Search Results

This chapter shows that illegal immigrants in India, Malaysia, and Pakistan are exercising national- and state-level franchise. Malaysian politics is witnessing the direct political influence of Indonesian and Filipino illegal immigrants. The Afghans and Bangladeshis in Pakistani elections are reported. Documentary citizenship is pitting Sindhi Muslims against illegal Muslim immigrants despite Pakistan having an Islamic ideology that is biased in favor of other Islamic nations and peoples. The Indian, Malaysian, and Pakistani experiences documented in this chapter highlight three remarkable features of international migration: (a) illegal immigrants can vote; (b) documents enable their political participation as citizens; and (c) parties and immigrants both have an interest in preserving the irregularities of documentation and collaborate to that end.

This chapter describes the growth of a documentary citizenship over the last 50 years. It specifically brings together networks of complicity and weakly institutionalized citizenship to show how they collectively enable the acquisition of citizenship-indicating documents, thus enabling full membership for illegal immigrants. Figures are given to present the process and thereafter categorize the world according to documents to show the global application of conceptual argument. It also combines the networks of complicity and blurred membership to provide an alternative theory that explains how illegal immigrants acquire citizenship. Documents offers states power for social and political sorting and thereby order, and yet it is the documents themselves that undermine this fig leaf of order and security.

It has been observed that illegal immigrants are living comfortably as citizens. This book attempts to follow the innovative though illegal paths that immigrants have devised. They pose an important puzzle by subverting legal immigration procedures and overturning the standard concepts of citizenship. The subject of citizenship: the citizen, is discussed. The infrastructure of citizenship is focused on distinguishing between citizens and immigrants, especially illegal immigrants. This introduction identifies some of the theoretical misconceptions that plague the understanding of illegal-immigrant citizenship in developing states. Part I of this book introduces a theory of illegal-immigrant citizenship, and part II strives to prove it empirically, using cases of illegal immigration to India, Malaysia, and Pakistan. It provides a considerably different view than the one inherited from the developed Western states.

This chapter outlines illegal immigration in India, Malaysia, and Pakistan, demonstrating the magnitude, strength, and pervasive nature of illegal-immigrant networks. It begins by analyzing the neglect of illegal immigration within developing countries, pointing out the troubled relationship between the state and data generation. These methodological challenges explain why illegal immigration is rendered invisible. Then, it lifts the veil on illegal immigration in some countries, establishing the large and expanding number of illegal immigrants in India, Malaysia, and Pakistan. Particular focus is placed on the illegal Bangladeshis settled in Assam, Northeast India. Next, it describes the invisible flows of Filipinos and Indonesians to Malaysia, paying particular attention to their pervasive networks in Sabah, East Malaysia. Data showed that large illegal immigrant flows into India, Malaysia, and Pakistan are being silently absorbed into the host states.

This chapter reveals the mechanisms by which illegal-immigrant networks filter into state agencies, such as the district registration office in Mansehra, thereby ensuring state complicity in the settlement of illegal immigrants. It also shows the corrosive influence of immigrant networks on the state apparatus. It specifically argues that wherever there is illegal immigration, there are networks of complicity facilitating and encouraging that illegal flow. It starts by defining networks of complicity. Following this, it traces the formation of these networks, showing how and in what ways networks produce complicity. Finally, it distinguishes between complicity for economic and for political reasons.

Hazleton, Pennsylvania, was typical of many working‐class communities in America recently impacted by a rapid increase in the Latino population. Itself made up of the descendants of previous immigrants from Europe a century ago, the community might have been expected to understand and tolerate the newcomers. But in fact, the change was marked by a wave of xenophobia, with rumors blaming crime and cultural decay on the new residents, and the reaction climaxed with the passage of a new city law imposing harsh penalties on undocumented aliens. Later, one such immigrant was confronted and beaten to death on the street of a nearby town. The area's angry reaction can be understood in the context of local politics, influenced by nationally circulated claims that “illegal immigrants” were tied to criminal gang activity, drug dealing, and cynical appropriation of free government services.

