Immigration, migration, border walls, channel crossings, refugee crises, asylum-seeking – these hot words tend to dominate the news cycle at the moment, especially in Europe and America. Immigration is a broad topic, one that involves ethics, the philosophy of multiculturalism, the economics of welfare and job markets, crime rates, and more. It’s also a controversial topic, so I thought I’d spend some time just looking at the evidence, with an open mind, from a wide range of sources on a broad scope of issues.
Because, in an increasingly globalised world, an increasingly unequal world, a world that could become even more inhospitable in parts, a world getting closer to rather than farther from World War Three, understanding this issue is integral to being able to have a progressive plan to tackle a likely-to-continue increase in global migration. In 2015, at the height of the ‘migrant crisis’ during the Syrian civil war, over a million asylum- seekers came to Europe. In 2013 almost 400 died in one incident, when a boat sank off the Italian coast.
And it’s clear – from the election of Trump on the promise of a border wall – or Britain leaving the EU, or Marine le Pen continuing to do well in France, Orban in Hungary, it’s clear from poll after poll – that the public wants these numbers reduced, and that we don’t have a very good progressive narrative that grapples with the topic. I think we need one.
We can see evidence of this in polling. In Britain, 77% are in favour of reducing immigration by a lot or a little. Most think the costs of immigration outweigh the benefits. 50-70% of respondents across most Western countries report being concerned about illegal immigration.
Canadians are outliers, most having a positive view on immigration – the Canadian government has pursued a policy of multiculturalism for decades.
So, I want to try and understand where we are, what the data says, and be honest about the evidence. I’ll keep it simple but there’s a link to the sources below, organised into categories. I’ll likely continue expanding on it in the future. And in this case, I tried to favour empirical studies and polling over theory, philosophy, and so on, although I have included some.
Even looking at at least a hundred studies I can only scratch the surface, and we have to bear in mind the vast contextual differences between countries. The US, with a long border with Mexico, is of course going to be different to the UK – an island nation – or Greece – on the southern EU border – or Hungary – a country landlocked and surrounded by other countries. I’ll try and draw on a cross-section. So with that in mind, let’s get started and see what we can learn.
You often see the claim that because there’s an increase in the supply of labour and therefore more competition for jobs, immigration lowers the wages of natives.
Here’s what I found. It’s true that immigration, sometimes, has a very ‘small impact’ on wages of low wage workers or those who didn’t complete high school. But the evidence is minimal and many studies don’t find this at all.
For example, this study of the UK concluded that, ‘we find that immigration depresses wages below the 20th percentile of the wage distribution, but leads to slight wage increases in the upper part of the wage distribution. The overall wage effect of immigration is slightly positive’. This study finds roughly the same. And this study found that the effect of that wage decrease was actually mostly on immigrants already in the country and that there was no effect on ‘native-born’ workers.
This study in Australia finds that, ‘While sparse, the evidence generally indicates that Australians’ wages are not adversely affected by immigration on average’.
And one study of OECD countries – that’s higher income countries – in the 1990s found that, ‘immigration had a positive effect on the wages of less educated natives and it increased or left unchanged the average native wages’. And a 2018 meta-analysis of 12 studies found that ‘immigration has little or no impact on average employment or unemployment of existing workers. Second, that where an impact is found it tends to be concentrated among certain groups – i.e. a negative effect for those with lower education and a positive effect for those with higher levels of education’.
There are also studies of unemployment. One study of OECD countries found that, ‘While no significant long-run impact is found in any case, we find that immigration may have a temporary impact on natives’ unemployment’. But the amount was a ‘negligible’: 0.02%.
One point of interest for studies is the Mariel Boatlift, which I mentioned in the last video on Tucker Carlson. It’s useful because, while a singular event and not representative of migration in general, it does provide the data for an experiment as to what happens when a large group of migrants – in this 125,000 – settle quickly in one area, in this case Miami. Initially, several studies concluded that the effect was negligible or none.
