Limen - Papers

Non-Interlocking Pieces: The Migration Policy Puzzle of the Scholz Government

Migration has been one of the most important political and public issues in Germany since 2015. Olaf Scholz’s administration that came into power in December 2021 assigned top priority to migration policy. However, the parties in the tripartite governing coalition have not managed to synchronize their ideas about the issue, thus, no viable central migration policy has emerged. Meanwhile, as migration pressure increased, the coalition lost many of its supporters, and the anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland gathered momentum to overtake all three governing parties in popularity.

Immigration and Islam in France: how do they interact?

In a few decades, Islam rose to prominence as the second most important religion in France. This dynamic deserves to be analyzed in terms of its essential interactions with another phenomenon: immigration, particularly from outside Europe. The interactions can be understood in terms of three different drivers: the acceleration in current inflows, many of which now come from the Islamic world; the different birth rates of the immigrant populations at stake; and the greater religious transmission within Muslim families. Moreover, through capillary mechanisms inherent in diaspora phenomena, migratory flows import the trends in Islamic observance at work in the countries of origin. They also offer a ground for foreign government interference through religious organizations.

The Biden-Harris Administration’s Makeover of the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program

The Biden-Harris administration has modernized and expanded the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) to admit increasing numbers of refugees faster and extend the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)’s benefits and beneficiaries to include non-refugees on U.S. soil. It changed the essence of resettlement by designing the “Welcome Corps” private sponsorship program and allowing U.S.-based “private sponsors” who can themselves be earlier refugees or other newcomers to choose their own “refugees” and future American Citizens. Sponsored individuals do not need to actually be refugees according to the UNHCR Refugee Status Determination, they can simply be friends and family members of those who made it here before them.

The Emancipation Reclamation: The Forgotten Story of the Immigration Act of 1924 and How It Propelled Black Americans into the Middle Class

The Immigration Act of 1924 ended the so-called Great Wave of immigration that brought over 20 million Europeans to America’s shores. It also spurred the Great Migration, the movement of over six million African Americans from rural southern states to the industrialized north, and into jobs that otherwise would have gone to immigrant workers. Even many critics of the 1924 law recognize that it was instrumental in the formation of the Black middle class. In 1965, Congress began a second great wave of immigration that continues to this day, to the disproportionate disadvantage of Black Americans.

The Gateway or the Bastion? Tunisia’s role in stemming the flow of Europe-bound migration

Based on fieldwork in Tunisia, the article offers an overview of the traditional external markets of Tunisian labour and surveys the development of irregular migration from Tunisia to Europe. It also discusses Tunisia’s migration policies in the wake of the post-2011 democratisation processes, including the cooperation with the European Union on issues of migration. Finally, it covers key data about irregular migration originating from Tunisia.

Immigration, Population Growth, and the “Environment”

Net migration has been the main driver of U.S. population growth for several decades, resulting in direct and lasting ecological effects. Calls for population stabilization were at the forefront of the U.S. environmental movement from the 1970s until the late 1990s. Multiple bipartisan federal commissions recommended that the U.S. government pursue population stabilization as a policy objective and recognized immigration as the main driver of future U.S. population growth. By the year 2000, the Sierra Club and the other major U.S. environmental groups had reversed their position and now lobby against any effective immigration restrictions. While the European Union is facing a much different demographic situation than the United States, both of their futures will be determined in large part by immigration policies.

America’s Enormous Hispanic Population Is Shifting to the Right Politically with Vast Consequences for the United States

In the United States, the political balance has been challenged by the millions of new immigrants from Spanish-speaking nations. Now approaching 20% of the U.S. population, Hispanics, as these persons and their descendants are called, are becoming a larger portion of U.S. voters. Like most immigrant groups, Hispanics began as mostly supporters of the Democratic Party. However, as Hispanics assimilate into the economic, cultural, and political life of the country, more and more are voting Republican. This article explains what is behind this political shift. It also gives a short history of Hispanics in the U.S. and looks at possible futures.

Integration and demographic challenges in France: an overview

The demographics of France are being rapidly transformed by immigration, due to the combined effect of the acceleration in migratory flows, and the different birth rates among immigrants. The paper assesses the impacts of those measurable trends on public finances, housing, wages, crime and delinquency, as well as broader social cohesion.

The End of Asylum

The dramatic political, social, and technological changes since World War II have made the asylum regime established by the 1951 Refugee Convention unsustainable. Because asylum is seen as a “right”, it has become a challenge – arguably an existential challenge – to the sovereignty of developed nations. The measures proposed or taken so far have failed to address the fundamental contradiction between international asylum rules and modern conditions. The beginning of a solution, then, must be to withdraw from multilateral treaties that relate to asylum and for each nation to develop its own asylum policies based on its own interests.