92093-0533
David FitzGerald
University of California, San Diego, Sociology, Faculty Member
If California were its own country, it would have the world's fifth largest immigrant population. The way these newcomers are integrated into the state will shape California's schools, workforce, businesses, public health, politics, and... more
If California were its own country, it would have the world's fifth largest immigrant population. The way these newcomers are integrated into the state will shape California's schools, workforce, businesses, public health, politics, and culture. In Immigrant California, leading experts in U.S. migration provide cutting-edge research on the incorporation of immigrants and their descendants in this bellwether state. California, unique for its diverse population, powerful economy, and progressive politics, provides important lessons for what to expect as demographic change comes to most states across the country. Contributors to this volume cover topics ranging from education systems to healthcare initiatives and unravel the sometimes-contradictory details of California's immigration history. By examining the past and present of immigration policy in California, the volume shows how a state that was once the national leader in anti-immigrant policies quickly became a standard-bearer of greater accommodation. California's successes, and its failures, provide an essential road map for the future prosperity of immigrants and natives alike.
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The core of the asylum regime is the principle of non-refoulement that prohibits governments from sending refugees back to their persecutors. Governments attempt to evade this legal obligation to which they have explicitly agreed by... more
The core of the asylum regime is the principle of non-refoulement that prohibits governments from sending refugees back to their persecutors. Governments attempt to evade this legal obligation to which they have explicitly agreed by manipulating territoriality. A remote control strategy of “extra-territorialization” pushes border control functions hundreds or even thousands of kilometers beyond the state’s territory. Simultaneously, states restrict access to asylum and other rights enjoyed by virtue of presence on a state’s territory, by making micro-distinctions down to the meter at the border line in a process of “hyper-territorialization.” This study analyzes remote controls since the 1930s in Palestine, North America, Europe, and Australia to identify the origins of different forms of remote control, explain how they work together as a system of control, and establish the conditions that enable or constrain them in practice. It argues that foreign policy issue linkages and transnational advocacy networks promoting a humanitarian norm that is less susceptible to the legal manipulation of territoriality constrains remote controls more than the law itself. The degree of constraint varies widely by the technique of remote control.
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Culling the Masses questions the widely held view that in the long run democracy and racism cannot coexist. David Scott FitzGerald and David Cook-Martín show that democracies were the first countries in the Americas to select immigrants... more
Culling the Masses questions the widely held view that in the long run democracy and racism cannot coexist. David Scott FitzGerald and David Cook-Martín show that democracies were the first countries in the Americas to select immigrants by race, and undemocratic states the first to outlaw discrimination. Through analysis of legal records from twenty-two countries between 1790 and 2010, the authors present a history of the rise and fall of racial selection in the Western Hemisphere.
The United States led the way in using legal means to exclude “inferior” ethnic groups. Starting in 1790, Congress began passing nationality and immigration laws that prevented Africans and Asians from becoming citizens, on the grounds that they were inherently incapable of self-government. Similar policies were soon adopted by the self-governing colonies and dominions of the British Empire, eventually spreading across Latin America as well.
Undemocratic regimes in Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Cuba reversed their discriminatory laws in the 1930s and 1940s, decades ahead of the United States and Canada. The conventional claim that racism and democracy are antithetical—because democracy depends on ideals of equality and fairness, which are incompatible with the notion of racial inferiority—cannot explain why liberal democracies were leaders in promoting racist policies and laggards in eliminating them. Ultimately, the authors argue, the changed racial geopolitics of World War II and the Cold War was necessary to convince North American countries to reform their immigration and citizenship laws.
The United States led the way in using legal means to exclude “inferior” ethnic groups. Starting in 1790, Congress began passing nationality and immigration laws that prevented Africans and Asians from becoming citizens, on the grounds that they were inherently incapable of self-government. Similar policies were soon adopted by the self-governing colonies and dominions of the British Empire, eventually spreading across Latin America as well.
Undemocratic regimes in Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Cuba reversed their discriminatory laws in the 1930s and 1940s, decades ahead of the United States and Canada. The conventional claim that racism and democracy are antithetical—because democracy depends on ideals of equality and fairness, which are incompatible with the notion of racial inferiority—cannot explain why liberal democracies were leaders in promoting racist policies and laggards in eliminating them. Ultimately, the authors argue, the changed racial geopolitics of World War II and the Cold War was necessary to convince North American countries to reform their immigration and citizenship laws.
