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Immigration Politics in the UK and the USA

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Immigration and the State

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Abstract

This chapter begins the analysis of the immigration politics in the UK and the USA: two states that appear to have put in place similar policies despite having very different migratory experiences, political structures, and traditions when it comes to immigration. It includes discussion of definitions and categories and considers the significance of the key features of the two political systems.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Hein de Haas led a research programme between 2010 and 2014, based at the University of Oxford, which examined the impacts of policy: DEMIG (Determinants of International Migration) http://www.imi.ox.ac.uk/projects/demig.

  2. 2.

    The UN defines a long-term immigrant as ‘a person who moves to a country other than that of his or her usual residence for a period of at least a year (12 months), so that the country of destination effectively becomes his or her new country of usual residence. From the perspective of the country of departure, the person will be a long-term emigrant, and, from that of the country of arrival, the person will be a long-term immigrant’. A short-term immigrant is defined in a similar way but where the time period is at least three months UN (1998). Recommendations on Statistics of International Migration, Revision 1, United Nations Statistical Office.

    .

  3. 3.

    The quote is from Senator Marco Rubio (Republican, Florida) in an interview he gave for Fox News, 3 June 2014.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Politics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

    Alex Balch

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Balch, A. (2016). Immigration Politics in the UK and the USA. In: Immigration and the State. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-38589-5_5

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