Illegal Immigration (illegal + immigration)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Distribution within Humanities and Social Sciences


Selected Abstracts


The European Pact on Immigration on the Control of Illegal Immigration

POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 4 2008
Article first published online: 5 DEC 200
No abstract is available for this article. [source]


Reinstatement of Controls at the Internal Borders of Europe: Why and Against Whom?

EUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 2 2004
Kees Groenendijk
The actual use of this power may tell us about the functions of border controls. This article analyses on which occasions the governments of the Schengen states did actually use this power after 1995, and what is known about the effects of those temporary controls. It appears that the actual use varied considerably in time and between the Member States. In most cases the temporary controls aimed not at reducing illegal immigration or preventing serious crimes, but at the protection of meetings of political leaders. The individuals checked or stopped at the borders are predominantly union citizens, not third-country nationals. It is contended that the controls at land borders are not considered as an effective instrument of crime or immigration control. They may have a highly symbolic function: showing the public that the state is protecting its citizens against undesired events. [source]


The Limits of Unilateral Migration Control: Deportation and Inter-state Cooperation1

GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION, Issue 2 2008
Antje Ellermann
Despite the recent proliferation of policy initiatives designed to curb illegal immigration, advanced industrialized states have made little headway towards the goal of effective migration control. Examining the case of deportation in Germany and the European Union, this article contends that one of the most fundamental reasons underlying this failure is a unilateral policy bias that fails to take into account two related conditions. First, policies of migration control directly and substantially impinge upon the interests of foreign governments. Secondly, the cooperation of foreign officials is an essential condition for policy implementation. To the extent that they disregard these basic conditions, then, migration control policies are bound to fail. By examining the implementation of deportation policy, the article illustrates the limited efficacy of control measures that are dominated by the interests of advanced industrialized states to the exclusion of the concerns of foreign governments. [source]


Engineered Migration and the Use of Refugees as Political Weapons: A Case Study of the 1994 Cuban Balseros Crisis

INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, Issue 4 2002
Kelly M. Greenhill
This paper presents a case study of the August 1994 Cuban balseros crisis, during which more than 35,000 fled the island and headed toward Florida in the span of a few weeks. It argues that Castro launched the crisis in an attempt to manipulate US fears of another Mariel, and in order to compel a shift in US policy, both on immigration and on a wider variety of issues. The paper further contends that from Castro's perspective, this exercise in coercion proved a qualified success , his third such successful use of the Cuban people as an asymmetric political weapon against the US. In addition, the paper argues that Castro's success was predicated on his ability to internationalize his own domestic crisis and transform it into an American domestic political and foreign policy crisis. Finally, it offers a novel explanation of how, why, and under what conditions, states and/or non,state actors may attempt to use refugees as coercive political weapons. Although dwarfed in size by the larger 1980 Mariel boatlift, the 1994 crisis is important for several reasons. First, despite its brevity, it had far reaching consequences for US,Cuban relations. Without warning or preamble, it catalyzed a shift in US policy vis,à,vis Cuban immigration that represented a radical departure from what it had been for the previous three decades. Second, it influenced US domestic politics on the national level, by expanding the scope and salience of the issue, and mobilizing not only Floridians, but also the larger public concerned about illegal immigration. Third, the crisis illustrated the potential potency of engineered migration as an asymmetric weapon of the weak. Finally, the brief, but significant, interactions of international and domestic actors in this case warrant examination because, although the 1994 crisis was limited, in its dynamics it resembles myriad other international refugee crises, large and small. Thus the case offers valuable lessons that may aid in dealing with future (real or threatened) crises. [source]


Illegal Migration: What Can We Know And What Can We Explain?

INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION REVIEW, Issue 3 2004
The Case of Germany
Methodological problems in the study of illegal migration as defined in this article relate to questions of indicators for illegal migration, with special reference to Germany. It is argued and demonstrated that illegal immigrants are traceable, to some degree, in official statistics and that these can be analyzed for trends. In present-day migration processes, illegal immigration frequently is undertaken with the support of human smugglers. The analysis of the social organization of different forms of smuggling is the other main focus of the article. From a methodological point of view, the literature and public discourse lack adequate concepts for describing and explaining the social organization of human smuggling. The theory of organized crime as a main actor in human smuggling is criticized. The study borrows concepts from market and networks theory and applies these to different forms of human smuggling and illegal migration. The social and technological organization of smuggling is under constant pressure to adapt to new conditions. The dynamism for this change results mainly from an "arms race" between smugglers and law enforcement. Since control over territory and population are central elements of state sovereignty, the state cannot simply withdraw from this race. [source]


The US National Intelligence Council on Growing Global Migration

POPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 4 2001
Article first published online: 27 JAN 200
The National Intelligence Council, a body reporting to the Director of Central Intelligence, brings together expertise from inside and outside the US government to engage in strategic thinking on national security issues. Some of its reports, known as National Intelligence Estimates, are now issued in unclassified versions. One of these published in December2000, was entitled Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue about the Future with Nongovernment Experts. It discussed what it termed the key drivers of global change and presented a generally bleak set of scenarios of the medium-term future. (See the short review in PDR 27, no. 2, pp. 385,386.) Demographic factors,in particular, mass migration,were seen as one of the drivers. This topic is investigated further in a subsequent NIC report, Growing Global Migration and Its Implications for the United States, issued this year. The initial section of the report, headed Key Judgments, is reprinted below. The report emphasizes the economic advantages of liberal immigration policies to the advanced economies, "despite some initially higher welfare costs and some downward pressure on wages." Resistance to liberalization in European countries and Japan is seen as putting them at a competitive disadvantage to the United States. Their levels of illegal immigration, however, will inevitably increase in scale. Expectations for the US are for rises in both legal and illegal immigration. Mentioned as one of the "difficult issues" that are minor offsets to the broad gains offered by immigration is its use as a vehicle for "transnational terrorist, narcotrafficking, and organized crime groups." The full report is available online at http://www.cia.gov/nic/pubs/index.htm. [source]


Does border enforcement deter unauthorized immigration?

REGULATION & GOVERNANCE, Issue 2 2007
The case of Mexican migration to the United States of America
Abstract This paper asks whether the migration decisions of unauthorized Mexican immigrants to the USA have been influenced by stronger US border enforcement efforts since 1993 that have sharply increased the physical risk and financial cost of illegal immigration. These measures were supposed to have decreased the probability of successful entry, thereby lowering the expected benefits of migration. We carried out a logistic regression analysis of data from a recent survey of 603 returned migrants and potential first-time migrants in rural Mexico. Our findings indicate that tougher border controls have had remarkably little influence on the propensity to migrate illegally to the USA. Political restrictions on immigration are far outweighed by economic and family-related incentives to migrate. An alternative, labor-market approach to immigration control with higher probability of effectiveness is outlined. [source]


Political economy, sectoral shocks, and border enforcement

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, Issue 3 2001
Gordon H. Hanson
In this paper, we examine the correlation between sectoral shocks and border enforcement in the United States, the U.S. government's main policy instrument for combating illegal immigration. We see whether border enforcement falls following positive shocks to sectors that are intensive in the use of undocumented labour, as would be consistent with political economy models of illegal immigration. We find that border enforcement is negatively correlated with lagged relative price changes in the apparel, fruits and vegetables, and livestock industries and with housing starts in western United States, suggesting that authorities relax border enforcement when demand forundocumented labour is high. Economie politique, chocs sectoriels et vigilance aux frontières. Dans ce mémoire, les auteurs examinent la corrélation entre les chocs sectoriels et la vigilance aux frontières aux Etats-Unis. La vigilance aux frontières est le principal instrument de politique publique utilisé par le gouvernement américain pour combattre l'immigration illégale. On se demande si la vigilance aux frontières se relâche à la suite de chocs positifs dans des secteurs qui utilisent relativement plus de travailleurs illégaux, ainsi que le suggèrent les modèles d'économie politique de l'immigration illégale. Les principaux résultats indiquent que la vigilance aux frontières est co-reliée négativement (avec un délai) avec les changements de prix relatifs dans les secteurs du vêtement, des fruits et légumes, et du bétail, ainsi qu'avec le nombre de mises en chantier dans la construction domiciliaire dans l'ouest des Etats-Unis. Voilà qui suggère que les autorités relâchent la vigilance aux frontières quand la demande de travailleurs illégaux augmente. [source]