Research Interests: History Of Eugenics, Canadian History, Immigration, Brazilian History, Liberalism, and 11 moreRace and Ethnicity, Migration Studies, Cuban History, United States History, Classical Liberalism, Latin America, Mexican History, Argentine History, Politics and International relations, Historical and Comparative Sociology, and Policy Diffusion
What do governments do when much of their population simply gets up and walks away? In Mexico and other migrant-sending countries, mass emigration prompts governments to negotiate a new social contract with their citizens abroad. After... more
What do governments do when much of their population simply gets up and walks away? In Mexico and other migrant-sending countries, mass emigration prompts governments to negotiate a new social contract with their citizens abroad. After decades of failed efforts to control outflow, the Mexican state now emphasizes voluntary ties, dual nationality, and rights over obligations. In this groundbreaking book, David FitzGerald examines a region of Mexico whose citizens have been migrating to the United States for more than a century. He finds that emigrant citizenship does not signal the decline of the nation-state but does lead to a new form of citizenship, and that bureaucratic efforts to manage emigration and its effects are based on the membership model of the Catholic Church.
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How has the current US economic crisis affected Mexicans on both sides of the border? This volume answers that question, drawing on a 2010 study of the migrant source community of Tlacuitapa, Jalisco, and its satellite communities in... more
How has the current US economic crisis affected
Mexicans on both sides of the border? This volume
answers that question, drawing on a 2010 study of the
migrant source community of Tlacuitapa, Jalisco, and its
satellite communities in Oklahoma City and the San
Francisco Bay Area. A survey of more than 850 adults and
scores of in-depth interviews yield a rich picture of not only
how migrants and their families in Mexico are managing
with fewer dollars, but also how US immigration and
economic policies affect their everyday lives.
Mexicans on both sides of the border? This volume
answers that question, drawing on a 2010 study of the
migrant source community of Tlacuitapa, Jalisco, and its
satellite communities in Oklahoma City and the San
Francisco Bay Area. A survey of more than 850 adults and
scores of in-depth interviews yield a rich picture of not only
how migrants and their families in Mexico are managing
with fewer dollars, but also how US immigration and
economic policies affect their everyday lives.
The dominant nation-state model of citizenship, in which political identity and membership are congruent with state territory, is increasingly unable to resolve the contradictions created by global mass migration. While scholars have... more
The dominant nation-state model of citizenship, in which political identity and membership are congruent with state territory, is increasingly unable to resolve the contradictions created by global mass migration. While scholars have studied this problem from the perspective of immigrant-receiving countries, they have paid little attention to citizenship models that would explain how migrants relate to their sending countries. This work draws on evidence from ethnographic fieldwork in Michoacán, Mexico, and Southern California to propose a process-based model of extra-territorial citizenship in which transnational migrants claim citizenship in their places of origin, even when they are physically absent. Legal rights of citizenship, such as voting from abroad, and a kind of moral citizenship in communities of origin share similar theoretical underpinnings. Both forms of citizenship are negotiated with non-migrants who selectively accept or reject the principles of extra-territorial citizenship.
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‘Remote control’ has been a radical innovation that projects many aspects of migration and border enforcement beyond a state’s territory. Scholars across multiple disciplines make distinctive and sometimes contradictory claims about the... more
‘Remote control’ has been a radical innovation that projects many
aspects of migration and border enforcement beyond a state’s
territory. Scholars across multiple disciplines make distinctive and
sometimes contradictory claims about the extent to which state
control over space and geographic borders is of declining
significance. Drawing on a study of remote control policies in the
United States, Canada, the EU, and Australia since the 1930s, this
paper argues that states push much of their migration control out
from their territorial boundaries though a process of extraterritorialisation.
However, these liberal states simultaneously
ratchet up controls at a finely calibrated border line in a process
of hyper-territorialisation. The goal of restricting migrants’ access
to territorialised human and civil rights drives both of these
manipulations of territoriality. A taxonomy of controls based on
the metaphor of an ‘architecture of repulsion’ describes their logic
and practice. Many of these practices involve states sharing the
legitimate means of coercion over movement in a way that
challenges a core assumption about modern states. The degree to
which remote control deters unauthorised migration remains a
critical research question, but there is more deterrence than found
in standard measures of border enforcement efficacy.
aspects of migration and border enforcement beyond a state’s
territory. Scholars across multiple disciplines make distinctive and
sometimes contradictory claims about the extent to which state
control over space and geographic borders is of declining
significance. Drawing on a study of remote control policies in the
United States, Canada, the EU, and Australia since the 1930s, this
paper argues that states push much of their migration control out
from their territorial boundaries though a process of extraterritorialisation.
