THE POLITICS OF IMMIGRATION:

THE UNITED STATES IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Political Science 150A – Fall Quarter 2005

Wednesday, 5:00-7:50 pm, Robinson Auditorium,
Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies

Professor Wayne Cornelius
(ERC Acad. Admin. Bldg. Room 106, wcorneli@ucsd.edu, tel. 822-4447)

Graduate Teaching Assistants:
Veronica Hoyo, vhoyo@ucsd.edu (Coordinator); Carew Boulding, cbouldin@ucsd.edu

Molly Hamilton, mhamilton@ucsd.edu; Paula Jacobson, pjacobson@ucsd.edu

This course explores the origins and consequences of attempts by the United States and other industrialized countries to control inflows of immigrant workers and political refugees. Why is it so difficult for the governments of these countries to reduce “unwanted” immigration and refugee flows? Why do increased government investments in immigration control often fail to yield increases in control, while producing a variety of unintended consequences? What are governments doing (or not doing) to integrate immigrants – socially, culturally, and politically – into their societies? Why are general publics hostile or ambivalent toward new waves of immigrants and refugees? In this course, we will:

· critically examine the assumptions made by public officials and members of the general public about why people migrate across international borders, and the evidence concerning costs and benefits of immigration.

· explore why the economies of the U.S. and other major labor-importing countries “need” immigrant workers.

· examine the way in which international migration is organized and facilitated by migrants’ family networks and professional people-smugglers.

· assess the effectiveness of a various policy instruments for controlling “unwanted” immigration: stronger border enforcement, penalties against employers who hire illegal immigrants, temporary (“guest”) worker programs, trade and development assistance to labor-exporting countries.

· examine the actual performance of the United States, Western Europe, and Japan in controlling immigration, from the early 1980s to the present.

· discuss how international migration affects shapes life chances and economic development in migrant-sending countries and communities.

· analyze how general publics in immigrant-receiving countries form their attitudes toward immigrants and their preferences concerning immigration policy.

Requirements

1. There will be a mid-term and a final examination, both take-home. There are no other writing requirements. The mid-term will cover all material from Unit 1 through Unit 5; the final will cover all material presented in the course. Both will be essay-type exams that ask you to integrate what you have learned from the lectures, readings, videos, guest interviews, and class discussions.

2. You will be expected to attend all class sessions, in their entirety. You are asked to be in your seat, ready to start lecture, at 5:00 p.m. Late arrivals and early departures from class are acceptable only by prior approval of one of the Graduate Teaching Assistants. The interviews with guest experts and video documentaries shown during the last hour or so of each class meeting are required course content and will be covered in exams.

3. You should come to class prepared to participate in the discussion periods that will follow lectures, having done all of the assigned readings. It is also highly recommended that you read at least one daily newspaper that reports frequently on immigration issues (e.g., San Diego Union-Tribune, L.A. Times, New York Times). Outlines and other handouts (pick up from the table in the foyer) should be reviewed before class begins; they will be referred to during lecture.

Course Website

Every Friday following lecture, the lecture outline and all PowerPoint slides used during that lecture will be posted to the course website. Go to http://dss.ucsd.edu/~wcorneli/ and click on “Pol Sci 150A.” You will find it helpful in preparing for exams to download the slides and lecture each week. Lecture content will not be posted here; only the slides.

Grading

Course grades will be determined as follows: mid-term exam, 40%; final exam, 60%. Policy on “re-grading”: Grades assigned for mid-term and final exams are not negotiable and will be changed only in the case of a demonstrated clerical error in recording your grade or an arithmetic error in computing the point score.

Exam Schedule

The mid-term exam will be distributed at the end of class on October 26 and will be due at the beginning of class on November 2. Your graded exam can be picked up in class on November 9.

The final examination will be distributed at the end of class on November 30 and must be turned in by 12:00 noon, Tuesday, December 6 (earlier submissions are welcome). Final exams are to be turned in at the reception desk of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, on the ground floor of the Eleanor Roosevelt College Academic Administration Building. If you are unsure of the location, go to http://www.ccis-ucsd.org/directions.htm. Because of computer virus problems, it will not be possible to submit your exam by e-mail (sorry). Graded exams can be picked up after December 13 in Political Science room 301 (3^rd floor, Social Sciences Bldg.), if you have signed a Buckley waiver.

Office Hours

Office hours for Professor Cornelius will be on Mondays from 11:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m., in room 106, ERC Academic Administration Building. To avoid waits, you can call or e-mail ahead to request a specific meeting time; contact Christina Ortiz at chortiz@ucsd.edu, tel. 822-4447. Office hours for the Graduate Teaching Assistants will be posted at the first class meeting.

