Twenty-First-Century Globalization and Illegal Migration

Abstract

Also labeled undocumented, irregular, and unauthorized migration, illegal migration places immigrants in tenuous legal circumstances with limited rights and protections. We argue that illegal migration emerged as a structural feature of the second era of capitalist globalization, which emerged in the late twentieth century and was characterized by international market integration. Unlike the first era of capitalist globalization (1800 to 1929), the second era sees countries limiting and controlling international migration and creating a global economy in which all markets are globalized except for labor and human capital, giving rise to the relatively new phenomenon of illegal migration. Yet despite rampant inequalities in wealth and income between nations, only 3.1 percent of all people lived outside their country of birth in 2010. We expect this to change: threat evasion is replacing opportunity seeking as a motivation for international migration because of climate change and rising levels of civil violence in the world’s poorer nations. The potential for illegal migration is thus greater now than in the past, and more nations will be forced to grapple with growing populations in liminal legal statuses.

After the exodus: Exploring migrant attitudes to documentation, brokerage and employment following the 2014 mass withdrawal of Cambodian workers from Thailand

“…Aiming, in this way, to supersede the ‘formidable challenges’ of researching irregular migration (Donato & Massey, : 18), interviews lasting between 10 and 60 minutes were conducted with 97 informants across the three sites, 81 of whom were household heads. Interview length depended on individual and household experience of migration to Thailand.…”

“…There, various authors (Torres & Wicks‐Asburn, ; Menjívar, ; De Genova, ) have emphasized the ‘liminal’ nature of legal status and how it shapes the lifeworlds even of those legally entitled to work and remain. More broadly, these nuanced perspectives on the internalization of legality have been turned towards the analysis of the global political economy, where broadly framed critical studies have argued that irregular migration is ‘a structural feature of the second era of capitalist globalization’ (Donato & Massey, : 7) and a key means by which to ‘recapitulate the reification of the state's authority and power’ by restating and entrenching national boundaries (De Genova, : 425).…”

The Asymmetric Border: The United States’ Place in the World and the Refugee Panic of 2018

“…Many Americans think that most immigrants are undocumented, for example (Bump ). Of course, the very concept of “illegal immigrant” is a recent one dating back only to the late twentieth century (Donato and Massey ). It reflects the breakdown of older temporary/permanent immigration schemes and the insistence that all immigrants are potential citizens.…”

Transformation Of Research Programmes On Migrants' Communication Strategies

“…However, the twentieth century turned out to be the age of migration. (Donato & Massey, 2016). International migration flows, forming now a sort of the "nation of migrants", which turns out to be among ten world's most populated ones, have essentially embraced all the countries of the world.…”