However, recently Harvard economist George Borjas has argued that through the 1980s, wages in Miami for those who did not complete high school was 10-30% lower than elsewhere. But it’s important to note that while Borjas is a respected economist, this finding has been controversial and disputed by many others.
Looking at the boatlift, this 2017 study concludes that ‘As a whole, the evidence from refugee waves reinforces the existing consensus that the impact of immigration on average native-born workers is small, and fails to substantiate claims of large detrimental impacts on workers with less than high school’.
Now, Borjas is well-known for making the case that immigration benefits some natives while hurting others – particularly benefiting higher earners while hurting lower. But in one review of his central books, Immigration Economics, the reviewers say, ‘After reading Immigration Economics, one begins to wonder why countries ever decide to have any immigrants, and why many countries continue to allow relatively large inflows of immigrants. Are immigration policies manipulated by an elite who benefit from these policies at the expense of others? Or is the balance of benefits versus costs ‐‐ even for native workers who are most directly in competition with immigrants ‐‐ more positive than one might be led to believe from reading Borjas’ latest book? We, and many other economists, come down on the latter side’.
So it seems like the evidence is ambiguous, but it seems at least very possible that migration in large numbers could effect the wages of lower earners but likely by a very small amount. Rather than reject immigration, the question should become, what could be done about it? But this is a question I didn’t see raised much in the literature. Okay, what about the economy more broadly?
This study found that between 1980 and 2000, each immigrant added 1.2 jobs to the economy. That’s because each new person needs more food, housing, goods, and services, and so increases demand and jobs.
But one common claim is that immigrants are a burden on welfare states. Some studies say non-EU immigrants to the UK cost more in spending than they contribute in taxes – i.e. they have taken more from the state in welfare, tax credits, and other cost and so on than they’ve paid in taxes. Although this 2014 UCL study looked at immigrants who had lived in the UK since 2000 and found they put in 3% more than they took out. And overall, migrants from all countries taken together put in much more than they take out, and one Warwick university study found migrants in the top 1% of earners contributed 8% of total income tax.
On top of that, the Office for Budget Responsibility in the UK has forecasted that more migration leads to more tax receipts over time.
Studies like this vary wildly from country to country. This meta-analysis, for example, is all over the place – it says the evidence is mixed and dependent on context. And when it comes to non-EU migrants the UK is an outlier. The evidence that migrants pay in more than they take out is stronger in other countries, including Switzerland, Belgium, Spain and Portugal.
Another study looked at several Western European countries between 1985 and 2015 and found that, ‘inflows of asylum seekers do not deteriorate host countries’ economic performance or fiscal balance because the increase in public spending induced by asylum seekers is more than compensated for by an increase in tax revenues net of transfers. As asylum seekers become permanent residents, their macroeconomic impacts become positive’.
And this 2021 study looked at 28,000 Ugandan Asians who came to the UK in the late 1960s. They say there is little research on medium term outcomes of refugees, and that, ‘We show that their outcomes are at least as good as the population average, with the younger cohort performing better, and better than for economic migrants of the same ethnicity’.
So again, overall the data is mixed, but I’d say on balance migration is likely a net positive. But we could also look at more the social and cultural economic impact – like entrepreneurship and qualifications.
How do immigrants fair on the more sociocultural end? Well, in the US immigrants are less likely to have finished high school than their native born counterparts, but are also more likely to have a degree. Immigrants are also over-represented in management and research positions of top companies. One survey of fifty of the top companies in the US found that half of them were founded by an immigrants and three quarters had immigrants in top management and research positions.
Many studies find that migrants tend to be more entrepreneurial than natives. One study found they were almost twice as likely than natives to be entrepreneurs in the US. Another study concluded that ‘7.25 percent of immigrants were entrepreneurs, compared with about 4 percent of native-born individuals’. 30% of new entrepreneurs in the US are immigrants. 76% of the top new patents had an author that was foreign born. This study found that ‘immigrants patent at double the native rate, due to their disproportionately holding science and engineering degrees’.