However, these liberal states simultaneously
ratchet up controls at a finely calibrated border line in a process
of hyper-territorialisation. The goal of restricting migrants’ access
to territorialised human and civil rights drives both of these
manipulations of territoriality. A taxonomy of controls based on
the metaphor of an ‘architecture of repulsion’ describes their logic
and practice. Many of these practices involve states sharing the
legitimate means of coercion over movement in a way that
challenges a core assumption about modern states. The degree to
which remote control deters unauthorised migration remains a
critical research question, but there is more deterrence than found
in standard measures of border enforcement efficacy.
Research Interests:
Institutionalist scholars argue that international rights norms, judicial autonomy and discourses of immigrant nationhood constrain shifts to harsher immigration policies in liberal democracies, particularly settler societies. The Trump... more
Institutionalist scholars argue that international rights norms, judicial autonomy and discourses of immigrant nationhood constrain shifts to harsher immigration policies in liberal democracies, particularly settler societies. The Trump presidency and the Liberal-National Coalition government in Australia during the same period are occasions to test whether those norms functioned as expected in two paradigmatic country cases. Both governments attempted to undermine judicial autonomy, the illegitimacy of ethnic and religious selection of immigrants, the rights of detained children and families, and the principle of non-refoulement. A new institutionalist analysis of attempted norm-busting in each country specifies which norms were effective constraints. International legal and political constraints were weak. Domestically, norms obliging the protection of children were more effective than norms related to adults. Discourses favouring immigrant nationhood and opposing discrimination resonated, but were confronted by equally powerful discourses of insular nationalism and security that promoted restriction. While the judiciary moderately constrained new policies, particularly in the US, in neither country did the judiciary fully act in line with dominant theoretical expectations, because of both structural and normative weaknesses.
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Measures to control asylum seekers' entry to US territory during the COVID-19 pandemic reflect a long history of remote border controls.
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Why do laws become similar across countries? Is the adoption of similar laws and policies due to factors operating independently within each country? Do countries develop similar rules in response to similar challenges? Or is the... more
Why do laws become similar across countries? Is the adoption of similar laws and policies due to factors operating independently within each country? Do countries develop similar rules in response to similar challenges? Or is the similarity of laws and policies due to the interdependent responses that scholars have referred to as processes of policy convergence, transfer, and diffusion? We draw on an analysis of immigration and nationality laws of 22 countries throughout the Western Hemisphere from 1790 to 2010, and of seven case studies of national and international policymaking, to show that policies are often interdependent, even in the domain of immigration law, which scholars have presumed to be relatively immune to external influence. We argue that specific mechanisms of diffusion explain the rise of racist immigration policies in the Americas, their subsequent decline, and the rise of an anti-discriminatory norm for policies. Most striking among our findings is that at key junctures after 1940, weaker countries effectively advanced an anti-discriminatory policy agenda against the desires of world powers. We identify the conditions under which weaker countries were able to reach their goals despite opposition from world powers.
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Les pages qui suivent constituent un état des connaissances sur le rôle du Mexique comme Etat de contention (buffer state) entre les Etats-Unis et l’Amérique centrale, basé sur les archives gouvernementales et académiques ainsi que sur... more
Les pages qui suivent constituent un état des
connaissances sur le rôle du Mexique comme Etat
de contention (buffer state) entre les Etats-Unis
et l’Amérique centrale, basé sur les archives gouvernementales
et académiques ainsi que sur des
rapports d’ong. Mais un compte-rendu complet
est impossible. Ce travail met donc en relation des
fragments visibles du contrôle de la mobilité avec
une plus longue histoire d’accords qui n’ont jamais
été révélés.
connaissances sur le rôle du Mexique comme Etat
de contention (buffer state) entre les Etats-Unis
et l’Amérique centrale, basé sur les archives gouvernementales
et académiques ainsi que sur des
rapports d’ong. Mais un compte-rendu complet
est impossible. Ce travail met donc en relation des
fragments visibles du contrôle de la mobilité avec
une plus longue histoire d’accords qui n’ont jamais
été révélés.
