Regulating Immigration in a Global Age: A New Policy Landscape

Abstract

This article argues that transformations in the state and the interstate system, particularly those brought on by globalization, have produced new constraints and opportunities in the handling of immigration. This becomes evident through a critical examination of three key features of current immigration policy in the United States and, to variable degrees, also in other highly developed countries. These three features are the handling of immigration as (1) a process autonomous from other processes and policy domains; (2) a unilateral, sovereign matter; and (3) operating in a context where the state is a given, untouched by the massive domestic and international transformations that are increasingly reconfiguring states and the interstate system. The author argues that immigration policymaking needs to recognize interaction effects, develop multilateral approaches, and factor in the changed character of unilateral sovereign authority.