So it seems that immigrants are more entrepreneurial, innovate more, tend towards science and engineering, are represented in top management positions, and on a net basis it’s likely that they add to the economy and the government balance. What’s next?
Okay, we’ll breeze through crime because the evidence is pretty clear. This study concludes that in England and Wales, ‘Although there is a public sentiment that immigrants are more involved in criminal activities than natives, the empirical results of this paper lead to different conclusions’.
This meta-study found that ‘Immigrants facing poor labor market opportunities are more likely to commit property crimes’, however, ‘There is no evidence that immigration has caused a crime problem across countries’, and, ‘Immigrants with good labor market opportunities appear no more likely to commit crime than similar natives’. It also found legalising the status of immigration reduces the likelihood of crime.
This review of 20th century studies in the US context found that, ‘Contrary to the predictions of classic criminological theories and popular stereotypes, immigration generally does not increase crime and often suppresses it’.
This study of Texas finds that, ‘contrary to public perception, we observe considerably lower felony arrest rates among undocumented immigrants compared to legal immigrants and native-born US citizens and find no evidence that undocumented criminality has increased in recent years’.
In France, Muslims are disproportionately represented in the prison population – 40-50% of the prison population when about 10% of the population are Muslim. But with large scale migration from post-colonial Algeria this is likely to be a result of Muslim men being disproportionately raised in poverty and so a socioeconomic fact rather than a cultural one.
But this shouldn’t be ignored. Neither should the issues around religious fundamentalist terrorism – although statistically you’re more likely to be crushed by your furniture or die in car crash, I just don’t want anyone to accuse me of sidestepping the issue.
What’s clear, though, is that property crime is more likely to be committed by desperate people, no matter where they’re from, and is actually less likely to be committed by immigrants. So moving on…
Definitions of multiculturalism are difficult to agree upon. One researcher calls the literature ‘decidedly messy’. Multicultural can mean a simple demographic fact – multiple cultures in one country – it can mean a philosophy about equality of cultures, or a philosophy of separate cultures living next to one another.
In 2010, Angela Merkel famously remarked that multiculturalism had ‘utterly failed’. And one report of 47 countries in the EU declared that, ‘what had until recently been a preferred policy approach, conveyed in shorthand as ‘multiculturalism’, has been found inadequate’.
Does multiculturism mean we should be blind to cultural differences or make allowances for cultural differences? Does it mean accepting different legal or cultural standards? Much of the literature revolves around whether multiculturalism can exist as what the British philosopher Lord Parekh called in Britain a “community of communities”, or whether this vision has led to what UK prime minister David Cameron called ‘parallel lives’.
In the UK, for example, Jewish and Islamic communities are exempt from the requirement to stun animals before slaughtering them, Sikhs don’t have to wear helmets and are exempt from the ban on carrying knives in public.
In some parts of London, around 70% of primary school kids speak English as a second language.
One question that arises is whether multiculturalism is at odds with social cohesion. What level of integration is appropriate or desirable? There are several ways you can study this: residential segregation, overrepresentation in the prison population, identification with national identity, studying friendship circles, office socialising, and so on.
For example, 90% of first generation immigrants in UK have spouses of the same ethnicity. Membership of the same clubs, in-group friendships, and in-group places of worship are also high.
Many Asian groups – particularly Pakistani and Bangladeshi – continue to have high levels of in-group marriage and friendship in the second generation.
But one study found that at least half of immigrants’ acquaintances ‘come from members of the majority population, a finding which supports the existence of these important ‘bridging’ relationships’. But its also true that, ‘Muslims who follow religious rules and practices tend to have fewer majority acquaintances’.
In Canada and the US, it’s been found that self-reported importance of ethnicity decreases in second generation immigrants, while identification with nation increases.
One consistent finding is that minorities ‘overwhelmingly support maintenance of their own ethnic customs and traditions alongside equally striking support for mixing and integrating’.