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Las páginas que siguen son un intento de delinear el estado del conocimiento sobre el papel de México como Estado de contención (buffer state) entre ee.uu. y Centroamérica, con base en los archivos gubernamentales y académicos así como... more
Las páginas que siguen son un intento de delinear
el estado del conocimiento sobre el papel de México
como Estado de contención (buffer state) entre ee.uu. y Centroamérica, con base en los archivos
gubernamentales y académicos así como informes
de ong. Sin embargo, la historia está trunca: este
trabajo conecta fragmentos visibles con una larga
historia de acuerdos no revelados entre ambos Estados
para controlar la movilidad.
el estado del conocimiento sobre el papel de México
como Estado de contención (buffer state) entre ee.uu. y Centroamérica, con base en los archivos
gubernamentales y académicos así como informes
de ong. Sin embargo, la historia está trunca: este
trabajo conecta fragmentos visibles con una larga
historia de acuerdos no revelados entre ambos Estados
para controlar la movilidad.
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Theorization in the sociology of migration and the field of refugee studies has been retarded by a path-dependent division that we argue should be broken down by greater mutual engagement. Excavating the construction of the refugee... more
Theorization in the sociology of migration and the field of refugee studies has been retarded by a path-dependent division that we argue should be broken down by greater mutual engagement. Excavating the construction of the refugee category reveals how unwarranted assumptions shape contemporary disputes about the scale of refugee crises, appropriate policy responses, and suitable research tools. Empirical studies of how violence interacts with economic and other factors shaping mobility offer lessons for both fields. Adapting existing theories that may not appear immediately applicable, such as household economy approaches, helps explain refugees’ decision-making processes. At a macro level, world systems theory sheds light on the interactive policies around refugees across states of origin, mass hosting, asylum, transit, and resettlement. Finally, focusing on the integration of refugees in the Global South reveals a pattern that poses major challenges to theories of assimilation and citizenship developed in settler states of the Global North.
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In writing Culling the Masses: The Democratic Origins of Racist Immigration Policy in the Americas, David FitzGerald and David Cook-Martín sought to explore the complex historical relationship between immigration, democracy and racism.... more
In writing Culling the Masses: The Democratic Origins of Racist Immigration Policy in
the Americas, David FitzGerald and David Cook-Martín sought to explore the complex
historical relationship between immigration, democracy and racism. Drawing on a comparative
analytical framework, they produced a historically informed account of the
origins of racist policies on immigration in a range of countries in the Americas. Their
account has attracted the attention of scholars working in a wide range of different
national contexts. As editors, we feel that their arguments will be of interest to readers of
Ethnic and Racial Studies Review and we are pleased that the various scholars we invited to take part in this symposium took up the challenge of discussing key themes in Culling
the Masses. In the end, we have brought together five critical commentaries on the book and the authors provide a robust response to the key arguments to be found in the commentaries.
the Americas, David FitzGerald and David Cook-Martín sought to explore the complex
historical relationship between immigration, democracy and racism. Drawing on a comparative
analytical framework, they produced a historically informed account of the
origins of racist policies on immigration in a range of countries in the Americas. Their
account has attracted the attention of scholars working in a wide range of different
national contexts. As editors, we feel that their arguments will be of interest to readers of
Ethnic and Racial Studies Review and we are pleased that the various scholars we invited to take part in this symposium took up the challenge of discussing key themes in Culling
the Masses. In the end, we have brought together five critical commentaries on the book and the authors provide a robust response to the key arguments to be found in the commentaries.
