Academic literature on the topic 'Justice in immigration'

The menstrual injustices experienced by noncitizens detained in immigration facilities – a particularly vulnerable subset of menstruators in carceral spaces – are largely ignored. Menstruating detainees are forced to rely on the immigration system to provide adequate access to menstrual products, and on detention facilities to engage in safe menstrual management and corresponding dignity. Unfortunately, the immigration system fails many detainees, and the defining characteristics of immigration detention— the lack of access to counsel and significant geographic and social isolation that people in custody face—exacerbate the problem. Despite these isolating factors, detainees are finding ways to share their struggles with menstrual injustices. This Essay aims to categorize, amplify, and contextualize these experiences, and the need for thoughtful reform.

Contemporary liberal democratic societies currently enact immigration policies that are morally indefensible from a liberal autonomy and social justice perspective. In a world characterized by stark inequalities in individual opportunities to lead autonomous lives, and in which many individuals lack the basic conditions for autonomous functioning, I argue that contemporary immigration regimes that distinguish between desirable immigrants---who are typically from similarly wealthy countries---and undesirable one ---who are typically members of the global poor---conflict with liberal commitments to individual autonomy and equality of opportunity. I advocate that such commitments should lead wealthy countries to change their criteria for immigration, so that they admit proportionally many more of the global poor than they currently do. Such redistributive immigration policies are a way for rich countries to fulfill their global distributive justice duties. The thesis examines two major objections to formulating immigration policies on grounds of global distributive justice. First, some theorists posit a moral distinction between compatriots and non-compatriots, and argue that duties of redistribution should be restricted to compatriots. Second, some theorists fear that redistributive immigration schemes will have negative consequences on the conditions of social justice in host communities. This fear derives from the assumptions that social solidarity and social trust will be eroded by the greater ethno-cultural heterogeneity that is likely to result from the implementation of redistributive immigration policies. In response I show, first, that social solidarity is not circumscribed by national boundaries; the empirical evidence does not support claims that solidaristic acts rely on a predefined idea of community. Second, drawing on the Canadian case study, I find that institutional trust rather than interpersonal trust is key to motivating compliance with social welfare policies, and that this kind of trust can be sustained under conditions of ethno-cultural heterogeneity.

This study examines decisions of immigration judges from the Miami and Los Angeles immigration courts, analyzing the asylum grant rates of judges in the courts from 2000-2016. In five-year time frames, the study looks at each immigration court and the decisions yielded, amounting up to nearly 86,000 decisions. Examining judges on an individual level, the study also analyzes the outputs of each court collectively. The analysis reveals very distinct disparities in grant rates, showing up to a 70% disparity between judges within the same immigration court. Based on biographies provided by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), this paper explores possible correlations between various extralegal factors of individual immigration judges and their respective asylum grant rates. The results of the analysis showed correlation between gender, political party appointed under and the asylum grant rate, as well as strong correlation between judges’ previous work experience prior to appointment (DHS/INS experience, NGO experience) and the asylum grant rate. Additionally, the analysis reviews case law of the Ninth and Eleventh Circuit Courts, looking at distinct differences in the precedents of asylum law. The paper explores the tension between these judicial entities, the legislative branch, and the executive agencies enforcing the asylum adjudication process in the context of the Los Angeles and Miami immigration courts. The conclusion discusses the implications of the findings, especially in regards to the rapidly changing directives of the current executive administration.