Another interesting finding is the benefit of being bicultural. This study finds that, ‘Bicultural individuals show better psychological adjustment, as measured by higher life satisfaction and self-esteem, and lower alienation, anxiety, depression, and loneliness’.
And a meta study of 51 other studies found that biculturalism is ‘positively correlated with a range of behavioral outcomes, such as academic achievement, career success, and reduced delinquency’.
Another meta-analysis of 83 studies finds bicultural individuals are better adjusted than their monocultural neighbours.
‘cultural hybridity’ in the US also seems to correlate with socioeconomic success.
One move in the literature is from multiculturalism to the idea of interculturalism. The difference being that interculturalism promotes the idea of dialogue, mutual progress, and policies that try to counter segregation. For example, in Canada, research suggests that policies can help immigrants secure jobs, learn the language, can lead to higher incomes, and encourage paths to citizenship.
In all, though, there is little solid evidence that multiculturalism has ‘failed’.
As this review concludes, ‘the most important rationale for the political backlash against multicultural policies that they impede or hurt socio-political integration appears unfounded empirically’.
One area of research looks at Islam and multiculturalism in particular.
A 2016 poll, for example, revealed more than half of British Muslims think homosexuality should be illegal. 39% said wives should always obey their husbands, compared to 5% of the whole population. 86% though have a strong sense of belonging to Britain.
24% want Sharia law, according to one poll, although it varies what sharia means. Another poll says 40% want sharia and only 22% oppose sharia. One study says there are roughly 30-85 so-called Sharia councils in the UK that resolve disagreements, usually around marriage. One government review said, ‘From those who gave evidence to the review panel, no one disputed that sharia councils engage in practices which are discriminatory to women’.
Another poll found that only 37% of Muslims in the UK want to integrate ‘on most things’ but 40% wanted gender segregation in education.
It’s also true that in this context, ‘higher levels of education leads to higher support for democratic values’.
So to put it mildly, if you believe in gender and sexuality equality, freedom of speech, equality under the law, it’s certainly true there are challenges here. Let’s look at undocumented immigration.
Okay, the literature on this is vast so I’ll just touch on a few things that surprised me. It’s no revelation, for example that in many places we’re seeing an increase in illegal immigration and most countries the trend is towards stopping illegal immigration.
When it comes to illegal immigration, most people would probably have images of migrants crossing waterways on dinghies or climbing border fences. But almost half of undocumented migrants in the US came in legally then overstayed visas. Many were brought in as young children and don’t even find out they’re undocumented until they go to get jobs.
But the effect of increasing border patrol funding seems negligible – migrants just find other ways in. For example this study finds that, ‘From 1986 to 2008 the undocumented population of the United States grew from three million to 12 million persons, despite a five-fold increase in Border Patrol officers, a four-fold increase in hours spent patrolling the border, and a 20-fold increase in nominal funding’.
We also forget that being undocumented isn’t particularly appealing and so many don’t stay that long. In one study in Thailand, researchers found that in 61 out of 63 surveyed villages, ‘the proportion of overseas workers who voluntarily returned to Thailand was 95% or more’.
Another study in the Netherlands looked at the ‘psychological burden’ of being away from home – the more undocumented migrants stay, the more this increases.
According to one study, ‘more vigorous deportation policy advances the date of voluntary return’, which explains the motivation for the hostile environment policy here in the UK.
In fact, if you look at numbers from the UK, the majority seem to leave voluntarily, suggesting they only intend to stay for a short amount of time.
Undocumented migrants obviously find it more difficult to find jobs and contribute taxes. One study in the US found that, ‘Providing a pathway to citizenship for the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. would increase their wages and spending power and, over 10 years, boost U.S. GDP by $1.2 trillion’.
And many empirical studies have also found that wages of legalised migrants improved after amnesty.
One impression I get from reading policy papers and editorial suggestions is that left wing parties have, to quote one paper, ‘struggled to convince the public that they had a grip on the issue’.