Research Interests:
In a 1964 speech in London, Martin Luther King assessed the struggle against segregation in the USA and apartheid in South Africa. He ended with a quote from a black slave preacher mapping the road travelled in the fight against racial... more
In a 1964 speech in London, Martin Luther King assessed the struggle against segregation in the USA and apartheid in South Africa. He ended with a quote from a black slave preacher mapping the road travelled in the fight against racial inequality: 'Lord, we ain't what we want to be. We ain't what we ought to be. We ain't what we gonna be. But, thank God, we ain't what we was' (Democracy Now 2015). Culling the Masses reaches an analogous conclusion in its assessment of how twenty-two countries in the Western hemisphere have selected immigrants by ethnic criteria from the time each country become independent to the present. We now know that every one of these countries openly discriminated against particular ethnic groups. Every country openly preferred the immigration of other ethnic groups. Twenty-one of the twenty-two countries explicitly gave ethnic preferences in their nationality laws. By 2010, all had stripped explicit ethnic discrimination out of their immigration and nationality laws, and the number of countries with ethnic preferences had sharply declined. How can that change be explained? Do the changes really matter? We are grateful to our colleagues writing in this symposium for thoughtfully challenging some of our answers to these questions. The seminal works of Fox, Hollifield, Joppke, Motomura and Wade have deeply shaped our understanding of the politics of immigration and ethnicity. Indeed, it was Christian Joppke's seminar presentation at the University of California, Los Angeles of his research published as Selecting by Origin: Ethnic Migration in the Liberal State that initially sparked our interest in testing his arguments by studying policies in the entire Western hemisphere. The dialogue among us in these pages has fruitfully clarified points of agreement and disagreement. Below we address three major areas of ongoing discussion and suggest an agenda for further research. Trajectory and status of racist policies As we have presented this project to audiences around the world, we have invariably been asked if the changes we describe in the law have any substance. Cybelle Fox suggests that there has been 'a significant change in American immigration policies' but not 'a dramatic break'. Peter Wade points out that practices of inclusion and exclusion coexist in historically contingent ways. What does it matter if governments declare an end to a racial hierarchy of admission? Do reformed laws simply pour old racist wine into new skins? How does any of this affect the lives of real, breathing human beings who might wish to migrate or who have moved to another country?
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Racial categorizations have been used since antiquity as grounds for assigning and taking away citizenship. This history includes cycles of racialization and deracialization. The proto-racialization of citizenship in Athens was followed... more
Racial categorizations have been used since antiquity as grounds for assigning and taking
away citizenship. This history includes cycles of racialization and deracialization. The
proto-racialization of citizenship in Athens was followed by a more open Roman model.
The racialization of religious bigotry did not become formalized until the creation of anti-
Jewish and anti-Moorish policies in sixteenth century Iberia. Examining the historical
record across diverse contexts suggests that jus sanguinis is not inherently racist. While
in an abstract sense, jus soli might sustain a civic vision of nationality, in practice, the
examples of Western Hemisphere states, particularly the United States, shows that jus
soli is fully compatible with racialized citizenship. The construction of nation-states from
empires is consonant with the racialization of policies while the consolidation of the
nation-state system created barriers to racialization. Since the mid-twentieth century,
citizenship has entered a deracializing phase, even as political entrepreneurs
aggressively test the strength of anti-racist institutions.
away citizenship. This history includes cycles of racialization and deracialization. The
proto-racialization of citizenship in Athens was followed by a more open Roman model.
The racialization of religious bigotry did not become formalized until the creation of anti-
Jewish and anti-Moorish policies in sixteenth century Iberia. Examining the historical
record across diverse contexts suggests that jus sanguinis is not inherently racist. While
in an abstract sense, jus soli might sustain a civic vision of nationality, in practice, the
examples of Western Hemisphere states, particularly the United States, shows that jus
soli is fully compatible with racialized citizenship. The construction of nation-states from
empires is consonant with the racialization of policies while the consolidation of the
nation-state system created barriers to racialization. Since the mid-twentieth century,
citizenship has entered a deracializing phase, even as political entrepreneurs
aggressively test the strength of anti-racist institutions.
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Pre-arrival integration tests used by European countries suggest discriminatory measures subtly persist in immigration laws. This paper draws on a comparison across the Americas and Europe to identify and explain historical continuities... more
Pre-arrival integration tests used by European countries suggest
discriminatory measures subtly persist in immigration laws. This
paper draws on a comparison across the Americas and Europe to
identify and explain historical continuities and discontinuities in
‘assimilability’ admissions requirements. We attribute legal shifts at
the turn of the twenty-first century to the institutionalised
delegitimisation of biological racism and the rise of permanent
settlement immigration to Europe. Efforts to reduce Muslim
immigration largely motivate contemporary European policies, but
these policies test putative individual capacity to integrate rather
than inferring it from a racial group categorisation, as did
historical precedents in the Americas.
discriminatory measures subtly persist in immigration laws. This
paper draws on a comparison across the Americas and Europe to
identify and explain historical continuities and discontinuities in
‘assimilability’ admissions requirements. We attribute legal shifts at
the turn of the twenty-first century to the institutionalised
delegitimisation of biological racism and the rise of permanent
settlement immigration to Europe. Efforts to reduce Muslim
immigration largely motivate contemporary European policies, but
these policies test putative individual capacity to integrate rather
than inferring it from a racial group categorisation, as did
historical precedents in the Americas.