This chapter illustrates that illegal immigrants in India, Malaysia, and Pakistan are traveling abroad under their assumed identities. It poses a direct challenge to sovereignty and global security. Specifically, some of the ways that documented illegal immigrants in India, Malaysia, and Pakistan threaten the security of these states are reported. The processes arising from the civil society, such as illegal immigration and documentary citizenship, have undermined states' sovereignty. Confronting the challenges of illegal immigration to sovereignty and security involves a large global enterprise. It also requires the centralization and standardization of entire civil registration systems so that identity and membership are no longer blurred in the developing states which send illegal immigrants to Western states. Moreover, it involves the monitoring and surveillance of already existing ethnic immigrant communities so that ethnic-kinship networks do not trump receiving states' control by providing instant membership through documentation. Finally, it entails eliminating all corruption, bribery, and political or ethnic sympathy as a result of which complicity may happen within states.

This chapter considers the implications of documentary citizenship for the understanding of immigration and citizenship in the developing world. It also analyzes its full impact on nations. By allowing illegal immigrants access to national suffrage and other political rights, documentary citizenship is a response from civil society to citizenship from above. After this discussion, it examines documentary citizenship as a central attribute of globalization, further demonstrating its common occurrence in developing countries. Finally, it looks at the tension between embracing documentary citizenship as an addition to the diversity of a state and viewing it as a threat with potentially serious implications for national sovereignty.

Since the establishment of New China in 1949, the interplay of historical and political factors have made it an unpopular destination for immigration. Entry was limited to immigrants from a few nations. After the adoption of the open-door policy and the launching of economic reforms in 1978, the situation is changing rapidly and more foreigners, noticeably from Western countries, are entering and eventually settling in China. This change has positive implications while also presenting problems. In response, since the mid-1980s, the government of China has begun formulating new rules, regulations, and legislation to cope with new demands and emerging problems as more people are entering both legally and illegally. The chapter concludes that China possesses attributes to make it a new pole for immigration in the foreseeable future, yet limitations and problems must also be addressed.

This chapter explores the weakly institutionalized nature of citizenship in developing countries. It specifically describes how citizenship in developing countries differs markedly from citizenship in developed countries and thus allows more invisible absorption of illegal immigrants. “Blurred membership” attempts to distinguish between a “citizen” and a “foreigner”, which is common in many developing countries, like Malaysia, Pakistan, and India. Establishing the shape and character of blurred membership in these countries will expose how illegal immigrants take advantage of the phenomenon of blurred membership in facilitating their lives. The subjects of blurred membership are undocumented natives, that is, long-term residents without citizenship papers. The citizenship-related infrastructures in Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan, the three largest senders of illegal immigrants to Malaysia, India, and Pakistan, respectively, are considered to show how these migrants integrate with the populations of the recipient countries, thereby intensifying blurred membership. The existence of blurred membership maybe highlights some of the ways in which the Western, governmental, Westphalian, top-down model of citizenship does not fit the developing world.

This chapter discusses the issue of immigration and immigration legislation. It argues that the current tone of the immigration debate should be a cause of deep distress for Christians and perhaps even, a time for mourning. Christians should lament the economic and political structures in the United States that have so easily turned vulnerable human beings into instruments of economic gain, cheap political rhetoric, and nativist hate.

This chapter presents empirical data to address the range of allegations against undocumented immigrants; for example, they drain the national economy. The data come from various sources, including the federal government, conservative think tanks, and leading immigrant rights advocacy groups. These studies document the effects of recent immigration and refute the claims of the xenophobes like “Mexican immigration is an invasion of the United States” or that undocumented immigration is causing a crime wave across the country. Based on the evidence, it argues that the rhetoric against illegal immigrants is not only unsupported by the facts, but also contrary to logic.

This chapter examines the spiral effect of policy failure relating to border controls. Comparable to events before 2001, when enhanced border controls increased the number of illegal immigrants and boosted the development of smuggling networks, there is strong evidence that post-9/11 policies have neither limited the number of illegal immigrants in Europe and the United States nor provided more security. Indeed, security-related immigration policies have undermined the ability of Western governments to bring border flows under control in two ways: by increasing the number of illegal immigrants who stay out of the reach of security controls, and by diverting scarce resources away from more-pressing security priorities. This chapter discusses the spillover effect of border escalation and the sociopolitical effects of the immigration policy failure. It argues that tighter controls have produced more demand for the service of smugglers and that more illicit activity has increased a pervasive sense of insecurity.

