Migration Studies Commons^™

Veterans Banished: The Fight To Bring Them Home, Alejandra Martinez

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Judge Posner's Road Map For Convention Against Torture Claims When Central American Governments Cannot Protect Citizens Against Gang Violence, Steven H. Schulman

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Immigrating While Trans: The Disproportionate Impact Of The Prostitution Ground Of Inadmissibility And Other Provisions Of The Immigration And Nationality Act On Transgender Women, Luis Medina

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

The Unconstitutional Application Of Apprehension And Detention Laws: Section 236(C) Of The Immigration And Nationality Act, Rigoberto Ledesma

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

As’Lem: An Ethical Diagnosis Of The Contemporary, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

In recent scholarly literature, refugees have proliferated: they are the “political figures par excellence” and “border concepts”; they are understood through their infrastructures, both camps and laws; and they are approached as suffering subjects. But Fassin, Wilhelm-Solomon, and Segatti have a different approach: they understand asylum—or as’lem, the term used by asylum seekers in South Africa—as a form of life.

Sexual Violence As The Language Of Border Control: Protecting Exceptional Difference, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

When I first arrived in the Paris region in 1999 to do research on the struggle by undocumented immigrants (les sans papiers) for basic human rights, discussions of violence against women were remarkably absent from the public arena. Nongovernmental organizations and researchers had begun to broach the topic, but with little public visibility. However, this changed in late 2000, with a media explosion on the issue of les tournantes, or the gang rapes committed in the banlieues of Paris. Such tournantes involve boys »taking turns« with their friends’ girlfriends, both parties usually being of Maghrebian or North …

Ilhan, Nura, Radwa, Ziagull And Children, Ilhan, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Ilhan, his wife Nura, and their children resided near Kabul, in a region where both the Taliban and ISIS were active. As Shias, Ilhan’s family faced numerous menaces, including threats from ISIS that they would be beheaded if they did not display ISIS flags. Ilhan’s sister Radwa, who is deaf and mute, was forced to marry a regional leader. In addition to being threatened on religious grounds, Ilhan’s family was also threatened by an elder of their town. Out of desperation, Ilhan’s family sold their house appliances, escaped Afghanistan, and arrived at the …

Los Problemas De Las Fronteras Humanitarias, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

Resumen:

Este texto plantea un análisis crítico del papel de los discursos y prácticas humanitaristas en nuestra concepción de la migración y en las políticas públicas desarrolladas en relación a la movilidad poblacional a través de las fronteras internacionales. Se parte de la premisa de que el humanitarismo, aunque fuera bien intencionado, puede tener efectos perniciosos sobre la situación que se vive en las fronteras, especialmente si acaba por sustituir a la justicia y a los derechos que tienen los emigrantes. Para estudiar esta paradoja, el texto analiza, sucesivamente, varios problemas asociados a la acción humanitaria: el problema con la …

Stateless In The United States: Current Reality And A Future Prediction, Polly J. Price

Faculty Articles

Statelessness exists in the United States-a fact that should be of concern to advocates of strict immigration control as well as those who favor a more welcoming policy. The predominant reasons for statelessness include the presence of individuals who are unable to prove their nationality and the failure of their countries of origin to recognize them as citizens. Migrants with unclear nationality, already a problem for the United States, obstruct efforts to control immigration by the deportation of unauthorized aliens. These existing problems of national identity will increase exponentially if birthright citizenship in the United States is amended to exclude …

The Politics Of H-1b Visa Limits, Fang Fang

Political Science Theses and Capstones

In recent years, the number of H-1B Visa (Temporary Work Visa) issued has increased tremendously. Various lobbying groups are devoted to persuading Congress to revise immigration laws and to increase the work visa issuance cap. The purpose of my study is to find out the how the H-1B Visa policy is effected by analyzing the lobbying expenditures of different economic sectors. Although there are abundant studies on the factors that affect immigration policies, there are few studies that concentrate specifically on the H-1B Visa. I combined campaign finance data and annual work visa data to assess the relationship between lobbying …

Anastasia Tataryn On The Deportation Regime: Sovereignty, Space, And The Freedom Of Movement. Edited By Nicholas Degenova And Nathalie Peutz. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2010. 520pp., Anastasia Tataryn

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

The Deportation Regime: Sovereignty, Space, and the Freedom of Movement. Edited by Nicholas DeGenova and Nathalie Peutz. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2010. 520pp.

European Identity Struggles In The Age Of Austerity, Par Engstrom

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The economic crisis has coincided with a discernible rise of right-wing populist parties in a number of European countries. This was most recently seen in elections in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Right-wing populist parties also hold parliamentary seats in Austria, Denmark, Finland, and Norway, and they have been part of coalition governments in Italy and Switzerland for some time. In France, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front, although not represented in parliament, wields considerable political influence, and may receive an additional electoral boost should Le Pen’s daughter, Marine Le Pen, inherit the party leadership. True, these parties still enjoy only …

Multiculturalism And The Struggle Of National Normative Challenges, Marc Alexander C. Gionet

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Globalization has not translated into a set of universal monolithic values. As populations relocate for various reasons, increasingly less effort is required not only to stay connected, but to remain within the home community via satellite television, radio, telecommunications, and locally concentrated diaspora. Henryk M. Broder has described such a phenomenon as the development of “ parallel societies, ” which result from immigrants’ failure or lack of interest in integrating into a host community. The question that many commentators have attempted to answer is: does the development of parallel societies, or even additional cultural diversity, represent a threat or a …

November Roundtable: Multiculturalism And Integration Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“Germany's Integration Blinkers. What's So Bad About Parallel Societies?” by Henryk M. Broder, Spiegel Online, November 20, 2010

and

“Angela Merkel: German Multiculturalism has Utterly Failed,” by Matthew Weaver, The Guardian, October 17, 2010

Citizenship, Rights, And Culture, Alison Brysk

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Shortly after German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s repudiation of multiculturalism, the Soros Foundation announced the winners of its Fellowships for New Americans—an award for graduate study for foreign-born students whose career paths show initiative, accomplishment, and “commitment to the values expressed in the U.S. Constitution.” Dozens of America’s best and brightest are pursuing degrees in law, medicine, public policy, business, and the arts that will immensely enrich our national and global communities.

