Migration Policies, Types of

Policy Convergences

Following the UN definition of an international migrant as a person who has lived outside of his or her country of origin for more than 12 months, international migration has tripled over the past 40 years. It amounts today to approximately 200 [Page 1167]million people. In 2005, 60% of international migrants were located in more developed regions and 40% in lesser developed regions of the world.

The diffusion of the nation-state and the increasing significance of international borders since the 19th century have fostered the bureaucratic registration of departures, arrivals, and settlement of migrants. The end of the colonial era and the two World Wars contributed to these developments. Even if policy convergence was noticeable early on, immigration and emigration policies remained uncoordinated until the mid-1980s, with the exception of forced migration policies. After World War I, the League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was mandated to provide assistance in Europe to people displaced during the war. Intergovernmental institutional developments expanded after World War II. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established in 1950. The convention relating to the status of refugees and its protocol removing the geographical and temporal restrictions of the convention were respectively adopted by the United Nations in 1951 and 1967 and progressively ratified by most states.

Since the early 20th century, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and, after World War II, western European countries, developed immigration policies to attract immigrant labor that could compensate for labor scarcities in periods of sustained economic growth. Economic crises in the 1970s led western European countries to interrupt the recruitment of immigrant labor. Restrictive immigration policies were developed simultaneously. The Schengen agreement in 1985, which created an area of free movement between member-states of the European Economic Community, the future European Union, fostered some policy coordination in Europe. If the free movement of citizens of EU member-states was encouraged, restrictions dominated policy initiatives toward the population of non-member-states, especially toward undocumented and asylum migration. The latter dramatically increased after immigrant labor recruitment was severely reduced. Restrictive immigration policies toward undocumented immigrants also expanded in other industrialized countries. Deterrent policies have been fueled by hostilities toward the cultural specificities of migrants and, more recently, by fears of immigrant-induced terrorism, especially since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

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