Immigration and Citizenship

Immigration concerns the movement of people across national borders; citizenship concerns who legally belongs to a state. People legally assimilate through citizenship, which excludes and includes. Citizenship is distinct from being a subject of a monarchy in that it implies participating in government. The ideal type of citizenship has been that it is “egalitarian, sacred, national, democratic, unique and socially consequential” (Brubaker 1997: 132). States typically receive people who settle as asylum seekers or refugees, family members of those already settled, labor migrants, or retirees with sufficient resources.

The legal regulation of people movement and national membership leads to disputes, and courts, administrative tribunals, and case level officials work out much of the politics of inclusion and exclusion. The places those disputes are addressed include both local and transnational arenas. The number of officials in charge of enforcing borders has expanded as state officials enlist nonstate actors to exclude or enforce. Enforcement officials include reluctant or uninterested employers, airlines, and vindictive neighbors as well as police, immigration officers, and schools. Transnational agreements provide guidance and establish structures but do not articulate clearly enforceable rules. In the twenty-first century, these issues are at the top of political agendas in many Western countries. While the focus of discussion in recent years has been on control and exclusion in Western postindustrial states, in earlier decades this was not the case, or at least not for all potential immigrants.