Immigration and the Czech Republic (with a Special Focus on the Foreign Labor Force)1

This article presents an overview of international migration in the Czech Republic, with a special focus on labor immigration. Currently, the Czech Republic is an immigration and transit country. The most important immigratory segment — economic immigrants — create a colorfulmosaic of various ethnicities (80% of them from Europe), each group with their own different economic strategy and niche. After sketching historical patterns and data problems, the focus is on the current situation of labor migrants in the country. A number of issues are addressed: e.g., the relationship between immigrant inflows and the economic situation of the country; immigrants' regional concentration/deconcentration processes; the popularity of the capital city of Prague and western regions vis‐á‐vis eastern ones; and the different structural backgrounds of immigrants coming from the East versus the West. Special attention is placed on undocumentedlillegal immigration, mainly in relation to the misuse and evasion of immigration legislation. Finally, the immature Czech migration policies and practices are discussed, as are needed policy improvements and the need for new immigration legislation. It is clear that the major trend over time leads to more restrictive migratory policies, in line with efforts to harmonize Czech migratory policies and practices with those of the European Union (EU).     

Immigration to Spain: implications for a unified European Union immigration policy

A unified immigration policy is one of the prerequisites for establishing the free movement of people within the European Union (EU). This paper considers the difficulties in establishing a joint policy on the free movement of people within the EU by focusing upon changing immigration policies in Spain. By comparing Spain, a country of only recent, small-scale immigration, to Germany, a country with a longer history of non-European immigration, obstacles to developing and effectively implementing coordinated immigration policies among EU members can be elucidated. The administrative control of entry, estimates of legal and illegal immigrants in the country, and the status of bilateral relations with Morocco are examined in order to highlight the political difficulties encountered in a unified immigration policy both within Spanish society and for the EU. Spain is both a threshold to the EU and a destination. Border control may be the easiest part of implementing a joint immigration policy in the EU. It is more difficult to control settlement. In addition, high rates of unemployment may result among the native host country populations as immigrants more readily accept low-skilled, low-paying jobs.     

Migration Trends and Migration Policy in Europe

This paper summarizes the latest information on both stocks and flows of migrants in Europe, focusing specifically on arrivals from developing countries. It starts out by setting this into its historical context by showing how flows of labour migrants were followed by flows of family members, and later by asylum seekers and refugees. Then it looks more closely at recent migration data, though it finds these to be frequently incomplete and inconsistent. The most comparable cross–national data come from the OECD and Eurostat, which indicate that Germany had the largest flows of migrants in the 1990s followed by the United Kingdom. In addition to these arrivals there are probably between 2 and 3 million undocumented immigrants in Europe – accounting for 10 to 15 per cent of the total population of foreigners. The paper also traces the countries from where immigrants are leaving. Sources vary considerably from one immigration country to another, reflecting a number of factors, of which the most important are former colonial links, previous areas of labour recruitment, and ease of entry from neighbouring countries. In recent years, however, immigrants have been coming from a wider range of countries and particularly from lower–income countries. The paper also examines changes in immigration policy. National policies were fairly liberal during the 1950s and 1960s, before becoming restrictive from the 1970s on. Recently, however, a number of governments have been revising their policies to take better account of employment and demographic needs. The paper also traces the emergence of a cross–national European response to immigration, as European Union (EU) countries have become more concerned about their common external frontier. Thus far European countries have done little to try to control migration through cooperation with sending countries. They could, for example, direct Official Development Assistance to those countries most likely to send immigrants, though few appear to have done so in a deliberate fashion. The paper concludes that in the future immigration to the EU is likely to increase, both as a result of the demand for labour and because of low birth rates in the EU. In the short and medium term many of these requirements are likely to be met by flows from Eastern Europe, particularly following the eastward expansion of the EU. But, the longer–term picture will probably involve greater immigration from developing countries.     

Labor Force Trends and Immigration in Europe1

Labor force trends up to 2025 for the fifteen countries (before May 1, 2004) of the European Community are examined. Will demographic decline have an early effect on manpower volume? An estimation is made to determine whether present migratory flow levels in these countries will be sufficient to counter labor force stagnation. Manpower trend scenarios are proposed for each country. They show highly contrasting situations. These countries favor different policies for mobilizing and increasing their manpower volume. There is wide divergence between the various EU countries as concerns their demogra hic situation and labor force partici ation rate as well as their social security systems. labor force partici ation rate as well as their social security systems. Considering these highly diverse national characteristics, the difficulty in arrivin at a consensus on EU migratory policy harmonization is stressed     

Turning the Immigration Policy Paradox Upside Down? Populist Liberalism and Discursive Gaps in South America

