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The immigration policies in settler colonial countries rarely consider Indigenous perspectives or solicit their input—a reality that is particularly problematic given the key role that immigration policies have played and continue to play in the colonialization process. In this paper, we use Canada as a case study to examine the intersection of Indigenous experiences and the country’s immigration policy, and why and how Indigenous voices have been excluded from decision-making about immigrant selection. In addition, we review the academic and grey literature to investigate what the Indigenous perspectives that have been shared surrounding immigration policy currently are. Some perspectives affirm the need and desire for new immigrants while simultaneously engaging with the Canadian state’s problematic treatment of temporary migrants. Other perspectives fundamentally challenge the Westphalian state and its claim to regulate human mobility in the name of sovereignty. We connect these perspectives with academic open borders and no border debates.

[Para. 1 of Introduction]: Migration is shaping societies around the world. It has long defined settler countries, such as Canada; it is affecting communities of departure and return, ranging from the Azores to Zimbabwe; and it is increasingly impacting countries that have traditionally not considered themselves as major immigrant destinations, like many European countries. Meanwhile, individual migrants and their families experience departure, migration, and arrival differently than the communities shaped by them. From both societal and individual perspectives, we can ask whether migration accomplishes what it promises to achieve. Does migration contribute to the economic, social, and cultural well-being of societies? Do migrants and their families find a pathway to security, achieve social and economic upward mobility, and gain opportunities to participate in the political and cultural life of their arrival communities? The Promise of Migration addresses these questions through a critical lens.

The sanctuary city movement is aimed at limiting the local enforcement of federal immigration law. Canadian cities have joined this movement by pledging a) to provide access to municipal services without regard to immigration status, and b) to not share information identifying non-status migrants with federal immigration authorities. Despite these promises, local police continue to cooperate with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). Continued cooperation raises questions about the capacity of cities to honour these promises. This paper shares the results of a preliminary study of the policing of non-status migrants in the Canadian province of Ontario. Relying on interviews with high-ranking police officers in eight local jurisdictions, the authors analyze police perceptions regarding their role in the enforcement of federal immigration law as well as their obligations to honour the spirit and the substance of sanctuary city policies. The study reveals that many police officers believe they possess legal authority to report non-status migrants to federal authorities where, in fact, this authority does not exist. The authors argue that this belief rests on a host of misconceptions about the relationship between criminal law and immigration law, claims of jurisdictional immunity from municipal government, and distortions of the historic, foundational principles of policing in Canada. The authors argue that greater protection of the rights and privacy of non-non-status migrants requires at a minimum a rescaling of sanctuary policies to the provincial level, where policing may be subject to more stringent laws and regulations. Keywords: Sanctuary City; securitization of migration; crimmigration; non-status migrants; policing; scale; jurisdiction

Despite the increase in efforts to attract and retain international students in Canada, including the introduction of the Canadian Experience Class in 2008, there has been little investigation into what supports will assist international students as they transition from students to workers to migrants. This research paper is a Toronto-based investigation of the service needs and gaps that exist for international students aiming to transition to permanent residency in Canada. Data gathered from interviews with front-line workers assisting international students, an immigrant-serving organization, and government suggests that immigration policy reforms aiming to attract and retain international students have not been accompanied by the necessary changes to traditional settlement and international student services resulting in service gaps for this segment of Canada's international student population. The present study also connects these findings to neoliberal immigration policies and practices in place in Canada since the 1990s.

Ethnic economies are an important part of the today’s global city. We examine Toronto’s Little India and map the corresponding ethnic and Visible Minority population and their residential locations across the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA). Although past research suggests that ethnic economies are typically accompanied by a local co-ethnic residential population, our study shows that this is not the case for Little India. While the South Asian population around Little India is increasing, it is growing at a slower pace than in some other parts of the Toronto CMA. We identify and examine four major South Asian residential clusters across the Toronto CMA that represent a potential customer base for the businesses of Little India.

Cities known around the world as sanctuary, solidarity or refuge cities are resisting restrictive national migration and refugee policies and are seeking ways to accommodate migrants and refugees who lack support from the nation state. In this paper I examine urban solidarity approaches in Berlin and Freiburg in Germany, and Zurich in Switzerland. Interviews with key informants reveal that urban solidarity in these cities is not limited to including migrants and refugees living within the city’s boundaries. Rather, urban solidarity reaches beyond municipal boundaries to connect different places and scales in the form of inter-urban solidarity networks and initiatives that aim to enable migrants and refugees who are still abroad to arrive in the city. The complex geographies of urban migrant and refugee solidarity reach far beyond city limits.

Introducción La Associated Press (AP) anunció recientemente un cambio importante en su Manual de Estilo: no aprueba ya el término ‘inmigrante ilegal’ (Colford, 2013; Morison, 2013). La AP sugirió expresiones alternativas tales como “persona que entra ilegalmente en un país” o “sin autorización legal” (Morison, 2013). Aunque estas expresiones podrían ser exactas, son verbosas, dando lugar a que la vice presidenta primera y jefa de redacción, Kathleen Carroll de la AP considerara que una terminología conveniente vendría a desarrollarse “un poco más tarde” (Colford, 2013). En esta Reseña de Investigación, yo sostengo la adopción de inmigrante ilegalizado para compensar por esta falta en la terminología.

Migration is a policy area through which current nationalist governments enact territorial state sovereignty. This paper builds on Giorgio Agamben’s work to suggest that the liberal territorial sta...

The relationship between the international mobility of academic researchers and social capital is complex. On the one hand, the literature suggests that social capital facilitates the international mobility of academics which, in turn, promotes the accumulation of international social capital, enhances research productivity, and advances careers. On the other hand, international mobility can isolate researchers from the national social capital in their origin countries. In this paper, I present the results of 42 interviews in Canada and Germany to examine how academics in both countries have experienced the connection between international mobility and social capital. In addition to revealing the complexity of this connection, the results show that social capital facilitates international mobility and that mobility sometimes creates social capital. However, mobility can also lead to the loss of national social capital that negatively affects early-career researchers in particular.

An educational fieldtrip to Toronto's Little India

International migration and refugee scholars have made extensive use of the concept of solidarity in light of the recent arrival of migrants and refugees in Europe and elsewhere. They observe multi-dimensional solidarity practices and interpret solidarity from a variety of disciplinary and conceptual angles with different philosophical underpinnings. In this review article, I assume a geographical perspective to argue for a Marxian-Hegelian understanding of solidarity as a process of subject formation. I illustrate how solidarity relates to a politics of place that shapes migrant struggles in urban contexts and that promise to facilitate Indigenous reconciliation and decolonization in settler societies.

The concept of solidarity has a long history in the social sciences and humanities, and has received considerable attention in recent migration and refugee scholarship. However, there is no consist...