Tom K Wong

Rights, Deportation, and Detention in the Age of Immigration Control

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

Tom K. Wong is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 256
• Erscheinungstermin: 13. Mai 2015
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 152mm x 20mm
• Gewicht: 476g
• ISBN-13: 9780804793063
• ISBN-10: 0804793069
• Artikelnr.: 41749797

Autorenporträt

Tom K. Wong is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego.

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
1: Immigration Control in the Age of Migration
chapter abstract
This chapter presents an overview of contemporary trends in immigration
control. In contrast to the view that immigration control is a
deterministic outcome of national sovereignty, this chapter argues that the
various mechanisms used by governments to control immigration are policy
outputs that emerge from the broader political and institutional context in
which the contentious politics of immigration unfolds and takes place. It
defines what immigration control is, discusses debates over the objectives
of immigration control, and uses insights gained from fieldwork and
qualitative interviews to show why the view that "illegal means illegal" is
too simplistic when it comes to understanding how the contemporary
machinery of immigration control works. It then lays out the main arguments
and chapters of the book.
2Human Rights and Immigration Control Wrongs
chapter abstract
This chapter examines and inventories what the human rights of migrants are
as a matter of international human rights law, focusing on rights in the
context of deportation and immigration detention. It examines the role that
human rights play in the context of immigration control by analyzing the
determinants of the ratification of international human rights treaties
that require states to extend rights protections to noncitizens, focusing
on the Migrant Workers Convention (ICRMW). It argues and finds that because
treaties such as the ICRMW impose high sovereignty costs on states, meaning
they increase the distance between what states want to do with respect to
immigration control and what they can do as parties to these treaties, they
are not likely to be ratified. Consequently, emergent human rights norms
related to noncitizens have yet to become fully instantiated in the
domestic legal frameworks that govern the machinery of immigration control.
3Deportation Nations
chapter abstract
What are the politics and determinants of deportation? This chapter
investigates this question by analyzing data across twenty-five
immigrant-receiving countries from 2000 to 2009. It represents one of the
first systematic, cross-national, and over time studies of deportation and
its political, economic, and migration-related determinants. The main
argument of the chapter is that while the economic and societal
implications of immigration may harden public attitudes, thus increasing
the demand for greater policy restrictiveness, the extent to which this
demand is translated into policy outcomes hinges on the political landscape
in which the politics of immigration plays out. In other words, public
preferences do not directly translate into immigration control outcomes, as
political institutions mediate these preferences. More specifically,
electoral institutions play a role in channeling restrictive preferences
over immigration into policy outputs by providing opportunities for the
legislative representation of far-right political parties.
4The Labyrinth of Immigration Detention
chapter abstract
What are the politics and determinants of immigration detention? This
chapter begins by discussing the labyrinthine processes of immigration
detention. It then describes conditions of immigration detention in the
U.S. and Europe, including cases of death during detention. Mounting
international case law criticizing the detention practices of
immigrant-receiving democracies, the legal principle of proportionality,
arbitrary detention, and inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment are
also discussed. The second part of the chapter is the empirical analysis.
While immigration detention has become an increasingly prominent component
in the machinery of immigration control, it remains unclear what explains
its prevalence across Western immigrant-receiving democracies. Moreover,
while the immigration industrial complex is rapidly expanding in some
countries, this is not the case for all of the countries that are
experiencing large-scale immigration. What explains these cross-national
variations? I use new comparative data on immigration detention to address
these questions.
5An Effective Deterrent, or Smoke and Mirrors?
chapter abstract
Does the increased restrictiveness of immigration control reduce unwanted
immigration? Despite its fundamental policy importance, this question
remains almost entirely unanswered in the scholarly literature. The main
argument of the chapter is that because tighter immigration controls do not
fundamentally change the motives of migrants, the increased restrictiveness
of immigration control does not necessarily mean less unwanted immigration.
Using deportations as an indicator of immigration control, and while
accounting for some of the most enduring explanations given for
immigration, the analysis provides evidence to support this argument. The
data indicate that increased restrictiveness is not significantly related
to immigrant inflows and is only weakly related to asylum inflows. These
results add to the growing skepticism over whether current modes of
immigration control actually deter unwanted immigration.
Conclusion: Migrants, Agency, and the Future of Immigration Control
chapter abstract
The conclusion reviews the main empirical findings of the book and
discusses the territory that remains uncharted in the study of immigration
control, focusing on the role that immigrants qua political actors may play
in shaping the future of immigration control policies.