This thesis looks at justice and home affairs (JHA) policy-making in the European Union (EU). JHA refers to those areas which have traditionally been the domain of interior and justice ministries on the national level and which are now dealt with on the EU level on the basis of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and includes areas such as immigration and asylum, visa policy and police co-operation. In short, this thesis aims to examine why the governments of the member states chose to start co-operating on these issues within the EU, what the nature of this co-operation is and what does it tell us about the EU in general. The thesis looks firstly at the forms of JHA co-operation prior to the TEU and how this led to the national governments deciding to give it a Treaty basis within the EU. There is then an account of how the negotiations on the TEU developed and resulted in JHA being governed by a set of Treaty provisions quite different to those for other policy areas. This is followed by two case studies looking in detail at how JHA policy was made after the TEU entered into force; these deal with visa policy and immigration and asylum. To help in this, two theoretical approaches, taken from political science studies of European integration, are used, namely neofunctionalism and liberal intergovernmentalism. These allow us to identify the extent to which the same processes and factors influence JHA policy-making as in more traditional areas of Community policy-making, and allow for conclusions to be drawn on what JHA policy-making can tell us about wider issues of European integration.

Cette thèse développe une conception normative du territoire qui associe l’idée cosmopolite selon laquelle les êtres humains sont au centre des préoccupations morales et et celle du droit à l’autodétermination collective, conçu elle généralement comme étrangère au cosmopolitisme. Les droits de l’Homme sont placés au cœur de cette thèse dans la mesure où les arguments qui y sont développés donnent la priorité aux intérêts humains les plus fondamentaux sur l’utilité sociale ou l’efficacité. Par ailleurs, ce travail avance que les citoyens des Etats ont un droit moral à l’auto-détermination collective et que ce droit peut être ramené aux droits de tous les êtres humains en tant que citoyens d’Etats particuliers. En explorant les implications de ces raisonnements, la thèse aborde des questions relatives à la citoyenneté, à l’immigration, aux ressources naturelles et à la justice distributive à l’échelle globale
This thesis develops a normative conception of the territory that combines the cosmopolitan notion that human beings are ultimate units of moral concern with the putatively non-cosmopolitan right to collective self-determination. Human rights are placed at very heart of this thesis insofar as the arguments developed therein give priority to important human interests over other considerations of social utility or efficiency. On the other hand, the thesis argues that the citizens of states have a moral right to collective self-determination and that this right is reducible to the rights of all human beings as citizens of particular states. Exploring the implications of these arguments, the thesis addresses issues pertaining to citizenship, immigration, and global distributive justice. Some of the arguments developed run against the dominant grain of contemporary political philosophy: residency provides a sufficient reason for claiming citizenship rights, there is no general right to immigration, natural resources are not the ‘currency’ of global distributive justice

Thesis advisor: Kevin Kenny
The present study examines the Catholic social critique of U.S. immigration law from the introduction of literacy testing in 1917 to the removal of the national origins quota system in 1965. During this period, Catholic thinkers developed a distinctive theology of migration and engaged in a long campaign for reform of federal immigration policy. They did so at a time when the debate over that policy was characterised by a number of contentious issues: discrimination against prospective immigrants on the basis of race and national origins; the importation of migrant labor; the obligation to respond to an international refugee crisis; and the imperatives of Cold War national security. Catholic thinking on these issues involved a constant negotiation between a liberal policy position emphasizing the dignity of the individual and man's natural right to migrate, and a restrictive outlook which acknowledged sovereign states' right to control immigration and citizenship in the national interest. The Catholic philosophy was an important dimension of a national debate that oscillated between exclusionary and inclusionary approaches. In keeping with Catholic social doctrine, Catholic intellectuals and immigration experts insisted that the debate over policy and implementation should give priority to the integrity of the migrating family and the attainment and protection of a living wage for all. These priorities coalesced with a post-New Deal political and social emphasis on the heteronormative family as the core consuming and breadwinning unit in American life. Current historical understanding of the debate over American immigration policy elides the significance of religious thought. This study demonstrates that religious ideas and institutions were used to give the Post-World War II campaign for immigration reform and the Hart-Celler Immigration Act of 1965 the weight of moral authority, inclusive of their liberalizing and restrictive features. By giving the 1965 law their imprimatur, Catholic social thinkers helped efface the law's retention of restrictive and selective measures. Examination of the Catholic social critique of immigration policy reveals that socio-economic and moral ideals - as embodied by the idealized nuclear, male breadwinner-headed family - pervaded the debate over immigration reform in this era of restriction
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: History

