Daphne Halkias, Ph.D., Research Associate. Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, UC San Diego
Michael Fakinos, Ph.D., Democritus University of Thrace, Alexandroupolis, GREECE
Nicholas Harkiolakis, Ph.D., Hellenic American University, Athens, GREECE
Peggy Pelonis, MS, MFC, The American Community Schools, Athens, GREECE
Vicky Katsioloudes, MSW, Independent Researcher, Athens, GREECE
Abstract: Success in integrating the children of immigrants – the second generation – is of enormous consequence for economically advanced societies that have received millions of international migrants since the 1980s. Education systems play a crucial role in this process. Availability and access of culturally diverse and appropriate preschool education are important factors for supporting long-term …

Agustín Escobar Latapí, CIESAS Occidente, Mexico.
Introduction: Mexico – U.S. migration has gradually become one of the largest such flows in the world today. It is characterized by its extremely long history and persistence regardless of numerous policy changes in the United States, especially IRCA, new border enforcement strategies and acts of Congress, such as the immigration, welfare and anti-terrorism bills of 1996, massive growth in the U.S. Border Patrol staff and budget, or the Real ID act of 2005. This study emphasizes that, while U.S. policy could develop a much better approach to regulate this flow, reforms are likely to …

Karin Mayr, Johannes Kepler University (Linz, Austria)
Giovanni Peri, University of California, Davis and National Bureau of Economic Research
Abstract: Recent theoretical and empirical studies have emphasized the fact that the perspective of international migration increases the expected returns to skills in poor countries, linking the possibility of migrating (brain drain) with incentives to higher education (brain gain). If emigration is uncertain and some of the higly educated remain such channel may, at least in in part, counterbalance the negative effects of brain drain. Moreover recent empirical evidence seems to show that temporary migration is widespread among highly skilled migrants (such as …

Monica W. Varsanyi, School of Justice and Social Inquiry, Arizona State University
Abstract: Whereas the federal government has exclusive authority over immigration in the United States, during the past decade (and particularly since 9/11), many cities have formulated “grassroots” policies that enable local immigration policing “through the backdoor,” and have the indirect—but intended—effect of excluding undocumented immigrants from their jurisdictions. Providing a national overview and three case studies from the Phoenix, Arizona, metropolitan region, this article focuses specifically on the way in which cities are deploying public space ordinances to police (presumed) undocumented day laborers within their jurisdictions. This
study underscores how …

Tim Mechlinski, University of California, Santa Barbara
Abstract: This paper concerns the social process of mobility control in four West African countries: Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, and Ghana. Mobility has long been an important aspect of West African social, cultural, and political life, although now mobile people cross the borders of what are relatively newly-defined nation-states. Most migration research in this region considers international boundaries as merely theoretical and unimportant to the lives of migrants, and empirical research on borders focuses on the ethnic groups living in border zones. This study explores everyday enforcement of international and internal mobility control, …

David P. Lindstrom, Brown University
Silvia Giorguli-Saucedo, El Colegio de México
Abstract: This study examines the interrelationship between migration and marital fertility, using a bi-national sample of retrospective life histories collected in Mexican origin communities and U.S. destination areas. We treat couples as the unit of analysis and use discrete-time hazard models to examine: (1) how the timing and parity of births influence the occurrence of migration (to the U.S. or return to Mexico) and the type of migration (solo or couple), and (2) how current migration status and cumulative migration experience influence the likelihood of a birth. Examining the effects of …

Johanna Dunaway, Sam Houston State University
Marisa A. Abrajano, University of California, San Diego
Regina P. Branton, Rice University
Abstract: While the importance of agenda setting has been well-documented (Baumgartner and Jones 1995, Iyengar 1991), it is unclear whether its affect holds for issues that may not be salient to a significant portion of the public. We explore this puzzle by examining the issue of illegal immigration, as it is one policy that traditionally impacts those living in states along the U.S.-Mexico border more so than for those residing in non-border states. Our analyses of newspaper coverage of immigration and Gallup public opinion …

José Martínez. University of California, San Diego
In this paper, I examine several market liberalization measures taken in Mexico in the first half of the 90’s and their impact on municipalities’ migration incidence. Specifically, I look at events that affected generally small agricultural producers of basic crops, such as the removal of price supports and input subsidies, changes in laws governing the property rights of communal landowners and the reduction in tariffs on agricultural imports brought about by NAFTA, and their impact on migration to the U.S. I find that reliance on basic crop production is positively and significantly associated with …

Susan Gordon. Ben Gurion University, Beersheva Israel
The issues of how to integrate immigrants and ensure the integrity of citizenship have become passionate topics of public discourse and policy debate in recent years in a number of immigrant receiving countries. Behind these debates are often unarticulated questions about how to ensure loyalty to the state and to particular conceptions of national identity among prospective citizens.
These issues have been explicitly debated in the United States since the enactment of the first naturalization law in 1790, which require that immigrants who wish to become citizens demonstrate their good moral character and attachment to …

Maritza Caicedo Riazcos, Ph.D. Candidate in Demography, El Colegio de México
Abstract: This paper examines the salary gap between the native-born population in the United States and immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean. Using the decomposition analysis developed by Oaxaca (1973), the article uses information from the 2003 Current Population Survey (CPS) to establish the degree to which the salary gap between these two groups is due to differences in productivity vs. differences in treatment of certain groups. The analysis places Latin American and Caribbean immigrants into seven groups: Mexicans, Cubans, Dominicans, Jamaicans and Haitians, Central Americans (Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Hondurans …