The Effects of Relative Wages and Border Enforcement on Illegal Immigration
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Healing the Scars of Forced Migration: an Italian-American Story
RSAJOURNAL 30/2019 LINDSEY N. KINGSTON Healing the Scars of Forced Migration: An Italian-American Story There’s an expression for wishing someone “good luck” in Italian – in bocca al lupo – that literally translates to “in the mouth of the wolf.” I imagine my grandfather’s friends saying this to him as he left his Sicilian village, Grotte, in 1938. The expression would have certainly been fitting for the 17-year-old; the intimidating journey looming before him must have felt like staring down the jaws of a predator. He traveled to America several years after his father and two older brothers, who had saved money and made the necessary arrangements to bring the rest of the family over. Grandpa was not particularly eager to leave Sicily, but his mother and siblings were going with or without him; the decision he faced was between family and homeland. He first went to Naples, where he was awe-struck by the endless rows of ships in port. He had never been to a city before, even to nearby Agrigento to see its famed Greek temples. Yet he had already survived extreme poverty and hunger when he boarded his ship, the SS Roma (where he felt every seasickness-inspiring roll of the ocean, and where he likely spent his eighteenth birthday), so he had endured harder things than the long voyage to New York. He arrived in the United States with one suitcase and the remnants of a handmade guitar that was crushed along the way. He had no real job prospects, no education to speak of, and initially no English skills whatsoever. -
Sequestered Inclusion: Social Service Discourses and New Latino Diaspora Youth in the Shenandoah Valley
SEQUESTERED INCLUSION: SOCIAL SERVICE DISCOURSES AND NEW LATINO DIASPORA YOUTH IN THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Elizabeth Esther Phelps May 2015 © 2015 Elizabeth Esther Phelps SEQUESTERED INCLUSION: SOCIAL SERVICE DISCOURSES AND NEW LATINO DIASPORA YOUTH IN THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY Elizabeth Esther Phelps, Ph. D. Cornell University 2015 Abstract: This dissertation explores ethnographically the impact of discourses of belonging and exclusion in a New Latino Diaspora (NLD) city located in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. Young NLD adults in Rocktown, Virginia, experience a form of sequestered inclusion shaped by racializing narratives based in nativist hostility as well as by implicit deficit narratives embedded in humanistic multiculturalism. Based on more than twelve months of ethnographic field work (and over six years of ordinary life in Rocktown), this dissertation explores how advocates, activists, and their allies in the social service and educational institutions in the Rocktown area have institutionalized processes of inclusion over a period of fifteen years both with and for NLD youth. These processes have been constrained by the paternalistic and reductive discourses that frame youth both as inherently needy and as a resource that benefits the receiving community. NLD youth themselves recognize their own specific needs and contributions, but resist the reductionism and racializing tendencies of these discourses. Within this context, a small group of young NLD activists formed to support and promote the DREAM Act (for Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors), both capitulating to and contesting dominant discourses and constructing a narrative frame for belonging on their own terms. -
May Day 2008 Local Reports
May Day 2008 International Workers Day and Mobilization to Support Immigrant Rights! Reports from Around the World Lee Siu Hin National Coordinator National Immigrant Solidarity Network http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org ActionLA Coalition http://www.ActionLA.org Peace NO War Network http://www.PeaceNOWar.net May Day 2008: http://www.MayDay2008.org 1 May Day 2008 Call to Action! National Immigrant Solidarity Network http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org On May Day 2008, National Immigrant Solidarity Network is calling for a multi-ethnic, decentralized, multi-topic and multi-tactic national day of mobilization to support immigrant workers rights. 1. No to anti-immigrant legislation, and the criminalization of the immigrant communities. 2. No to militarization of the border. 3. No to the immigrant detention and deportation. 4. No to the guest worker program. 5. No to employer sanction and “no match” letters. 6. Yes to a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. 7. Yes to speedy family reunification. 8. Yes to civil rights and humane immigration law. 9. Yes to labor rights and living wages for all workers. 10. Yes to the education and LGBT immigrant legislation. We acknowledges that there’ll be multiple call to actions from across the country to organize May Day 2008, and each coalition will present their sets of demands. We should respects each other organizing and encourage and supports everyone’s issues: 1) Multi-ethnic, Decentralized and Multi-topic mobilization: while everyone will pledge to support immigrant workers rights at May Day 2007, local groups can choose to includes any other topics for their mobilizations: civil rights, anti-war, Katrina, labor rights, health care…., etc. -
Issues and Themes 2012