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in Inmigración y Racismo: Contribuciones a la historia de los extranjeros en México, edited by Pablo Yankelevich. Mexico City: Colegio de México. 2015
La política inmigratoria de Brasil consta de periodos durante los cuales sus leyes distinguieron de manera positiva o negativa quienes podían ser admitidos al territorio. ¿Cuáles han sido los determinantes de estos patrones de... more
La política inmigratoria de Brasil consta de periodos durante los cuales sus leyes distinguieron de manera positiva o negativa quienes podían ser admitidos al territorio. ¿Cuáles han sido los determinantes de estos patrones de selectivi-dad étnica en las leyes inmigratorias del país en el largo plazo? Argumentamos en este capítulo que este tipo de selectividad resultó de la intersección de dos planos. En el vertical o doméstico, las elites políticas dedicadas al proyecto de blanqueamiento nacional se debatieron con la clase hacendada que buscaba mano de obra barata. No fue hasta la época de Vargas que se integraron de manera significativa actores del sector sindical y profesional al debate de polí-ticas inmigratorias y esto coincidió con la implementación de leyes discrimina-torias. En el plano horizontal o internacional, las elites políticas promovieron la etiqueta de Brasil como democracia racial, lo cual desalentó discriminacio-nes explícitas en las leyes inmigratorias (aunque no en la practica administra-tiva o en la aplicación de leyes aparentemente neutrales en contra de grupos de
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CAPITULO 1 VENDER EL MITO DE LA DEMOCRACIA RACIAL: SELECCION ETNICA EN LAS POLITICAS MIGRATORIAS DE BRASIL DESDE LA REPUBLICA HASTA EL PRESENTE 1 DAVID COOK-MARTIN Y DAVID FITZGERALD La politica inmigratoria de Brasil consta de periodos... more
CAPITULO 1 VENDER EL MITO DE LA DEMOCRACIA RACIAL: SELECCION ETNICA EN LAS POLITICAS MIGRATORIAS DE BRASIL DESDE LA REPUBLICA HASTA EL PRESENTE 1 DAVID COOK-MARTIN Y DAVID FITZGERALD La politica inmigratoria de Brasil consta de periodos durante los cuales sus leyes distinguieron de manera positiva o negativa quienes podian ser admitidos al territorio. ?Cuales han sido los determinantes de estos patrones de selectivi- dad etnica en las leyes inmigratorias del pais en el largo plazo? Argumentamos en este capitulo que este tipo de selectividad resulto de la interseccion de dos planos. En el vertical o domestico, las elites politicas dedicadas al proyecto de blanqueamiento nacional se debatieron con la clase hacendada que buscaba mano de obra barata. No fue hasta la epoca de Vargas que se integraron de manera significativa actores del sector sindical y profesional al debate de poli- ticas inmigratorias y esto coincidio con la implementacion de leyes discrimina- torias. En el plano horiz...
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Research Interests: Sociology, Political Sociology, Race and Racism, Law and Society, Race and Ethnicity, and 10 moreImmigration Law, Ethnic and Racial Studies, International Migration, Immigration History, Multidisciplinary, Citizenship, Racismo y discriminación, Anti racism, Immigration Status & Nationality, and culling
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One of the principal theoretical and policy questions in the sociology of international migration is the extent to which post-1965 immigrants are either assimilating in the United States or remain stuck in an ethnic “underclass.” This... more
One of the principal theoretical and policy questions in the sociology of international migration is the extent to which post-1965 immigrants are either assimilating in the United States or remain stuck in an ethnic “underclass.” This paper aims to recast conventional approaches to assimilation through a temporal and spatial reorientation, with special attention to the Mexican-origin case. Attending to the effects of the replenishment of the Mexican-origin population through a constant stream of new immigrants shows significant assimilation taking place temporally between a given immigrant cohort and subsequent generations. Thinking outside the national box, through comparing the growing differences between Mexican migrants and their descendants, on the one hand, and Mexicans who stay in Mexico, on the other, reveals, spatially, a dramatic upward mobility and a process of “homeland dissimilation” that conventional accounts miss. We demonstrate the analytic utility of these two persp...