A paradox of officially rejecting but covertly accepting irregular migrants has long been identified in the immigration policies of Western immigrant receiving states. In South America, on the other hand, a liberal discourse of universally welcoming all immigrants, irrespective of their origin and migratory status, has replaced the formally restrictive, securitized and not seldomly ethnically selective immigration rhetoric. This discursive liberalization has found partial translation into immigration laws and policies, but contrary to the universality of rights claimed in their discourses, governments reject recently increasing irregular south–south migration from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean to varying degrees. This paper applies a mixed methodological approach of discourse and legal analysis and process tracing to explore in how far recent immigration policies in South America constitute a liberal turn, or rather a reverse immigration policy paradox of officially welcoming but covertly rejecting irregular migrants. Based on the comparative analysis of Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador, the study identifies and explains South American “populist liberalism” in the sphere of migration. We highlight important implications for migration theory, thereby opening up new avenues of research on immigration policy making outside Western liberal democracies, and particularly in predominantly migrant sending countries.     

Navigating Globalization: Immigration Policy in Canada and Australia, 1945–20071

Scholarship on immigration and globalization has failed to adequately analyze the nation‐state’s regulatory capacities, insisting instead that contemporary patterns of migration jeopardize national sovereignty and territoriality. While recognized that states possess the legitimate authority to control their territorial and membership boundaries, recent transformations of these capacities remain largely unanalyzed. This article’s historical analysis of Australia and Canada’s postwar immigration policies demonstrates that the contours of state regulation are intimately connected to the exigencies of state administration and nation building and—in contrast to the expectations of dominant theories—have intensified and expanded within the globalization context. The literature’s inattention to the fundamentally political nature of immigration has obscured the critical effects of national policies within both the migratory and globalization process. Australia’s and Canada’s contemporary policies constitute a unique model of migration control and reflect attempts by both countries to strategically position their societies within the global system and resolve a number of economic, political, cultural, and demographic transitions associated with globalization.     

The Europeanisation of Integration Policies

This article analyses the development of integration policies concerning third country nationals at the level of the European Union (EU). Starting with the discovery of recent policy developments at the European level, including new European directives mainly granting social rights to non‐EU citizens, the paper proceeds to examine the reasons that enabled this shift from the national to the European level of decision making. It concludes that integration policies have been created as a new EU policy field amidst the also fairly new policy field of immigration policies. In light of the theoretical concept of “organisational fields,” the interests and motives of the main actors involved in the emergence of this policy field are analysed. The research combines neo‐functionalist and intergovernmentalist assumptions, and it results in the following conclusions: First, a European integration policy could only be established within the emerging field of immigration policies, which laid the groundwork for member state collaborations in this highly sensitive policy area. Secondly, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, several non‐governmental organisations and most notably the European Commission played an important role in promoting integration policies at the European level. Their engagement is interpreted as a necessary but not as a sufficient condition for the establishment of this policy field. Thirdly, these actors tried to strengthen the status of integration policies by emphasising the linkage between successful integration policies and economic and social cohesion. This semantic strategy, among other discussed reasons, facilitated the member states’ decision at the European summit in Tampere 1999 that all third country nationals shall be granted comparable rights to EU citizens.     

Mobile pensioners: retirement migrants’ perspectives of EU citizenship and free movement

The European institutions picture EU citizens as important actors in the process of transforming EU citizenship into a “tangible reality”. By knowing and practising EU citizenship rights, EU citizens are supposed to give meaning and depth to the otherwise hollow concept of EU citizenship. What EU citizenship means for mobile citizens themselves and how EU citizens practice and evaluate their rights (“lived citizenship”) is generally not a central theme in reports and studies on EU citizenship. In this article the value of EU citizenship will be discussed by applying a qualitative research approach and by focusing on retired EU citizens’ perspectives and practice of, in particular, free movement. This article applies a comparative approach and includes EU citizens who move or return from the Netherlands to Spain or Turkey after retirement. Four groups of EU citizens move between these countries: Dutch nationals who move to Spain, Spanish nationals who return to Spain, Dutch nationals who move to Turkey and Turkish dual-nationals who return to Turkey after retirement. This article shows that migratory background, country of origin, country of retirement and the way in which EU citizenship is acquired determine retirement migrants’ perspectives and practice of EU citizenship.     