ISSUES AND THEMES 2012 BORDER MILITARIZATION Begun in 1993 and extended to the entire southwest border by 1997, the policy of massive concentration of enforcement resources along the border has transformed the southwest borderlands into a perilous militarized zone and had cataclysmic consequences for migrants and border communities. This militarized enforcement strategy, dubbed “prevention-through-deterrence” by Border Patrol, was conceived to intentionally force undocumented migrants away from urban areas to attempt crossings in more remote and dangerous terrain. Intended to increase the cost and risk associated with crossing the border without authorization, the policy has done just that, resulting in the deaths of many thousands since its implementation. The effects of border militarization are clear and well-documented. Historically circular migration flows have been disrupted and more families have been compelled to resettle permanently in the United States. The natural environment of the southwest has been degraded by the construction of hundreds of miles of border walls and barriers and by the deployment of thousands of enforcement vehicles. Indigenous communities whose ancestral lands span both sides of the contemporary international boundary have been severely adversely affected by the militarization of their lands and face the retrenchment of border crossing rights and discrimination, harassment and abuse at the hands of immigration officers. Finally, border militarization has succeeded in exponentially increasing the dangers posed to migrants by the terrain and environment, predation by bandits, gender and sexual violence, enforcement operations and abuse and mistreatment by Border Patrol agents. The pace of border militarization has arguably escalated in recent years, including the recent deployment of 1,200 Nation Guard troops to the border and the supplemental appropriation of $600 million in 2010 to, among other things, hire 1,000 additional Border Patrol agents and establish two new forward-operating bases. -
What Kind of Welcome?
WHAT KIND OF WELCOME? INTEGRATION OF CENTRAL AMERICAN UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN INTO LOCAL COMMUNITIES By Elżbieta M. Goździak Director of Research Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University Prepared for the J.M. Kaplan Fund, February 2015 WHAT KIND OF WELCOME? INTEGRATION OF CENTRAL AMERICAN UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN INTO LOCAL COMMUNITIES Page 1 Contents Acknowledgements 3 Key Observations 4 Introduction 5 The Current Migration of Unaccompanied Children 7 Reception in Communities and Families 10 Education and Employment 13 Beyond Education and Employment 20 Conclusion: Challenges for the Future 22 Resources 23 Endnotes 24 WHAT KIND OF WELCOME? INTEGRATION OF CENTRAL AMERICAN UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN INTO LOCAL COMMUNITIES Page 2 About the Author Elżbieta M. Goździak, PhD, is the Director of Research at the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) at Georgetown University and Editor of Interna- tional Migration, a peer reviewed, scholarly journal devoted to research and poli- cy analysis of contemporary issues affecting international migration. Formerly, she held a senior position with the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and the Sub- stance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in the US De- partment of Health and Human Services. She has taught at Howard University in the Social Work with Displaced Populations Program, and managed a program area on admissions and resettlement of refugees in industrialized countries for the Refugee Policy Group. Prior to immigrating to the US, she was an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. Acknowledgements This report benefited greatly from the contributions of many individuals. I interviewed several policy-makers, child advocates, pro bono attorneys representing undocumented Central American children and youth, service providers, especially those providing post-release services, school adminis- trators and teachers, and community leaders. -
WHAT KIND of WELCOME? INTEGRATION of CENTRAL AMERICAN UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN INTO LOCAL COMMUNITIES Page 1 Contents
WHAT KIND OF WELCOME? INTEGRATION OF CENTRAL AMERICAN UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN INTO LOCAL COMMUNITIES By Elżbieta M. Goździak Director of Research Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University Prepared for the J.M. Kaplan Fund, February 2015 WHAT KIND OF WELCOME? INTEGRATION OF CENTRAL AMERICAN UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN INTO LOCAL COMMUNITIES Page 1 Contents Acknowledgements 3 Key Observations 4 Introduction 5 The Current Migration of Unaccompanied Children 7 Reception in Communities and Families 10 Education and Employment 13 Beyond Education and Employment 20 Conclusion: Challenges for the Future 22 Resources 23 Endnotes 24 WHAT KIND OF WELCOME? INTEGRATION OF CENTRAL AMERICAN UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN INTO LOCAL COMMUNITIES Page 2 About the Author Elżbieta M. Goździak, PhD, is the Director of Research at the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) at Georgetown University and Editor of Interna- tional Migration, a peer reviewed, scholarly journal devoted to research and poli- cy analysis of contemporary issues affecting international migration. Formerly, she held a senior position with the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and the Sub- stance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in the US De- partment of Health and Human Services. She has taught at Howard University in the Social Work with Displaced Populations Program, and managed a program area on admissions and resettlement of refugees in industrialized countries for the Refugee Policy Group. Prior to immigrating to the US, she was an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. Acknowledgements This report benefited greatly from the contributions of many individuals. I interviewed several policy-makers, child advocates, pro bono attorneys representing undocumented Central American children and youth, service providers, especially those providing post-release services, school adminis- trators and teachers, and community leaders. -
