Immigration Policies

Sorry Folks, Park’s Closed

Countries have two basic ways of handling legal immigration, the first is

a quota system.

Immigration Act of 1965: quotas for individual countries eliminated in 1968 and replaced with hemisphere quotas

1978: Hemisphere quotas replaced by global quota of 290,000 with a max of 20,000 per country. Currently, the global quota is 620,000 with a 7% per country max.

The system does establish preferences for family sponsored and employment-related immigrants. Refugees are handled separately.

The current wait is about 5 years.

QUOTASYSTEMS

Quota systems establish limits to the number of immigrants to a country annually. The US uses a quota system.

Quota Act of 1921 and Origins Act of 1924: established quotas for immigration to the US… for each country with native-born people already living in the US, 2% of their number could immigrate annually. Immigration numbers dropped sharply with the end of unrestricted immigration. Xenophobic in nature, it ensured most immigrants would be European.

The second way to handle legal migration is a guest worker system.

GUEST WORKERS

Migrants allowed to stay for a set period of time to work are called guest workers. Northern and Western Europe USED this system in the 1960s and 1970s and accepted workers from South and East Europe, as well as from Turkey and North Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

In Europe, guest workers were protected by minimum wage laws and labor unions.

As migrant workers do in the US, guest workers tend to take low-wage, low-prestige jobs that native Europeans wouldn’t.

Home countries benefit by getting a valve for their unemployed and by getting the economic boost from foreign currency sent back home. Host countries benefit by gaining access to inexpensive labor.

Many Time Contract workers ended up coming to Europe on a time contract and then never returning home.

EUROPEAN IMMIGRATION

TODAY

In 1985, dozens of European countries signed the SCHENGEN TREATY.

Citizens of member countries are free to move, work and own property in any schengen country.

So, for Europeans, migration around and within other European countries has never been easier.

The largest flows have gone from East and South to North and West.

However, at the same time, immigration to Europe has become much MORE difficult for Asians and Africans.

Most European countries are now in stage 4 of the DT and have stable economies and populations. As most population growth is due to non-European immigrants, RACISM and XENOPHOBIA have been on the rise.

The global recession has slowed immigration into Europe just as immigration into the US has slowed.

Asia’s version of the guest worker system.

Time-Contract workers are usually hired to work in mines or on plantations.

Millions of Asians (India, Japan, China) migrated in the 1800s as time-contract workers but settled permanently when their contracts expired.

More than 40 million ethnic Chinese currently live in other countries (mostly in Asia).

¾ of Singapore’s population, 1/4 of Malaysia’s, 1/10 of Thailand’s.

China booming economy is now attracting workers itself, especially from Vietnam.

Southwest Asia (AKA the Middle East) has several oil-rich countries that also attract workers from South and Southeast Asia.

TIME CONTRACT WORKERS

Kosovar Refugees entering a camp in Albania.Sudanese refugees in the Darfur Region.

It’s sometimes difficult to distinguish between those seeking better economic conditions and those fleeing dangerous or violent political or cultural conditions.

Doing so is important in countries like the US, Canada and Western European because they handle refugees differently than economic migrants.

Some interesting case studies:

Cuba: Fleeing Castro post 1959

1980 (Mariel Boatlift)

Haiti: Fleeing Authoritarians1980 fleeing Duvaliers

1991 Fleeing Junta

Vietnam: Fleeing Communism1975 Boat people

Again in late 1980’s

ECONOMIC MIGRANTS

OR REFUGEES?

ATTITUDES AGAINST

IMMIGRANTS

Many immigrants are faced with racism and xenophobia from their new host countries.