Immigration Policy

Immigration Policy

Immigration policy outlines the states immigration arrangements and patterns, but always have an effect or impact on the politics of a country. Different stakeholders involved in immigration policy are affected either positively or negatively, depending on the concept of consideration. The concerned stakeholders include; labor, property and landowners, the immigrant family or the community, owners of the capital, and the state’s government. Immigration policy provides guidelines to follow at all aspects of immigration. Immigration also has a significant impact on the demography and culture of a country.

Immigration happens every day where immigrants from the world have brought their hopes and dreams to our shores in search of freedom to strive, achieve, and above all, not to judge on their merits, not the color of their skin, religion, or national origin. Most countries have never been free from prejudice; every immigrant group has faced tremendous hurdles to acceptance by the majority. But there’s always an understanding that tolerance would ultimately prevail because the protection of the constitution extends to non-citizens. Immigration restrictions and enforcement have become the government’s primary tools in the war on terrorism. But as the migration policy institute has agreed, their use would not prevent many of the terrorists from being admitted to the united states today. (Hing, 2012).

Immigration policy comprises all issues that influence the condition of immigrants, for example, work and housing conditions, social benefits, educational opportunities, language instruction, cultural amenities, leisure activities, voluntary associations to participate in trade union and political affairs. Immigrants have many special needs because they often speak a foreign language and represent a different culture. They also have special economic interests and ambitions for the future. Like the non-immigrant population, the immigrants are also affected by a country’s general public policy, which involves economic, social, political, and other measures. (Boeri et al., 2002). Indirect immigrants are an equitable or discriminatory when immigrants receive significantly less than others, and when they can not get opportunities to participate in society.

Ethnic groups comprising immigrants are likely to support an open immigration policy, especially one that stresses family reunion. That favors preferential access for individuals of similar ethnic, cultural, religious, or political backgrounds. Especially during times when their countries of origin are experiencing political and economic stress. Following confederation, immigration policy war regarded as one of the cornerstones upon which the new nation would develop. For Canada to survive as an independent, prosperous nation, economic growth was essential and dependent on a larger population and expanding market. Since the immigrants were needed to promote economic expansion both by their labor and by their consumption, there were obstacles following their admission to Canada for the first three decades following confederation. (Reitz, 2005).

The stakeholders affected by immigration included estate owners, who are interested in a steady inflow of immigrants to increase the productivity of their land as well as bidding up its price. Land developers gain from an increase in urban population associated with immigration. Capital also stands to gain because increased labor inflows add to the supply of municipal workers and possibly moderate any increases in nominal wages. Also, secondary manufacturers enjoy substantial import protection. A larger population due to immigration expands the potential market within the country. Migration may lead to the import of skilled laborers, which may lead to the expansion of job opportunities for unskilled native workers and hence their income. The interests and role of government in setting policy depend entirely on the political economy model one adopts. They are responding to the pressure from various interest groups such as farmers, manufacturers, or immigrant groups. The government’s desire to get re-elected acts as a filter for the more basic interests of the stakeholders. Bureaucrats and politicians sometimes have interests in pursuing goals that expand their power and prestige even if no other stakeholders view those goals as particularly important. The government may then seek a broader economy both as a means of preserving independence and create a more complex society to manage. The bureaucracy might promote an aggressive immigration policy since it would gain from having to cope with more substantial inflows. The first element of immigration policy is the flexibility built into the immigration act, which accomplishes by defining the law in a general term and in the process of assigning extensive powers to control over admissions to the cabinet to be implemented through specific orders in council. The second is using that flexibility; the government has often said one thing and done another when it comes to immigration policy. The third is an ongoing conflict between short- and long-term goals focus on the demographic impacts of immigration and, in particular, using immigration to generate population growth and accompanying economies of scale.

The short-term goals involve micromanaging the inflow to use it as an element of current labor making policy. The tradeoff between the quantity and the quality of the immigration flow termed as a conflict. The history of the immigration policy in Canada started in 1870, where there was a settlement at the west, high levels of investment, rapid economic growth, and the establishment of a national economy. Immigration policy was of a comprehensive set of domestic policies that included the completion of three transcontinental railways, the imposition of high levels of protection from the import of secondary manufactured goods, and adoption of the land policy aimed at inducing immigrants to settle in the west. These policies were set to ties Canada together into an integrated whole with a strong eastern manufacturing sector selling its wares to an expanding western resource center. The stated goal of immigration up to world war one was to secure farmers, farmworkers, and female domestics. The policy had three objectives; it was consistent with the aims of the national system, active recruitment accelerate the population growth rate, and it appeased the nativist constituency in Canada. The first period of large-scale immigration introduced several themes into immigration regulation that throughout the decade was.

The policy of the government is to foster the growth of Canada’s population by the encouragement of immigration. The government will seek legislation, regulation and vigorous administration, to ensure the careful selection and permanent settlement of such numbers of the immigrants as can advantageously be absorbed in the national economy. Current immigration policy breaks from earlier policy trends in several ways; it makes better use of powers granted under the act and so allows the department to control the composition of the inflow more accurately. The new policy also differs from any earlier system in that it appears to have no specific rationale apart from a belief in the comprehensive long-term benefits of immigration. Domestic politics is a widely employed approach to the study of immigration policy. Empirically, it seems evident that economic and social factors have a more significant impact on immigration policies than do security and strategic considerations, which are highlighted by the realist approach. Changes in the state of the economy and the volume of immigration are also easier to identify than debates over national identity. Domestic politics models avoid many of the difficulties of the Marxist approach, by offering, for instance, an explanation for policy on immigration of different ethnic origin.

Studies of immigration policy, which focus on the state, vary along the same lines. Whitaker, who analyzes Canadian immigration policy during the Cold War era, views the state as (nearly) autonomous. Canadian immigration policy, argues that the country has a significantly independent plan, which includes the pursuit of economic security, a rational bureaucratic plan, and continued legitimacy. But at the same time, they also find that various societal elements -labor, capital, ethnic groups, humanitarian organizations, and the provinces – influence immigration policy. Immigration has both positive and negative impacts on a state; either way, all people should be treated equally with respect and understanding, and all the immigrants to always observe policies to the latter.