Human Rights Abuses Along The Dominican-Haitian Border, Calla Cloud

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A 122 mile-long border separates the Dominican Republic and Haiti on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. Of the two countries, Haiti’s human rights abuses are much more somber than the emerging developments of the Dominican Republic. Haiti’s stagnant economic situation has contributed to perennial political instability and lack of infrastructure, having a particularly confounding affect on the rights and labor conditions of Haitian citizens. There are a myriad of reasons why Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Two of the most prominent include its violent political history and the gradual deterioration of its economy. In the context …

August Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

"Still knocking, as the doors close." The Economist. June 19, 2008.

Who Counts? Refugees And The Politics Of Indifference, Sonia Cardenas

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The contemporary plight of refugees, asylum seekers, and other marginalized groups reveals the limits of international human rights norms. Numerous internationally recognized standards and laws exist for the humane treatment of people. Yet despite enormous progress, the reality is that some people are simply deemed to be less fully human than others. Nationalism and racism underlie popular indifference to today’s unwanted refugees. This is the unspoken truth that lies at the heart of the global refugee problem.

Social Contract In A Borderless World, Daniel J. Graeber

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Addressing the American Political Science Association in 2000, the international relations theorist Robert Keohane of Princeton University noted that effective governance in a globalized world depends more on interstate cooperation and transnational networks than any type of world body. Keohane made the claim that the people and players in a globalized world stand to gain from the system through cooperation across borders and boundaries. Nevertheless, Keohane also observed that the actors may exploit interdependence in that system by transferring blame to others and that, although institutions may be essential, they can also be dangerous. So it is when confronting the …

Appealing To The Realist Nature Of The Problem: An Attempt To Find Common Ground, Eric K. Leonard

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Whenever I teach my undergraduate course on human rights, I inevitably have one student who argues that state sovereignty trumps all and that states should act in their “national interest” in regards to issues where human rights and sovereignty clash. They usually continue the argument by stipulating that “human rights” are not defensible unless they are universally accepted, meaning contained in a universally ratified document (and they use the term “universal” literally), because all authority resides in the state. Thus, it is always an interesting discussion when we turn to the issue of migration, and more specifically, refugees.

From Adulterous Gametes To Heterologous Nation: Tracing The Boundaries Of Reproduction In Italy, Milena Marchesi

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

This article traces discursive and political attempts to discipline the reproduction of the Italian nation by analyzing the approval of a controversial law disciplining access to new reproductive technologies (NRTs) in 2004. The restriction of new reproductive technologies in Italy reflects a contemporary re-negotiation of gender ideologies and a renewed ascendance of the Vatican in Italian politics and society. Although abortion remains legal in Italy, the NRT legislation recognizes the embryo as a subject while in political discourse demographic alarmism slides into warnings of social disintegration. The debate over the threat posed by technologically assisted reproduction to Italian families and …

Transnational And Intimate Crossings: The 'Threatening Body' Of The 'Migrant Sex-Worker', Melissa Autumn White

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

This paper introduces the rubric of the "migrant sex-working body" in order to theorize the affective and geopolitical valences of power 'threatened' by such bodies. The everyday and affective labours of migrant sex-workers whose bodies have been positioned as a 'threat' to the imagined community of the nation and to Hetero Factory's (Rossi 2003) family are fetishized in a Marxian sense in order to make an exploration of the collusion of transnational "structures of feeling" and border security regimes possible. In other words, the focus of the paper is not on or about the "migrant sex-working body", but rather on …

Osmotic Borders: Thinking Locally, Thinking Globally About The Causes And Effects Of Labor Migration, Roberto L. Corrada

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus defines osmosis both as "any process by which something is acquired by absorption," and as a biological cellular function by which solvents are absorbed through semipermeable partitions. The two articles by Professor Sylvia Lazos and Donna Maeda, which both deal with the causes and effects of labor migration, though on different levels and involving different populations, challenge traditional notions of the physical and metaphysical borders between nation-states.

In "Latina/o-ization" of the Midwest: Cambio de Colores, Professor Sylvia Lazos takes a close look at the increasing migration and presence of Latinas/os in the Midwest, particularly Kansas, …

Children Today, St Mary's University

President's Peace Commission - Programs

The President’s Peace Commission existed from 1984 to 2013 at St. Mary's University. The Commission fostered an ethical commitment to participate in the establishment of world peace and social justice.

This program is about protecting and educating children.

Roma And Forced Migration: An Annotated Bibliography, Dana Neacsu

Books

As of 1997 there were between seven and eight and a half million Roma living in Europe. While there was ample literature on the Roma, in those pre-Internet times, there was no annotated bibliography of relevant works. This selected annotated bibliography assembled texts directly concerned with the forced migration of Roma, as well as other books, articles, periodicals, and various collections which provide background information on the Roma and their socio-economic, political and legal history. All the texts came from the NY Public Library collection. The compilation and the annotations were written by Dana Neacsu, at that time, a Consultant …