At the time of its debate and passage in 2010-2011, Alabama's immigration law evoked support and opposition from across the state and nation. Despite the outcry, the Alabama business community projected a pronounced public "silence". This silence was particularly curious because of the law's clear and intended goal of self-deportation of Latinos who are a significant labor source for Alabama agri-businesses and food processing industries. The key question for this dissertation is: Why did the poultry processing industry, which has high populations of Latino employees and a significant industrial presence in Alabama, stay publicly silent despite a predictable impact on their labor supply? This qualitative analysis used the lens of the circuits of power model to interrogate this question. The findings indicate that Alabama poultry processors found themselves susceptible to the same opportunities and challenges as any other social actor confronted with the racialized, politicized, and historically contingent challenges facing Latino labor in Alabama. In other words, these business actors were fully socially embedded actors within Alabama. I demonstrate that individual residents, relevant associations, Alabama's politicians, and even the poultry processors themselves never fully realized the political vulnerability of their particular embeddedness until it was too late for poultry processing employers to publicly act to protect their Latino employees from this unjust state law. I collected and triangulated data from multiple sources, including semi-structured interviews, media reports, state and national statistics, official websites, and legal documents. Through discourse and content analysis of this data, I developed a case study that demonstrates how Alabama's poultry processors were on a collision course with Alabama state politicians over immigration reform, but they never saw it coming. In so doing, I raise important questions about limits on the "real" power of economic actors for achieving self-interested business outcomes when those interests contest strongly-held social and cultural norms that are infused with a particular history of race, difference, and alterity in local spaces. I demonstrate that these limits raise questions for the democratic process and have consequences for economic actors with regard to corporate social responsibility claims as they pertain to labor justice.
Ph. D.

La mia tesi tratta dell'immigrazione haitiana in Repubblica Dominicana; in particolare, dopo una prima parte introduttiva in cui si spiegano i contesti storico e sociale, e in cui viene fatta un'analisi proprio sull'immigrazione, il focus è il tema del pregiudizio dominicano nei confronti degli haitiani e l'accesso alla giustizia da parte segli stessi. La gestione della giustizia dominicana nei confronti degli immigrati haitiani infatti, è un tema complesso che, anche grazie a interviste fatte a persone che lavorano in loco, trova la sua esplicazione soprattutto nella parte conclusiva dell'elaborato.

Administrative justice is traditionally considered as the main alternative to the criminal justice system when a certain illegality is decriminalized or not enforced by criminal justice institutions (e.g. the regulation of elite deviance, urban disorder, mental health, etc.). This doctoral thesis studies how the conflicts related to immigration are being managed in the largest administrative tribunal in Canada: the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB). It asks how exactly does immigration justice, and administrative law more broadly, constitute an alternative to criminal justice in terms of social reaction, and what kinds of challenges does this alternative present for the study of social control. This research takes a qualitative approach based on documentary analysis and long-term ethnographic fieldwork conducted at the IRB between 2007 and 2009. It uses its own theoretical framework building on post-structural perspectives, including Bourdieu’s constructivist structuralism, governmentality and nodal governance studies, left realism and political economy of punishment. In the empirical part of the thesis, I present some of the characteristics of the legal translation of conflicts in immigration law, including the forms and logics of punishment involved and how immigration law is practiced at the tribunal. I argue that administrative adjudication and punishment differ substantially from criminal law regimes and I question the idea of criminalization (of immigration) as a category capable of nuancing the complexity of administrative forms of social reaction. Instead, I suggest that we should take these forms of punitive social reaction as they are, and study how they operate along, beyond and in addition to criminal law. I propose an integrated conception of the penal complex which works as a mobile (kinetic sculpture) and includes the criminal law realm, but also other normative systems that configure ‘less’ prominent locations of punishment playing an increasing role in social reaction. I conclude by proposing a new reading of selectivity of justice and penal policies, and consequently, a new agenda for criminology and criminologists. In this new agenda, the penal complex should be taken as a totality in order to promote broader and combined propositions for law reform and resistance to punitiveness.