While the case for relatively free international movement of goods, services, and capital is widely accepted, in contrast, most countries maintain much more severe restrictions on immigration. However, in the contemporary global economy, where there is often fierce international competition for specialized human capital, particularly in knowledge-based industries, many of these restrictions seem antithetical to receiving countries’ general social welfare. However, they are often supported by loose political coalitions of trade union and worker interests, taxpayers concerned about immigrants attracted to receiving countries simply to benefit from more generous social welfare systems, and cultural nationalist concerns that immigrants from diverse backgrounds may not share and indeed may undermine indigenous cultural and political values. While economic evidence suggests substantial increases in both global and national welfare from more liberal immigration policies, liberalizing these in a gradual way that mitigates real or perceived concerns over the disruptive impact of a dramatic surge in immigrants is central to any feasible political strategy for reform.

This chapter examines EU law and policy in the field of immigration and considers the extent to which it reflects the objectives of combating racism and promoting ethnic equality. It begins with an analysis of the extent to which any legal framework on immigration can promote ethnic equality and concludes that, notwithstanding borders and limited citizenship categories, there is space within which equality can be promoted. It looks at EU law and policy on irregular migrants, legal migrants, and the integration of migrants. It notes that in all these areas opportunities to promote ethnic equality had been missed and the impact of EU policies on ethnic minorities was at times overlooked.

The prolonged controversy over mass immigration is embodied in the lives of the eleven million illegal immigrants in the United States. This chapter reflects on five years of immigration coverage for the New York Times to examine the impact of escalating immigration enforcement on a generation of children in unauthorized or mixed-status immigrant families. More than a million are coming of age without proper papers; at least four million others are at risk of deportation or family separation because a parent is in the country illegally. The chapter asks whether these children and young adults are forming a new kind of American caste system, one that challenges the nation's concepts of civil rights. It also explores how journalists and academics researching questions of assimilation deal honestly with the issue of legal status without putting vulnerable subjects at risk. Using examples from previous work, the chapter addresses this growing challenge and how it affects both news coverage and social science research.

This chapter examines the dominant narrative, which is largely negative, concerning undocumented immigration in America. In particular, it considers the claims that illegal immigrants are part of a cultural and population overthrow, that they are the main cause of the crime wave sweeping the country, and that they are hurting the national economy by stealing American jobs and lowering domestic wages, among other things. The chapter first discusses the anti-immigrant rhetoric of politicians such as Mitt Romney and entertainers like comedians Katt Williams and Gilbert Gottfried. It then explores hateful anti-immigrant rhetoric by media personalities including John Gibson, Michael Savage, Pat Buchanan, and Lou Dobbs. It also looks at the anti-immigrant hate speech generated by extremist vigilante organizations and how anti-immigrant rhetoric leads to violence against those perceived as undocumented immigrants.

This chapter begins with a discussion of problems emerging from the increase in Latino populations in the United States. It then presents the primary goals of the book, which include providing an updated social demographic profile of the Latino community, highlighting significant trends with direct implications for social work, and identifying the challenges typically faced by social workers in reaching and serving this community. Author qualifications, outline of the book, and definitions of key concepts used in the book are presented.

Tronto explores the “care crisis” that now pervades advanced industrial societies, in which women are doing more paid work and, consequently, less of the care work of civil society. Tronto urges advanced industrial societies to rethink who is responsible for care and recognize the role that government should play in ensuring that care is provided for those who need it. Unfortunately, citizenship has traditionally been defined in ways that make no provision for responsibilities to care for others. Tronto observes that “privatizing” care by relegating it to the marketplace does not provide a solution to the care crisis, since paid care work is subject to exploitation, partly because it is often done by illegal immigrants from Third World countries. Despite expecting privatization to be the likely solution to the problem, Tronto nevertheless recommends that care work be regarded as a governmental responsibility in order to make it more valued publicly.