Immigration

Immigration is the arrival of citizens from one nation-state who plan on taking or do take up long-term or permanent residence in another country. Thus it is secondary to the preceding migration. Subsequent generations of these immigrants either assimilate and become invisible or maintain features distinguishing them from other members of society as identifiable ethnic, racial, cultural, or religious (minority) groups. Given the historical continuum of global migration, immigration too has a historical continuum, probably observable at any point in history. The concept of immigration, however, is relatively new and corresponds to the emergence of modern nation-states. Nations are founded on various principles, such as blood, culture, fate and destiny, history, or other characteristics supposedly shared by members of a nation. Belonging has either a political or a natural definition, thus making it a matter of choice or of birthright. Therefore, the arrivals of other social or political groups not perceived as holding these commonly shared characteristics make them, in the minds of the natives, either aliens, foreigners, immigrants, or simply “the others.”

Immigration, first studied by the Chicago School during the 1920s, raises various issues. These are usually identified with or related to reception, insertion, incorporation (or at times non-incorporation), integration, adaptation, assimilation, and related processes of belonging and identity. Each concept couples with specific beliefs, theories, or policies. While conventional and assimilationist research only examines how immigrants adapt or fail to do so, progressive research also studies the adaptation of host societies. The sociological questions arising are what happens to newcomers and what happens to receiving societies; what is the relationship between indigenous populations, previous immigrants, and newcomers; and what are the social, economic, political, and cultural consequences to all? And the political questions are what is the legal status of new arrivals; which political, civil, and social rights do they have; and how can these rights be acquired?

Integration is an interactive process involving individuals and collectives from both mobile and sedentary populations. The character of the relations, their power relations, their structural positions in society, and their communication processes are crucial. The integration of immigrants into the host society is either a one-way process (the immigrants adapt to the host society) or a two-way process (both parties change). In civic and liberal nations, belonging is a matter of choice: Integration can be negotiated and subsequent belonging acquired, as in the United States or the United Kingdom. In ethnic nations where belonging is related to descent—as, for instance, in Germany, Turkey, Greece, and Japan—this is hardly possible.

Migration and immigration are major forces of global human transformation, alongside globalization and aging. Global migration, defined as the increasing global mobility of people and immigration, significantly increases heterogeneity of ethnic composition and of cultural values and practices. The consequences are manifold: (a) It might or might not increase the size of the population of a host society, depending on net migration, that balance between emigration and immigration; (b) it changes the composition of a host society's population in terms of culture, language, religion, or ethnicity and potentially changes the fabric of a host society; and (c) immigrants increase the labor force, contribute to the economy and tax and social funds, and are consumers and service users. Issues of concern are labor market competition, overcrowding (e.g., in the housing market), drain on public services, and conflicts between indigenous and immigrant cultures. Observers pay specific attention to immigrants who simultaneously hold loyalty to their country of origin and their host country and who are engaged economically, politically, and culturally in both. These are transnational migrants and represent an increasingly relevant group. Another specific challenge relates to those who only temporarily integrate because they intend to return or move on to other destinations, which affects efforts made by both parties.

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