A common theme in immigration studies in the United States is that the discourse around immigration has changed over time. Once a bipartisan issue where unlikely coalitions and partners were common, recent research has shown that partisanship is becoming more important in deciding immigration votes. In this paper, I set out to see if we can see evidence of this change in both congressional discourses around immigration and the legislation itself. To study the discourses around immigration, I analyze the floor debates for two immigration bills. For the legislation, I look at four immigration bills, two that passed and became law, and two that each only passed one chamber of Congress. This study is meant to explore how the framing and problem definition of immigration has changed since 1986 in the United States, and to provide the background for further study into changing discourses about immigration in the U.S. government. / text

In the past twenty years, a great deal of literature has been produced as to the value of citizenship in the global era. Some scholars insist that globalization has decreased the value of citizenship with the growth of human rights. Others believe that such claims are premature. Though these authors bring up important points as to the degree civil, political, and social rights have been granted to non-citizens around the world, they all fail to adequately address mobility rights. Primarily granted to citizens, mobility rights are going to become increasingly important with higher rates of international mobility, work, and residence. As such, these rights, the extent of which is defined by one's national citizenship, will play a significant role in determining autonomy and the capacity of an individual to determine one's own destiny. In this paper, I will explore inter-national and intra-national citizenship and immigration policies with the hopes of demonstrating the continued importance of citizenship in an increasingly globalized world. After laying out my theory, I will measure the value of U.S. citizenship inter-nationally and intra-nationally with regards to mobility rights. / text

published_or_final_version / History / Master / Master of Arts

Discourses surrounding U.S. immigration reform and border security are embedded with instances of the new racism (subtle and covert forms of racism in spoken and written language). One anti-immigrant organization in particular, the Minuteman Project, has gained widespread attention of the political establishment and mainstream press through its rapid expansion, physical involvement on the U.S.-Mexican border, and outspoken views on current U.S. immigration policy. There is a need to examine critically the discourse of growing citizen groups such as this one, who draw on web media resources to maintain and reproduce negative depictions of minority groups by masking and legitimating racist discourse.The data set consists of textual selections from the Minuteman Project website. Print text data includes the organization's mission statement and a context-specific article and email response related to immigration protests, as well as 'disclaimers' or statements of tolerance toward immigrants and elected officials that assist in the Minuteman Project's positive representation of self. A critical discourse analysis approach with an emphasis on metaphor is employed to determine how lexical, semantic, and syntactic choices are employed in creation of 'us' and 'them' participant roles. This analysis includes examination of visual images in proximity to print postings as well as images employed on Minuteman Project merchandise such as T-shirts and hats. The images are analyzed in relation to their contextual role in supporting or subverting the Minuteman Project's rhetorical strategies. The pervasive role of metaphor in this verbal and visual context is examined in relation to self and other representation, identity construction, and in-group membership.The analysis reveals contradictory and shifting self and other representations. Extensive use of patriotic and war tropes located in participant roles assist the Minuteman Project in masking underlying racist ideologies while overtly distancing itself from self-identified nationalist and white supremacist groups. Disclaimers, statements of tolerance, and metaphors assist the organization in successfully forging public connections with members of the political establishment. This study has implications for critical analysis of web-based texts, for multimodal analysis, and for the relation between circulatory web discourses and public policy in general.

No description available.

No description available.

Between 2005 and 2009, Iran became one of the most significant immigrant sending source countries to Nova Scotia. My thesis examines the settlement experiences of Iranian immigrants in Halifax to determine whether they plan on staying in the province. I engage literature on multiculturalism and transnationality as a theoretical framework to explore what influences newcomers in developing a sense of belonging to Canada. By conducting interviews with Iranian immigrants, I found that social network sites are an important tool for integrating and facilitating political organization and transnational activism. Other findings suggest that lack of employment opportunities and dismissal of foreign experience are the main reasons for out-migration.

This thesis will provide an argument against the use of immigration detention for asylum seekers. The thesis will critically analyse the law and policy of immigration detention in Canada. It will argue that the current policy of immigration detention in Canada does not comply with international human rights and obligations. The current policy of immigration detention does not reflect the values enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedom, and the policy of mandatory detention should be abolished immediately. Immigration Detention should be a last resort, only enforced after alternatives to detention have been considered. There should be regular reviews of detention, equally applicable to all immigrants, and detention should last for as brief a period as possible.

This thesis examines the visa mechanism deployed by governments on state borders. I take the Canadian temporary residence visa system experienced by Chinese applicants as my working example. Though the visa system is generally regarded as something essential and efficient for border control, I argue that it only gains its power to judge people’s admissibility from the government’s routinized authority and deemed expertise to deploy the border control mechanisms. The visa system is a realm where governments practise their power on the bordering population and visa applicants are made into subjects of the visa regime. Didier Bigo’s (2005) model of ban-opticon is used as my theoretical model to analyze the Canadian temporary resident visa system in this thesis. Mirroring Bigo’s description of the ban-opticon, I first analyze how the legitimacy of visa system is constructed by the discourse of in-securitization of migration, which, by rendering the migrating population inherently dangerous to the sovereign states, legitimates and necessitates the deployment of border control mechanisms. Also, I argue that the legislation surrounding the Canadian temporary resident visa system not only regulates the operational procedure, but also naturalizes the Canadian government’s expertise in selecting admissible people. Lastly, from the Canadian visa application experience of 9 Chinese applicants, I analyze how the applicants’ admissibility is decided by the visa officers based on their interpretation of the applicants’ identity documents and prediction of the applicants’ future behaviour. Though some means of negotiation are embedded in the mechanism, their existence actually proves that the evaluation system itself is not determinate. As I conclude, the discourse of in-securitization of migration, the related legislation of the visa system, as well as the real-life practices in the process, as the three elements of the ban-opticon on the border, are all at play in the visa regime, jointly making visa applicants into subjects of the government’s power practice on the border. / Thesis (Master, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2009-10-15 09:56:48.306

The purpose of this research is to understand and measure the integration experiences of Korean immigrants in Manitoba in terms of their social, political, education and employment domains. The primary theory used in this research is social capital. Theories of acculturation, ethnic economy, power and stratification are also used to situate my research. Data was collected using mixed methods comprising a survey of 260 Korean Canadians living in Winnipeg and qualitative interviews with 12 respondents. The analysis shows, among other things, high levels of racism felt by Korean immigrants in Winnipeg. While this perception and daily encounter of discrimination in the community would impede Korean immigrants’ integration into Canada, there also is a strong will to succeed in the community through accessing existing social capital and a willingness to invest in social capital. The contributions made in the development and operationalization of social capital in terms of willingness to invest and social capital mindset are documented. Several program ideas are offered for policy-makers and future research areas have been identified. The development of a political engagement index provides justification for observations made by the social capital theory and immigrant integration literature.