In the UK, it’s been empirically verified that many voters have changed political allegiances because of immigration, especially from Labour to Conservative.
Progressives, liberals, and left-wingers need to address what the John Smith Institute calls the public trust deficit. We need to use the facts presented above to craft a positive narrative that doesn’t shy away from the difficulties.
As we’ve seen, immigration, like all political topics, clearly has its challenges, but they all seem negligible, and part of the problems the host country already experiences. Governments that pursue multicultural policies and are proactive in making the positive case for immigration – particularly Canada, Australia, and Scotland – do much better when it comes to public support for immigration.
Scots, for example, tend to be more tolerant of asylum seekers in part because leadership prioritises PR campaigns that inform people of the benefits and takes control of the narrative. In the England, on the other hand, the narrative is dominated by the right wing tabloids.
Media exposure to negative narratives, have, of course, been found to affect voters’ preferences.
In the UK, when polled, people always think migration is much higher than it is. Immigrants make up 10% of France’s population and the number hasn’t increased in recent years – but respondents to polls continue to believe immigration is too high.
In the UK, there were 50,000 asylum applications in 2021 and 15,000 were granted.
700,000 are born in the UK each year. In 2021, 23,000 crossed the channel illegally in boats. 37 died.
I think, when looking at the evidence, these numbers should be easily accommodated – but rather than take up France’s offer of a UK asylum processing centre in France that would likely reduce the numbers crossing illegally, the British government refuses to take up the offer.
The UK has a labour shortage, an aging population, and a shortage of National Health Service workers, and 23% of doctors and almost half of nurses were born outside the UK. We should be welcoming people. There are also plenty of creative policy ideas that get overlooked.
Several studies look at ‘heartland’ visas for asylum seekers who are willing to settle in deprived areas or areas that are depopulating. Canada and Australia both do this.
Initiatives such as the United Nations’ Global Compact 5 for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration suggests a possible framework. The compact calls for countries to create more legal pathways for migrants in search of new livelihoods.
Canada receives around 250,000 immigrants a year and does very well. Australia’s economy is booming as it accepts more migrants – more than 30% of the population were born abroad.
So what do you think? Is there anything you think I’ve missed or left out? Let me know in the comments, take a look at the sources in the description yourself, and let’s work towards a progressive narrative for the future.
Sources
Wages & Unemployment
How immigrants affect jobs and wages, https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-labour-market-effects-of-immigration/
The Effect of Immigration along the Distribution of Wages, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctpb21/Cpapers/CDP_03_08.pdf
The Impact of Immigration on Occupational Wages: Evidence from Britain, https://www.bostonfed.org/publications/research-department-working-paper/2008/the-impact-of-immigration-on-occupational-wages-evidence-from-britain.aspx
THE IMPACT OF IMMIGRATION ON THE STRUCTURE OF WAGES: THEORY AND EVIDENCE FROM BRITAIN, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1542-4774.2011.01049.x
The unemployment impact of immigration in OECD countries, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0176268010000765
Immigration and Wage Growth: The Case of Australia, https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/confs/2019/pdf/christian-dustmann.pdf
The Labour Market Effects of Immigration and Emigration in OECD Countries, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecoj.12077
(12 study meta-analysis) EEA migration in the UK: Final report, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/741926/Final_EEA_report.PDF
The Enclave and the Entrants: Patterns of Ethnic Enterprise in Miami before and after Mariel , https://www.jstor.org/stable/2095716?origin=crossref
Mariel Boatlife, a Reappraisal, https://www.nber.org/papers/w21588
The Impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the Miami Labor Market , https://dataspace.princeton.edu/handle/88435/dsp016h440s46f
The Labor Market Effects of Refugee Waves: Reconciling Conflicting Results, https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/170790
On the Macroeconomic and Welfare Effects of Illegal Immigration, https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/15469/
Overall Economy
Are Immigrants a Shot in the Arm for the Local Economy?, https://www.nber.org/papers/w21123
Immigrants to the U.S. Create More Jobs than They Take, https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/immigrants-to-the-u-s-create-more-jobs-than-they-take
Immigration Economics: A Review, https://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/card-peri-jel-april-6-2016.pdf
THE EFFECTS OF IMMIGRATION ON THE UNITED STATES’ ECONOMY, The Effects of Immigration on the United States’ Economy — Penn Wharton Budget Model (upenn.edu)
Macroeconomic evidence suggests that asylum seekers are not a “burden” for Western European countries, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aaq0883
Immigration Facts: The Positive Economic Impact of Immigration, https://www.fwd.us/news/immigration-facts-the-positive-economic-impact-of-immigration/
Immigrants Keep an Iowa Meatpacking Town Alive and Growing
, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/29/business/economy/storm-lake-iowa-immigrant-workers.html
Journal of Refugee Studies, Volume 34, Issue 2, June 2021, Pages 1967–1998, https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feaa078
The Fiscal Impact of Immigration in the UK, https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-fiscal-impact-of-immigration-in-the-uk/
How immigrants affect public finances, https://fullfact.org/immigration/how-immigrants-affect-public-finances/
Christian Dustmann and Tommaso Frattini, “The Fiscal Effects of Immigration to the UK”, Economic Journal, Vol.124, Issue 580, pages F593–F643, 2014.
Migrants responsible for UK’s growth of top incomes and taxes, https://www.ft.com/content/0e7aafcf-4e69-4124-9a43-027177d8a4b9
Cultural Impact
Pew Research Center, “Modern Immigration Wave Brings 59 Million to U.S., Driving Population Growth and Change Through 2065: Views of Immigration’s Impact on U.S. Society Mixed,” September 2015, available at: http://www.pewhispanic.org/files/2015/09/2015-09-28_modern-immigration-wave_REPORT.pdf.
Stuart Anderson, “Immigrant Founders and Key Personnel in America’s 50 Top Venture-Funded Companies,” NFAP Policy Brief (December 2011)
“Patent Pending: How Immigrants are Re-inventing the American Economy,” Report of the Partnership for a New American Economy, June 2012, available at: http://www.renewoureconomy.org/wpcontent/uploads/2013/07/patent-pending.p
Hunt, Jennifer, and Marjolaine Gauthier-Loiselle. 2010. “How Much Does Immigration Boost Innovation?” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 2 (2): 31-56.
Around the World, More Say Immigrants Are a Strength Than a Burden, https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2019/03/14/around-the-world-more-say-immigrants-are-a-strength-than-a-burden/
Four in 10 Americans Still Highly Concerned About Illegal Immigration, https://news.gallup.com/poll/391820/four-americans-highly-concerned-illegal-immigration.aspx
National Trends in Startup Activity, 2017_Startup_Activity_National_Report_Final.indd (kauffman.org)
Papademetriou, DG, Somerville, W and Sumption, M Observations on the Social Mobility of Immigrants in the UK and the US (Sutton Trust, 2009)
Multiculturalism/Integration
Research on multiculturalism in Canada, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2013.09.005
John Biles, Meyer Burstein, and James Frideres, eds., Immigration and Integration in Canada in the Twenty-½rst Century
The Failure of British Multiculturalism: Lessons for Europe, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41274986
WRIGHT, M. and BLOEMRAAD, I. 2012 ‘Is there a trade-off between multiculturalism and socio-political integration? Policy regimes and immigrant incorporation in comparative perspective’, Perspectives on Politics, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 7795
Anthony Heath & Neli Demireva (2014) Has multiculturalism failed in Britain?, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 37:1, 161-180, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2013.808754
The Environics Institute, “Survey of Muslims in Canada”, 2016, p. 9.