Executive Summary for Illegal Immigration
1994 executive summary - i - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY INTRODUCTION The U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform was created by Con- gress to assess U.S. immigration policy and make recommendations regarding its implementation and effects. Mandated in the Immi- gration Act of 1990 to submit an interim report in 1994 and a final report in 1997, the Commission has undertaken public hearings, fact-finding missions, and expert consultations to identify the major immigration-related issues facing the United States today. This process has been a complex one. Distinguishing fact from fic- tion has been difficult, in some cases because of what has become a highly emotional debate on immigration. We have heard contradic- tory testimony, shaky statistics, and a great deal of honest confusion regarding the impacts of immigration. Nevertheless, we have tried throughout to engage in what we believe is a systematic, non- partisan effort to reach conclusions drawn from analysis of the best data available. It is both Underlying Principles a right and a Certain basic principles underlie the Commission’s work. The Com- responsibility mission decries hostility and discrimination against immigrants as of a democratic antithetical to the traditions and interests of the country. At the society same time, we disagree with those who would label efforts to con- to manage trol immigration as being inherently anti-immigrant. Rather, it is both a right and a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration immigration so that it serves the national interest. so that it serves the national interest. U.S. COMMISSION ON IMMIGRATION REFORM 1994 executive summary - ii - Challenges Ahead The Commission believes that legal immigration has strengthened and can continue to strengthen this country. -
America's Border Fence
Researcher Published by CQ Press, a division of SAGE Publications CQ www.cqresearcher.com America’s Border Fence Will it stem the flow of illegal immigrants? merica is rushing to build 670 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexican border by the end of the year. The fence — or wall, as critics along the border call it — is to include 370 miles of fencing intendedA to stop illegal immigrants on foot and 300 miles of vehicle barriers. To speed construction, the Bush administration is using unprecedented authority granted by Congress to waive environ- mental-, historic- and cultural-protection laws. No one claims that building physical barriers along roughly a third of America’s 2,000- mile Southern border will stem illegal immigration by itself, but U.S. Army personnel install sections of the fence near supporters believe it is an essential first step in “securing the Puerto Palomas, Mexico. U.S. officials expect to complete 670 miles of pedestrian and border,” providing a critical line of defense against illegal migration, vehicle barriers by year’s end. drug smugglers and even terrorists. Opponents see it as a multi- I billion-dollar waste that will only shift illegal immigrants toward N THIS REPORT more dangerous and difficult routes into the country, while doing S THE ISSUES ......................747 environmental, cultural and economic damage. I BACKGROUND ..................754 D CHRONOLOGY ..................755 E CURRENT SITUATION ..........760 CQ Researcher • Sept. 19, 2008 • www.cqresearcher.com AT ISSUE ..........................761 Volume 18, Number 32 • Pages 745-768 OUTLOOK ........................763 RECIPIENT OF SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE N AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION SILVER GAVEL AWARD BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................766 THE NEXT STEP ................767 AMERICA’S BORDER FENCE CQ Researcher Sept. -
The Geographies of Local Immigration Policies in the United States a DISSERTATION SUBMITTED to the FACULTY of the GRADUATE SCHOO
The Geographies of Local Immigration Policies in the United States A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Kyle E. Walker IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Professor Helga Leitner, Adviser June 2011 © 2011 Kyle Walker Acknowledgements This research was made possible by the support of a number of funding sources. Quantitative data collection and preliminary analysis was supported by a Graduate Research Partnership Program fellowship from the University of Minnesota, and a Darrell Haug Davis Memorial Fellowship from the Department of Geography. Qualitative field research in 2009 was supported by National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant BCS-0902685; a New Initiatives research grant from the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs; and a Thesis Research Grant from the University of Minnesota Graduate School. I would also like to acknowledge the support of the Minnesota Population Center, who awarded me a Proposal Development Grant that ultimately led to successful future funding of this project, and who hosted me as an Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellow during the 2009- 2010 academic year, when I conducted much of the data analysis for this project. Dissertation writing was supported in 2010-2011 by a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Minnesota Graduate School. I have many people to thank who supported me over the course of my graduate studies. Many thanks are due to Susan Hardwick, who showed me that I could pursue a career as a geographer while an undergraduate at the University of Oregon, and helped me develop an interest in immigration issues. -
