Can you become one of us? A historical comparison of legal selection of ‘assimilable’ immigrants in Europe and the Americas

Abstract

Pre-arrival integration tests used by European countries suggest discriminatory measures subtly persist in immigration laws. This paper draws on a comparison across the Americas and Europe to identify and explain historical continuities and discontinuities in 'assimilability' admissions requirements. We attribute legal shifts at the turn of the twenty-first century to the institutionalised delegitimisation of biological racism and the rise of permanent settlement immigration to Europe. Efforts to reduce Muslim immigration largely motivate contemporary European policies, but these policies test putative individual capacity to integrate rather than inferring it from a racial group categorisation, as did historical precedents in the Americas.

Suspect Outsiders or Prospective Citizens? Constructing the Immigrant/German Boundary in Germany’s Integration Courses

“…On the one hand, this could signal a potential re-defining of belonging and even Germanness-against the historical basis of descent or 'ethnicity' (Williams 2013;Howard 2012;Miller-Idriss 2006). On the other hand, 'values' can become a proxy for group membership, particularly in a global context in which ascribed statuses such as race, religion and others are illegitimate criteria for exclusion (Fitzgerald et al 2017). Because values may in fact do the work that categories once did, and many of these categories in fact overlap, I have used the terms suspect outsiders and prospective citizens in place of specific categories of difference.…”

“…Some of this work has also taken a critical approach, questioning whether integration policies and programs in fact lead to the desired outcome of integrating immigrants (Goodman 2010;Goodman and Wright 2015). Other critical work has examined the use of integration programs as a tool of racial and ethnic projects (Fitzgerald et al 2017) or as a tool of immigration control (Goodman 2011). These various approaches to studying integration have been illuminating in bringing a comparative perspective on policies as well as outcomes across groups, but in general have remained focused on integration policy, and/or quantitative measures of integration.…”

“…The scholarship on nations, nationhood and national identity is, therefore, important to understanding the immigrant/German boundary. As this literature shows, nations have historically used various criteria and categories as a basis for their self-definition, from civic principles to group memberships based on ethnicity, language, religion, race and others (Brubaker 1992;Hobsbawm 1990;Anderson 1991;Joppke 1998;Beaman 2015;Simonsen 2016;Fitzgerald et al 2017). Such constructions shape self-understandings and senses of belonging for both citizens and non-citizens, and inform policies and practices of membership and inclusion (Brubaker 1992(Brubaker , 2013Bail 2008;Triandafyllidou 1998;Chávez et al 2012;Onasch 2017).…”

“…Howard 2009;Goodman 2010;Fitzgerald et al 2017). Yet, a key aspect of belonging and becoming a member of a society is based on the permeability of the boundary, which in turn depends on constructed understandings of immigrants, host societies and the meaning of membership.…”

Indexing Immigration and Integration Policy: Lessons from Europe

“…In practice, however, these policy areas are oftentimes interrelated and overlapping. For example, in Europe, entry often requires meeting certain expectations of integration, like language proficiency or cultural familiarity (FitzGerald, Cook‐Martín, García, & Arar, ; Goodman, ). Moreover, as we will see in the review of existing studies, integration policy is typically treated as a subtype of a larger category that is “immigration policy” in both U.S. and European policy studies.…”