Textbooks

There is one required textbook for this course, available for purchase at the UCSD Bookstore:

Cornelius, Wayne A., Takeyuki Tsuda, Philip L. Martin, and James F. Hollifield, eds., Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective, 2^nd ed. (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004)

FYI, royalties on this book are donated to the publications fund of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UCSD.

The remaining readings have been compiled as a course reader (“packet”) that can be purchased at the first class meeting, or you can order it on-line from University Readers, www.universityreaders.com. Select the Student Buy Now button located within the top-right corner of every webpage, which will take you to the University Readers online store. From there you will be prompted to choose your state, institution, and course number from a pull-down menu. Follow the instructions to complete the purchasing process. Payment can be made by all major credit cards and by electronic check. Once payment is confirmed, your course reader will be mailed to you. For an additional $2.99 charge (an option that you will have at check-out) the publisher will send your copy by Priority Mail, which provides next-day delivery throughout southern California. Their free-delivery option is Media Mail, which can take between a few days to a week to arrive. If you have any difficulties, send an e-mail to orders@universityreaders.com or call 1-800-200-3908.

Required Readings

Unit 1 (September 28): Why Is Immigration So Controversial?

READER:
Bimal Ghosh, “Economic Effects of International Migration,” in International Organization of Migration, World Migration 2005 (Geneva, Switzerland: International Organization of Migration, 2005), pp. 163-173, 178-183.

Samuel P. Huntington, Who Are We?—The Challenges to America’s National Identity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), pp. 221-256.

Wayne A. Cornelius, “Commentary on ‘The Hispanic Challenge’,” Foreign Policy, May-June 2004.

Jack Citrin, “Testing Huntington’s Who Are We?”, unpublished paper, UC-Berkeley, May 2005.

Tom Barry, “The Immigration Debate: Politics, Ideologies of Anti-Immigration Forces,” Americas Program, Interhemispheric Resource Center (Washington, D.C.), June 17, 2005.

Video: “Shadow of Hope” (2004)

Unit 2 (October 5): Why Do People Migrate Internationally? -- Alternative Theories

READER:

Peter Stalker, Workers without Frontiers (Boulder, Col.: Lynne Rienner, 2000), pp. 21-34 and 117-129.

Mark S. Reisler, By the Sweat of Their Brow: Mexican Immigrant Labor in the United States, 1900-1940 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976), pp. 3-23.

Jeffrey H. Cohen, The Culture of Migration in Southern Mexico (Austin: U. of Texas Press, 2004), pp. 124-141.

INTERNET:

Sonia Nazario and Don Bartletti, “Enrique’s Journey,” The Los Angeles Times, September 29-October 7, 2002:
Go to http://www.ici.kent.edu/dnb2.htm and scroll down to the “Enrique's Journey” page. Read as much of the series as possible.

Guest presenter: Don Bartletti, photo-journalist, Los Angeles Times; Pulitzer Prize winner, 2003.

Unit 3 (October 12): Explaining the Demand for Immigrant Labor

READER:

Peter Stalker, Workers without Frontiers (Boulder, Col.: Lynne Rienner, 2000), pp. 131-137.

Wayne A. Cornelius, “The Structural Embeddedness of Demand for Mexican Immigrant Labor,” in Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, Crossings: Mexican Immigration in Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), pp. 115-155.

Roger Waldinger, "Social Capital or Social Closure?--Immigrant Networks in the Labor Market," Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, UCLA, Working Paper No. 26 (1997), pp. 1-11.

Peter Brownell, “The Declining Enforcement of Employer Sanctions,” Migration Information Source, http://www.migrationinformation.org, September 1, 2005.

Videos: Segment on immigrant labor in U.S. chicken processing plants, ABC World News (March 11, 1998); “Trabajador: Migrant Labor in the Construction Industry” (PBS Documentary, 2003)

Guest interviewee: Peter Núñez, political science, U. of San Diego; former federal law enforcement official

Unit 4 (October 19): Controlling Immigration: The U.S. Experience -- Historical Perspectives

READER:

David Heer, Immigration in America’s Future (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1996), pp. 27-58.

Bill Ong Hing, Making and Remaking Asian America through Immigration Policy, 1850-1990 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,. 1993), pp. 17-42.

Susan Martin, “The Politics of U.S. Immigration Reform,” in Sarah Spencer, ed., The Politics of Migration (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 132-139.

Videos: “Ellis Island” (2003); “Carved in Silence: Angel Island” (1988).

Unit 5 (October 26): Controlling Immigration: The U.S. Experience – Current Policies

TEXTBOOK:
Cornelius, et al., Controlling Immigration, pp. 3-43 (Introduction by Cornelius & Tsuda), and

pp. 45-80 (chapter on U.S. by Philip Martin)

READER:
Wayne A. Cornelius, “Controlling ‘Unwanted’ Immigration: Lessons from the United States, 1993-2004,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 31, No. 4 (July 2005), pp. 775-794.