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Most scholars argue that the global triumph of liberal norms within the last 150 years ended discriminatory immigration policy. Yet, the United States was a leader in the spread of policy restrictions aimed at Asian migrants during the... more
Most scholars argue that the global triumph of liberal norms within the last 150 years ended discriminatory immigration policy. Yet, the United States was a leader in the spread of policy restrictions aimed at Asian migrants during the early twentieth century, and authoritarian Latin American regimes removed racial discrimination from their immigration laws a generation before the United States and Canada did. By the same token, critical theorists claim that racism has not diminished, but most states have removed their discriminatory laws, thus allowing significant ethnic transformation within their borders. An analysis of the immigration policies of the twenty-two major countries of the Americas since 1850 reveals that liberal states have been discriminatory precisely because of their liberalism and elucidates the diffusion of international legal norms of racial exclusion and inclusion.
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Pre-arrival integration tests used by European countries suggest discriminatory measures subtly persist in immigration laws. This paper draws on a comparison across the Americas and Europe to identify and explain historical continuities... more
Pre-arrival integration tests used by European countries suggest discriminatory measures subtly persist in immigration laws. This paper draws on a comparison across the Americas and Europe to identify and explain historical continuities and discontinuities in ‘assimilability’ admissions requirements. We attribute legal shifts at the turn of the twenty-first century to the institutionalised delegitimisation of biological racism and the rise of permanent settlement immigration to Europe. Efforts to reduce Muslim immigration largely motivate contemporary European policies, but these policies test putative individual capacity to integrate rather than inferring it from a racial group categorisation, as did historical precedents in the Americas. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 19 December 2016 Accepted 27 March 2017
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Argentine intellectual Juan Bautista Alberdi observed in 1879 that “to govern is to populate.” Alberdi's observation is emblematic of the critical importance that attracting millions of immigrants played in creating the Argentine... more
Argentine intellectual Juan Bautista Alberdi observed in 1879 that “to govern is to populate.” Alberdi's observation is emblematic of the critical importance that attracting millions of immigrants played in creating the Argentine nation state, but his maxim applies in varying degrees throughout Latin America and beyond. In selecting who shall enter and who shall be excluded, immigration policies reveal the kind of nation that governments seek to create. From 1800 to 1970, approximately 13.8 million immigrants entered Latin America. Nearly 60 percent hailed from southern Europe, 15 percent from elsewhere in Europe, and 11 percent from Asia. Argentina, Brazil, and Cuba were the major countries of immigration through the 1920s. In the decade following World War II, Argentina and Brazil re-emerged as significant countries of immigration, along with Venezuela. Throughout this period, Mexico, Central America, and the Andean states were unable to attract mass European immigration despite their best efforts. Europeans generally preferred countries with temperate climates, political stability, economic growth, and small indigenous or black populations. Yet whether immigrants came in numbers large or small, governments throughout Latin America sought to “whiten” their populations through ethnic selection until most disavowed racism in the mid- to late 20th century. Keywords: ethnocentrism; race; racism; indigenous peoples; labor supply
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Measures to control asylum seekers' entry to US territory during the COVID-19 pandemic reflect a long history of remote border controls.
Research Interests:
Institutionalist scholars argue that international rights norms, judicial autonomy and discourses of immigrant nationhood constrain shifts to harsher immigration policies in liberal democracies, particularly settler societies. The Trump... more
Institutionalist scholars argue that international rights norms, judicial autonomy and discourses of immigrant nationhood constrain shifts to harsher immigration policies in liberal democracies, particularly settler societies. The Trump presidency and the Liberal-National Coalition government in Australia during the same period are occasions to test whether those norms functioned as expected in two paradigmatic country cases. Both governments attempted to undermine judicial autonomy, the illegitimacy of ethnic and religious selection of immigrants, the rights of detained children and families, and the principle of non-refoulement. A new institutionalist analysis of attempted norm-busting in each country specifies which norms were effective constraints. International legal and political constraints were weak. Domestically, norms obliging the protection of children were more effective than norms related to adults. Discourses favouring immigrant nationhood and opposing discrimination resonated, but were confronted by equally powerful discourses of insular nationalism and security that promoted restriction. While the judiciary moderately constrained new policies, particularly in the US, in neither country did the judiciary fully act in line with dominant theoretical expectations, because of both structural and normative weaknesses.