The Impact of Section 287(G) of the Immigration and Nationality Act on the Latino Community by A
THE IMPACT OF SECTION 287(G) OF THE IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALITY ACT ON THE LATINO COMMUNITY BY A. ELENA LACAYO* I. INTRODUCTION The recent signing of Arizona SB 1070 and subsequent reactions to the law have brought significant attention to the dangers of state-level immigration enforcement and the urgent need for comprehensive federal immigration reform. Introduction........................1 One antecedent of the law is the federal law known as section 287(g) of the Background ........................2 Immigration and Nationality Act. Challenges in Implementation ..................7 Enacted in 1996, 287(g) allows the federal government to enter into agreements Davidson County, Tennessee: with state and local law enforcement agencies, allowing them to deputize local The Latino Experience ......13 officials to enforce federal immigration law. Intended to aid in the apprehension Policy Recommendations.. 19 and removal of dangerous, criminal undocumented immigrants from the U.S., the program remained dormant for several years until gaining the interest of Conclusion ........................23 policymakers and political leaders after the September 11, 2001 attacks. While Comprehensive List the goal of the program is to apprehend threatening criminals and potential of 287(g) Agencies ............24 terrorists, it has provided perilously unchecked authority to local law enforcement, Endnotes ..........................26 * A. Elena Lacayo, Immigration Field Coordinator, works with the Immigration Policy Project in the Office of Research, Advocacy, -
If History Had a Voice: a Comprehensive Discussion of U.S.-Mexican Immigration Policy
If History had a Voice: A Comprehensive Discussion of U.S.-Mexican Immigration Policy Danielle Casey International Studies Faculty Advisor: Dr. John Passe-Smith Political dialogue between the United States and Mexico, and among D.C. bureaucrats and Southern border-state politicians has long been characterized by the hot topic of illegal immigration—an issue subject to much controversy and propositions of reform. Yet, despite these reforms, little progress has been made to effectively curb illegal immigration and address the growing issue of illegal residency. This is, in part, a result of the U.S.’s vested economic and political interests in illegal immigration. Mexico, on the other hand, perceives this outflow of Mexican labor as a symbol of dependence and weakness. In an attempt to rectify this image, Mexico has liberalized their economy to attract foreign investment and create more jobs, and has passed laws against the aiding of illegal immigration (Henderson 2011 and Spener 2005). However, competing state interests of the U.S. and Mexico have rendered effective border policy reform an enigma. In order to remedy these historical failures, economic incentives of illegal immigration must CLA Journal 5 (2017) pp. 1-23 2 Casey be stifled, opportunity for legal border entry must be facilitated, and issue of illegal residency must be addressed. Relevant History U.S.-Mexican immigration policy has demonstrated that, when channels of legal immigration are restricted and the economic stakes are high, illegal immigration will increase— regardless the amount of border fortification. Consequently, if illegal immigration is going to be effectively addressed, reforms must target the economic incentives that encourage this illicit behavior. -
Immigrants Targeted: Extremist Rhetoric Moves Into the Mainstream
Immigrants Targeted: Extremist Rhetoric Moves into the Mainstream ©2008 www.adl.org Immigrants Targeted: Extremist Rhetoric Moves into the Mainstream About This Report Immigration remains a deeply polarizing issue in American politics and public life. Serious policy questions remain about the best way to reform America’s immigration system but the debate has also been framed, at times, by vitriolic anti-immigrant – and particularly anti-Latino – rhetoric and propaganda. Purveyors of this extremist rhetoric use stereotypes and outright bigotry to target immigrants and hold them responsible for numerous societal ills. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which previously has documented how extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis have exploited the immigration issue to advance their own agenda, has become increasingly concerned about the virulent anti-immigrant and anti-Latino rhetoric employed by a handful of groups and coalitions that have positioned themselves as legitimate, mainstream advocates against illegal immigration in America. In 2008, these anti-immigrant advocates have attempted to reinvigorate the immigration debate by forming new coalitions. At a press conference announcing its formation, one coalition openly joined together local citizen groups located far from the Mexican/United States border with virulently anti-Latino border vigilante groups that send armed volunteers to patrol the border. Another coalition has run mainstream newspaper ads that exploit the American public’s concerns about the environment by blaming immigrants for traffic congestion, damage to the public infrastructure, and high fuel prices. These coalitions are attempting to broaden their base and legitimize their views through media outreach. In addition, local citizen groups continue to hold rallies and events where speakers routinely blame undocumented immigrants and their children for a wide range of problems from “dumbing down” American schools to depleting community resources, to being the main cause of crime and disease in this country.