SOCI 433 - Age of Migration Reflections

Week 1: Categories of migration

• Categories help us see patterns and make policy, but real people cross categories (move internally, then abroad).

• Climate migration: climate is often just the first step. Weak government and few resources decide who suffers most (Haiti vs. US). Quote (p. 39): simple views "distract the attention away from the political causes of much forced migration."

• Smuggling vs. trafficking: smuggling is more common. It is often mislabelled as trafficking (p. 35). The line blurs because smuggled people can later be abused.

Week 2: Border enforcement backfired (Massey)

• Cause: the "Latino threat narrative" (p. 1560) ignored that Mexican migration was circular (work, then go home).

• Effect: crossing got harder, costlier, and more dangerous, so migrants stayed. Return migration fell. Flows moved to Arizona and new US states.

• Result: the undocumented population grew from 3 million (1986) to 12 million (2008).

• 2025 drop in crossings: likely caused by interior arrests and deportations and the end of asylum options, not just walls. The "trapped" effect likely continues.

• Locked Away: Geraldo's repeated requests for medication were ignored, and he died.

Week 3: Theories

• Push-pull: a list of factors, not a theory. It does not say how they combine ("platitude at best," p. 45). It treats the Global South as only poverty and misery. It misses that the poorest are often "involuntarily immobile."

• Neoclassical: wage gaps drive migration, and wages should converge over time. Weakness: it assumes people are rational calculators and ignores family, culture, and risk. Example: Harris-Todaro (rural-to-city migration despite urban unemployment).

• Globalization: ties migration to trade and outsourcing. Restrictions push migration underground (p. 51). Weakness: vague and hard to test.

• Dual labour market: rich countries need workers for jobs natives avoid. It explains migration despite unemployment. Weakness: too focused on work.

Week 4: Social forces (pre-1945 and the Americas)

• Labour demand: jobs that cannot move or be automated (farm work, caregiving, construction).

• Family: chain migration. Primary vs. secondary family reunion. People use the family route when work visas are scarce.

• Forced migration: refugees still need some resources and choices to escape.

• Americas: stricter borders after 2016 cut circular migration. Families were split or stuck.

Week 5: Betts

• Survival migration: people outside their country because of an existential threat with no domestic remedy. Three parts: outside the country, existential threat (Shue's liberty, security, subsistence), no domestic remedy. "Refugees are survival migrants, but not all survival migrants are refugees" (p. 365).

• Regime stretching: the refugee system bends to cover people it was not built for.

• Four conditions for stretching: (1) flexible domestic law, (2) a political reason to stretch, (3) a link to UNHCR's core work, (4) a willing UNHCR office.

• Cases: Kenya and Tanzania stretched. Botswana and Angola did not ("protection vacuum"). Stretching is not good protection: Kenya's standards were "extremely minimal."

• Limit: the cases are mostly African.

Week 6: Politics and governance

• Ch. 10 trends:

  • Fear moved from rural-to-city migrants to foreign migrants.

  • States once blocked emigration; the "exit revolution" ended that.

  • States now court emigrants (Morocco after 1989).

  • After the Cold War, migration was securitized ("fortress Europe," safe third countries).

  • The same pattern repeats: a new outsider gets blamed.

• Liberal paradox (Hollifield): open economies need openness, but states want control. Courts limit governments (1977 French ruling on family reunification). More rights for those who arrive give states more reason to stop arrivals.

• Substitution effects (de Haas):

  • Spatial: Moroccans went to Spain and Italy.

  • Categorical: visa rules led to boat crossings.

  • Inter-temporal: Suriname, about 40% moved before 1980 visas.

  • Reverse flow: fewer leave, so totals may not fall.

• Big point: policies work as filters (who comes), not as on/off switches (how many).

Week 7: Labour demand (Ch. 12)

• Jobs that cannot move: construction, hotels, hospitals, elder care. US farm subsidies keep farm work in the North and pull in Mexican and Central American workers (p. 276).

• Temporary and informal work: NYC cab drivers. Migrants are more likely to hold temporary jobs (p. 287). Employers want cheap, flexible workers.

• Social change: more native women work, people are more educated, the population is aging. Employers call it "need," but it serves their interest (p. 277).

• Key facts: demand is "an inherent and therefore unavoidable feature of industrialized economies" (p. 279). Foreign-born workers were about 18% of the US labour force in 2017 (p. 281).