The general problem of the morality of borders is to determine what kind of borders liberal democracies ought to have. This in turn raises two particular problems. First to determine the nature of states entitlement to control the administration of political and territorial borders and second, to determine what constitutes to exercise this entitlement in fair terms. This thesis is devoted to the first particular problem. I distinguish two kinds of approaches to legitimate border control: justice-based accounts and legitimacy oriented accounts. I argue that justice-based accounts are inappropriate to frame and address the legitimacy problem of borders because they typically merely assume that a set of institutions apply to those over whom coercion is exercised. But these accounts never provide an explanation about why we (and not others) have legitimate rights over territorial borders. This standard objection shows that these views fail to reach the boundary problem, but it does not say why. In this thesis I advance an explanation. I say that justice-based accounts are unfit to address problems of borders. The idea is that justice-based is a simplified account tailored to the problem of public justification, but this simplification has removed the traits relevant to reach the boundary problem. In contrast I introduced legitimacy-oriented accounts of borders. When legitimacy is not about justice and the problem of public justification of coercion, it is about integrity and the assessment of political power from the point of view of distinct political virtues such as fairness, democratic participation, due process, and justice. Legitimacy as integrity performs a division of labour between distinct conceptions of legitimacy in order to justify political power as a whole including the kind of power that borders exercise. But integrity of international basic institutions like borders point out to porous borders as the appropriate case for liberal democracies.