Saltanat Liebert , Mona H. Siddiqui & Carolin Goerzig (2020): Integration of Muslim Immigrants in Europe and North America: A Transatlantic Comparison, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, DOI: 10.1080/13602004.2020.1777663
Paul Statham & Jean Tillie (2016) Muslims in their European societies of settlement: a comparative agenda for empirical research on socio-cultural integration across countries and groups, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 42:2, 177-196, DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2015.1127637
Multiculturalism in Canada: Evidence & Anecdote, https://policyoptions.irpp.org/2015/09/22/multiculturalism-in-canada-evidence-and-anecdote/#:~:text=Canada%20is%20one%20of%20the,immigration%20in%20the%20coming%20years.
Multiculturalism & Belonging, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/multiculturalism-immigration-support-white-population/
Intercultural dialogue: Living together as equals in dignity, https://www.coe.int/t/dg4/intercultural/source/white%20paper_final_revised_en.pdf
Berry, J. W. 2005 “Acculturation: Living Successfully in two Cultures.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 29(6):697–712
Bloemraad I, Wright M. “Utter Failure” or Unity out of Diversity? Debating and Evaluating Policies of Multiculturalism. International Migration Review. 2014;48(1_suppl):292-334. doi:10.1111/imre.12135
Policy and Politics
Scheve, K. F. and M. J. Slaughter (2001), “Labor Market Competition and Individual Preferences Over Immigration Policy”, Review of Economics and Statistics 83, 133–145.
Dustmann, C. and I. Preston (2007), “Racial and Economic Factors in Attitudes to Immigration”, The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy 7, Article 62
Ford, R and Somerville, W Immigration and the 2010 Election (Prospect/Institute of Public Policy Research, 2010)
Understanding public attitudes to asylum seekers in Scotland, https://www.ippr.org/files/images/media/files/publication/2011/05/warm_welcome_1518.pdf
Migration: where next? Developing a new progressive immigration policy, https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/migration-where-next-developing-a-new-progressive-immigration-policy
Don Flynn and Zoe Williams, Towards a Progressive Immigration Policy, https://barrowcadbury.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Full-Report-Towards-a-progressive-immigration-policy.pdf
The positions mainstream left parties adopt on immigration: A cross-cutting cleavage? https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1354068818780533?journalCode=ppqa
Philosophy/Theory
Helbling M (2014) Framing immigration in Western Europe. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 40(1): 21–41.
Sonia Shah, The Next Great Migration
Andreas Onnerfors & Andre Krouwel, Europe: Continent of Conspiracies
Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics
Alex Sager, Towards a Cosmopolitan Ethics of Mobility
Ruben Andersson, Illegality, Inc…, op. cit., p. 107.
David Miller, Strangers in Our Midst…, op. cit., pp. 38-56
Gwilym David Blunt, « Illegal Immigration as Resistance to Global Poverty », Raisons politiques 2018/1 (N° 69), p. 83-99. DOI 10.3917/rai.069.0083
Crime
Immigration and Crime: Assessing a Contentious Issue, https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-criminol-032317-092026
Papadopoulos, G. Immigration status and property crime: an application of estimators for underreported outcomes. IZA J Migration 3, 12 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1186/2193-9039-3-12
Crime & Immigration, https://wol.iza.org/articles/crime-and-immigration
Immigration reduces crime: An emerging scholarly consensus, http://www.umass.edu/preferen/You%20Must%20Read%20This/Lee%20Immigration%20and%20Crime.pdf
Light MT, Miller TY. DOES UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRATION INCREASE VIOLENT CRIME? Criminology. 2017 May;56(2):370-401. doi: 10.1111/1745-9125.12175. Epub 2018 Mar 25. PMID: 30464356; PMCID: PMC6241529.
Comparing crime rates between undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants, and native-born US citizens in Texas, https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014704117
Illegal Immigration/Asylum Seekers
How the Danish Left Adopted a Far-Right Immigration Policy, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/12/denmark-refugees-frederiksen-danish-left-adopted-a-far-right-immigration-policy/
France Reckons with Immigration Amid Reality of Rising Far Right, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/france-immigration-rising-far-right#:~:text=According%20to%20estimates%20from%20the,in%20France%20under%20local%20contracts.