Eliot Turner and Marc R. Rosenblum, “Solving the Unauthorized Migrant Problem: Proposed Legislation in the U.S.,” Migration Information Source, http://www.migrationinformation.org, September 1, 2005.

Jennifer Medina, “Why Hard Work + Low Pay = More Anxiety,” New York Times, April 10, 2005.

Videos: U.S. Border Patrol footage of San Diego/Tijuana border, pre-1993; “Floating into the U.S. on the New River”(2002); “No más cruces en la frontera!” (U.S. Border Patrol, 2005)

Guest interviewee: Claudia Smith, Border Project Director, California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.

Take-home mid-term exam to be distributed at end of this class.

Unit 6 (November 2): Controlling Immigration: The European Experience

TEXTBOOK:

Cornelius, et al., Controlling Immigration: chapters 5 (France), 6 (Germany), 8 (Britain), 10 (Spain)

READER:

Jeffrey Fleishman, et al., “Outraged Europeans Take Dimmer View of Diversity,” Los Angeles Times, September 5, 2005.

Ian Fisher, “Flow of Muslim Immigrants Strains the Reputation for Tolerance of a Small Italian Town,” New York Times, August 27, 2005.

Videos: “Exodus: African Migration to Spain” (2003); segments on Jörg Haider, Jean Le Pen in France, and Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands: PBS NewsHour, 2001-02.

Guest interviewees: Maurizio Albahari, anthropologist, UC-Irvine, and Visiting Fellow, CCIS-UCSD;
Eiko Thielemann, Lecturer in European Politics and Policy, London School of Economics, UK, and Guest Scholar, CCIS-UCSD.

Mid-term exam is due at beginning of this class.

Unit 7 (November 9): Controlling Immigration: The Japanese Experience

TEXTBOOK:

Cornelius, et al., Controlling Immigration: Chapter 11 (Japan/Tsuda & Cornelius)

READER:

Nana Oishi, Women in Motion: Globalization, State Policies, and Labor Migration in Asia (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005), pp. 32-43.

Katherine Tegtmeyer Pak, “Foreigners Are Local Citizens, Too: Local Governments Respond to International Migration in Japan,” in Mike Douglass and Glenda Roberts, eds., Japan and Global Migration (New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 244-274.

Video: “Overstay” (1999)

Guest interviewee: Gaku Tsuda, anthropologist; Associate Director, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, UCSD.

Unit 8 (November 16): Migration and Development: What’s the Relationship?

READER:

Ronald Skeldon, “Migration and Poverty: Some Issues in the Context of Asia,” in International Organization of Migration, World Migration 2005 (Geneva, Switzerland: International Organization of Migration, 2005), pp. 253-265.

Dilip Ratha, “Migrant Remittances as a Source of Development Finance,” in International Organization of Migration, World Migration 2005 (Geneva, Switzerland: International Organization of Migration, 2005), pp. 269-274.

Wayne Cornelius, “Labor Migration to the United States: Development Outcomes and Alternatives in Mexican Sending Communities.” Commission for the Study of International Migration and Cooperative Economic Development (Washington, D.C.), Working Paper No. 38, May 1990.

Videos: “The Ties That Bind” (PBS, 1993); “The Sixth Section” (PBS, 2003)

Guest interviewee: David Fitzgerald, sociologist, Postdoctoral Fellow and Field Research Coordinator, CCIS-UCSD.

November 23: NO CLASS – Thanksgiving break

Unit 9 (November 30): General Public Attitudes and the Politics of Immigration

READER:
Thomas J. Espenshade and Maryanne Belanger, “Immigration and Public Opinion,” in Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, ed., Crossings: Mexican Immigration in Interdisciplinary Perspective (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), pp. 361-408.

Wayne A. Cornelius, “Ambivalent Reception,” in Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, ed., Latinos: Remaking America (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002).

Kitty Calavita, Immigrants at the Margins: Law, Race, and Exclusion in Southern Europe (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005), Chapter 6, pp. 125-156.

Anna Gorman, “Day Laborers: Cities Seek a Way That Will Work,” Los Angeles Times, August 29, 2005.

Video: “Farmingville, New York” (2004)

Guest discussants: Michael Wischkaemper, attorney and chair, Carlsbad migrant housing taskforce; Dorothy Johnson, Executive Director, California Rural Legal Assistance, Oceanside; Coleen Lassegard, co-director, Las Casitas migrant housing initiative, Fallbrook.

Take-home final exam to be distributed at end of class.