Aim/Purpose: This paper provides the results of the preliminary analysis of the findings of an ongoing study that seeks to examine the social media use, cultural and political awareness, civic engagement, issue prioritization, and social activism of Gen Z students enrolled at four different institutional types located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The aim of this study is to look at the group as a whole as well as compare findings across populations. The institutional types under consideration include a mid-sized majority serving or otherwise referred to as a traditionally white institution (TWI) located in a small coastal city on the Atlantic Ocean, a small Historically Black University (HBCU) located in a rural area, a large community college located in a county that is a mixture of rural and suburban and which sits on the border of Maryland and Pennsylvania, and graduating high school students enrolled in career and technical education (CTE) programs in a large urban area. This exploration is purposed to examine the behaviors and expectations of Gen Z students within a representative American region during a time of tremendous turmoil and civil unrest in the United States. Background: Over 74 million strong, Gen Z makes up almost one-quarter of the U.S. population. They already outnumber any current living generation and are the first true digital natives. Born after 1996 and through 2012, they are known for their short attention spans and heightened ability to multi-task. Raised in the age of the smart phone, they have been tethered to digital devices from a young age with most having the preponderance of their childhood milestones commemorated online. Often called Zoomers, they are more racially and ethnically diverse than any previous generation and are on track to be the most well-educated generation in history. Gen Zers in the United States have been found in the research to be progressive and pro-government and viewing increasing racial and ethnic diversity as positive change. Finally, they are less likely to hold xenophobic beliefs such as the notion of American exceptionalism and superiority that have been popular with by prior generations. The United States has been in a period of social and civil unrest in recent years with concerns over systematic racism, rampant inequalities, political polarization, xenophobia, police violence, sexual assault and harassment, and the growing epidemic of gun violence. Anxieties stirred by the COVID-19 pandemic further compounded these issues resulting in a powder keg explosion occurring throughout the summer of 2020 and leading well into 2021. As a result, the United States has deteriorated significantly in the Civil Unrest Index falling from 91st to 34th. The vitriol, polarization, protests, murders, and shootings have all occurred during Gen Z’s formative years, and the limited research available indicates that it has shaped their values and political views. Methodology: The Mid-Atlantic region is a portion of the United States that exists as the overlap between the northeastern and southeastern portions of the country. It includes the nation’s capital, as well as large urban centers, small cities, suburbs, and rural enclaves. It is one of the most socially, economically, racially, and culturally diverse parts of the United States and is often referred to as the “typically American region.” An electronic survey was administered to students from 2019 through 2021 attending a high school dual enrollment program, a minority serving institution, a majority serving institution, and a community college all located within the larger mid-Atlantic region. The survey included a combination of multiple response, Likert scaled, dichotomous, open ended, and ordinal questions. It was developed in the Survey Monkey system and reviewed by several content and methodological experts in order to examine bias, vagueness, or potential semantic problems. Finally, the survey was pilot tested prior to implementation in order to explore the efficacy of the research methodology. It was then modified accordingly prior to widespread distribution to potential participants. The surveys were administered to students enrolled in classes taught by the authors all of whom are educators. Participation was voluntary, optional, and anonymous. Over 800 individuals completed the survey with just over 700 usable results, after partial completes and the responses of individuals outside of the 18-24 age range were removed. Findings: Participants in this study overwhelmingly were users of social media. In descending order, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Tik Tok were the most popular social media services reported as being used. When volume of use was considered, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and Twitter were the most cited with most participants reporting using Instagram and Snapchat multiple times a day. When asked to select which social media service they would use if forced to choose just one, the number one choice was YouTube followed by Instagram and Snapchat. Additionally, more than half of participants responded that they have uploaded a video to a video sharing site such as YouTube or Tik Tok. When asked about their familiarity with different technologies, participants overwhelmingly responded that they are “very familiar” with smart phones, searching the Web, social media, and email. About half the respondents said that they were “very familiar” with common computer applications such as the Microsoft Office Suite or Google Suite with another third saying that they were “somewhat familiar.” When asked about Learning Management Systems (LMS) like Blackboard, Course Compass, Canvas, Edmodo, Moodle, Course Sites, Google Classroom, Mindtap, Schoology, Absorb, D2L, itslearning, Otus, PowerSchool, or WizIQ, only 43% said they were “very familiar” with 31% responding that they were “somewhat familiar.” Finally, about half the students were either “very” or “somewhat” familiar with operating systems such as Windows. A few preferences with respect to technology in the teaching and learning process were explored in the survey. Most students (85%) responded that they want course announcements and reminders sent to their phones, 76% expect their courses to incorporate the use of technology, 71% want their courses to have course websites, and 71% said that they would rather watch a video than read a book chapter. When asked to consider the future, over 81% or respondents reported that technology will play a major role in their future career. Most participants considered themselves “informed” or “well informed” about current events although few considered themselves “very informed” or “well informed” about politics. When asked how they get their news, the most common forum reported for getting news and information about current events and politics was social media with 81% of respondents reporting. Gen Z is known to be an engaged generation and the participants in this study were not an exception. As such, it came as no surprise to discover that, in the past year more than 78% of respondents had educated friends or family about an important social or political issue, about half (48%) had donated to a cause of importance to them, more than a quarter (26%) had participated in a march or rally, and a quarter (26%) had actively boycotted a product or company. Further, about 37% consider themselves to be a social activist with another 41% responding that aren’t sure if they would consider themselves an activist and only 22% saying that they would not consider themselves an activist. When asked what issues were important to them, the most frequently cited were Black Lives Matter (75%), human trafficking (68%), sexual assault/harassment/Me Too (66.49%), gun violence (65.82%), women’s rights (65.15%), climate change (55.4%), immigration reform/deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA) (48.8%), and LGBTQ+ rights (47.39%). When the schools were compared, there were only minor differences in social media use with the high school students indicating slightly more use of Tik Tok than the other participants. All groups were virtually equal when it came to how informed they perceived themselves about current events and politics. Consensus among groups existed with respect to how they get their news, and the community college and high school students were slightly more likely to have participated in a march, protest, or rally in the last 12 months than the university students. The community college and high school students were also slightly more likely to consider themselves social activists than the participants from either of the universities. When the importance of the issues was considered, significant differences based on institutional type were noted. Black Lives Matter (BLM) was identified as important by the largest portion of students attending the HBCU followed by the community college students and high school students. Less than half of the students attending the TWI considered BLM an important issue. Human trafficking was cited as important by a higher percentage of students attending the HBCU and urban high school than at the suburban and rural community college or the TWI. Sexual assault was considered important by the majority of students at all the schools with the percentage a bit smaller from the majority serving institution. About two thirds of the students at the high school, community college, and HBCU considered gun violence important versus about half the students at the majority serving institution. Women’s rights were reported as being important by more of the high school and HBCU participants than the community college or TWI. Climate change was considered important by about half the students at all schools with a slightly smaller portion reporting out the HBCU. Immigration reform/DACA was reported as important by half the high school, community college, and HBCU participants with only a third of the students from the majority serving institution citing it as an important issue. With respect to LGBTQ rights approximately half of the high school and community college participants cited it as important, 44.53% of the HBCU students, and only about a quarter of the students attending the majority serving institution. Contribution and Conclusion: This paper provides a timely investigation into the mindset of generation Z students living in the United States during a period of heightened civic unrest. This insight is useful to educators who should be informed about the generation of students that is currently populating higher education. The findings of this study are consistent with public opinion polls by Pew Research Center. According to the findings, the Gen Z students participating in this study are heavy users of multiple social media, expect technology to be integrated into teaching and learning, anticipate a future career where technology will play an important role, informed about current and political events, use social media as their main source for getting news and information, and fairly engaged in social activism. When institutional type was compared the students from the university with the more affluent and less diverse population were less likely to find social justice issues important than the other groups. Recommendations for Practitioners: During disruptive and contentious times, it is negligent to think that the abounding issues plaguing society are not important to our students. Gauging the issues of importance and levels of civic engagement provides us crucial information towards understanding the attitudes of students. Further, knowing how our students gain information, their social media usage, as well as how informed they are about current events and political issues can be used to more effectively communicate and educate. Recommendations for Researchers: As social media continues to proliferate daily life and become a vital means of news and information gathering, additional studies such as the one presented here are needed. Additionally, in other countries facing similarly turbulent times, measuring student interest, awareness, and engagement is highly informative. Impact on Society: During a highly contentious period replete with a large volume of civil unrest and compounded by a global pandemic, understanding the behaviors and attitudes of students can help us as higher education faculty be more attuned when it comes to the design and delivery of curriculum. Future Research This presentation presents preliminary findings. Data is still being collected and much more extensive statistical analyses will be performed.