The Economic Effects of Granting Legal Status and Citizenship to Undocumented Immigrants, The Economic Effects of Granting Legal Status and Citizenship to Undocumented Immigrants – Center for American Progress
Modes of Entry for the Unauthorized Migrant Population (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Hispanic Center, 2006)
ego, “Legal Consciousness of Undocumented Latinos”; and Roberto G. Gonzales, “Learning to Be Illegal: Undocumented Youth and Shifting Legal Contexts in the Transition to Adulthood,” American Sociological Review 76 (4) (2011): 602–619.
The Illegality Trap: The Politics of Immigration & the Lens of Illegality, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43297259
Gathmann, C. (2008), “Effects of Enforcement on Illegal Markets: Evidence from Migrant Smuggling at the Southwestern Border”, Journal of Public Economics 92, 1926–1941.
Kossoudji, S. A. and D. Cobb–Clark (2002), “Coming out of the Shadows: Learning about Legal Status and Wages from the Legalized Population”, Journal of Labor Economics 20, 598–628.
Casarico, A., Facchini, G., & Frattini, T. (2015). Illegal immigration: policy perspectives and challenges. CESifo Economic Studies, 61(3-4), doi:10.1093/cesifo/ifv004
Global Envision (2006) Hard Work, Furtive Living – Illegal Immigrants in Japan, available at http://www. globalenvision.org/library/3/986
Jones H, Pardthaisong T (1999) The impact of overseas labor migration on rural Thailand: regional, community and individual dimensions. J Rural Stud 15(1):35–47
Eurelings-Bontekoe EHM, Brouwers EPM, Verschucommodities at lower prices than in the host countryur MJ (2000) Homesickness among foreign employees of a multinational high-tech company in The Netherlands. Environ Behav 32:443–456
Vinogradova, A. (2016). Illegal immigration, deportation policy, and the optimal timing of return. Journal of Population Economics, 29(3), 781–816. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44280414
Deportation and Voluntary Departure from the UK, https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/deportation-and-voluntary-departure-from-the-uk/
How many people do we grant asylum or protection to?, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-december-2021/how-many-people-do-we-grant-asylum-or-protection-to#:~:text=There%20were%2048%2C540%20asylum%20applications,number%20for%20almost%20two%20decades.
Number of migrants crossing Channel to UK tops 1,000 in new daily record, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59257107
Should the Military Patrol the English Channel? https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/08/13/support-RAF-Navy-English-Channel-migrant-crossing
Media
‘Facchini, G., A. M. Mayda and R. Puglisi (2011b), Illegal Immigration and Media Exposure: Evidence on Individual Attitudes, Mimeo, University of Nottingham
Polling
UK Public Opinion toward Immigration: Overall Attitudes and Level of Concern, https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Briefing-Public_Opinion_Immigration_Attitudes_Concern.pdf
What Is Canada’s Immigration Policy?, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/what-canadas-immigration-policy
Islam in Britain
Half of all British Muslims think homosexuality should be illegal, poll finds, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/apr/11/british-muslims-strong-sense-of-belonging-poll-homosexuality-sharia-law
The independent review into the application of sharia law in England and Wales, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/678478/6.4152_HO_CPFG_Report_into_Sharia_Law_in_the_UK_WEB.pdf
Unsettled Belonging: A survey of Britain’s Muslim communities, https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/PEXJ5037_Muslim_Communities_FINAL.pdf
Progressive Policy
From Managing Decline to Building the Future: Could a Heartland Visa Help Struggling Regions?, https://www.immigrationresearch.org/node/2697
Refuge: Rethinking Refugee Policy in a Changing World, Paul Collier & Alexander Betts
Racism
‘Alfred W. Crosby, “Virgin Soil Epidemics as a Factor in the Aboriginal Depopulation in America,” William and Mary Quarterly 33, no. 2’