While the knowledge on immigrants’ integration consolidated through the last 50 years, the Roma studies and the research on the Roma inclusion seems at the beginning. The purpose of this research was to assess if and to what extent the Swiss experience in immigrants’ integration may inspire an efficient approach to Roma inclusion in the Romanian society. After highlighting conceptual vagueness, resemblance and difference in the overall social status of Romanian Roma and immigrants in Switzerland and official approaches to the integration or inclusion of each, the research concludes that the Romanian policy on Roma inclusion presumably can be better anchored in the integration conceptual framework and benefit from immigrants’ integration experience. The Romanian choice for framing its Roma policy as ‘inclusion’ rather than for ‘integration’ may be appropriate as it applies to a historic minority of citizens needing social justice. The use of an immigration integration policy as model for a Roma inclusion strategy is limited due to the stronger legit-imation of historic minorities for shared-ownership of public decision-making. That is the Swiss example of immigrants’ integration could only serve Romania as a minimum standard for its Roma inclusion strategy. It can benefit from the Swiss experience on immigrant's integration policy in terms of conception, coordination, monitoring and transparency may be beneficial, while the Roma political participation may find inspiration from the Swiss linguistic communities’ participatory mechanisms. The on-going reciprocal learning process connecting academia and public authorities able to transform science into action and experience in knowledge may inspire the Romanian authorities.