Migration and Community Formation under Conditions of Globalization

This article sets out to rethink the dynamics of the migratory process under conditions of globalization. Two main models of migration and incorporation dominated academic and policy approaches in the late twentieth century: first, the settler model, according to which immigrants gradually integrated into economic and social relations, re‐united or formed families and eventually became assimilated into the host society (sometimes over two or three generations); second, the temporary migration model, according to which migrant workers stayed in the host country for a limited period, and maintained their affiliation with their country of origin. Globalization, defined as a proliferation of cross‐border flows and transnational networks, has changed the context for migration. New technologies of communication and transport allow frequent and multi‐directional flows of people, ideas and cultural symbols. The erosion of nation‐state sovereignty and autonomy weakens systems of border‐control and migrant assimilation. The result is the transformation of the material and cultural practices associated with migration and community formation, and the blurring of boundaries between different categories of migrants. These trends will be illustrated through case‐studies of a number of Asian and European immigration countries. It is important to re‐think our understanding of the migratory process, to understand new forms of mobility and incorporation, particularly the emergence of transnational communities, multiple identities and multi‐layered citizenship.     

Comparing the Incomparable? Migrant Integration Policies and Perplexities of Comparison

This article examines the level of development of integration policies in the European Economic Area and the attempts to compare and standardize them. We discuss national integration models and policies based on the results of the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) and OECD/EU indicators of integration. Indicating the possible pitfalls of measuring and comparing integration policies, the results of researches into labour mobility and access to citizenship are examined. This comparative study shows that the indicators of immigrant integration are often at odds with the development level of integration policies, which results in their inadequate implementation in practice. Furthermore, EU countries face different challenges in the enactment of integration policies which spring from diverse (im)migration experiences, the scope of past migrations, and recent migratory flows. This is why integration policies should be re‐indexed, taking into consideration the particularities of (im)migration flows, the size of the immigrant population and other relevant factors.     

Best Practice Options: Turkey

At the ninth Migration Dialogue seminar, held 29–31 March 2001 in Istanbul, Turkey, opinion leaders discussed the major immigration and integration issues facing emigration, transit, and immigration countries. Several major issues regarding Turkey were discussed. 1 This report was prepared after the seminar for participants and others interested in migration and development issues. It has not been approved by participants, and thus should not be considered a consensus document.
First, the effect of the Turkish Government’s modernization effort, which began in the 1920s. In the 1960s the government began to promote the export of surplus labour, with the hope that sending workers abroad from less– developed parts of the country would bring remittances and returned workers with skills needed for modernization. Among the governments of labour–exporting countries, Turkey’s has been unique in its high hopes for recruitment, remittances, and returns. They were expected to bring about a transformation of the country. These high expectations help explain the widespread frustration with migration’s actual effects. Second, the Turkish Government’s current goal of gaining full membership in the European Union (EU). Ankara stresses that the EU should embrace full Turkish membership for a variety of reasons, including the country’s strategic position between Europe and Asia, and to send a signal to other Muslim societies, such as those of North Africa, that the EU will include Muslim societies that are secular and democratic. Third, Turkey’s fear that EU membership would lead to another wave of migration. Many Europeans fear that Turkish EU membership would lead to another wave of migration. Turkey hopes that admission to the EU will bring EU assistance and foreign direct investment (FDI) that creates jobs and pushes up wages, thus making migration insignificant. Finally, Turkey’s position as an emigration, transit, and immigration country. There are 3 to 4 million Turks abroad, 3 to 4 million foreigners living in Turkey (perhaps half Iranians), and tens of thousands who move through Turkey to Europe. Turkey is revising its asylum law in a manner that will allow persons fleeing persecution outside Europe to be considered refugees in Turkey, to establish for the first time a support system for refugees.     

Towards a Coherent Policy of Co–Development

This paper seeks to demonstrate the major benefits that a dedicated policy of co–development can bring to three major actors affected by immigration: receiving states, countries of origin, and the immigrants themselves. True co–development involves sustained cooperation between receiving nations and source nations in the management of both legal and illegal migratory flows. At the same time, it fosters the economic and demographic development of both the sending and the receiving country. This cooperation is based in large measure on understanding that, more than ever before, the best migration policy for developed nations is one that seeks not to block, but to smoothly regulate the circulation and re–circulation of the majority of foreigners and immigrants. As a result, Northern countries will be able to concentrate the state’s limited control resources on selected targets such as criminals, delinquents, and migrants arrested multiple times for unauthorized entry or residence. Developed nations must recognize that the vast majority of immigrants wish to retain close links to their country of origin, and with drastically improved transportation and communication links, most migrants are increasingly able to do so. Northern states should adapt policies that, for the most part, accommodate immigrants’ wishes to maintain active ties to their homeland. Such measures are generally in the best interests of the receiving countries, source countries, and of course, the immigrants themselves. The various problems faced by these three main actors regarding migration as they seek to pursue activities in their best interest is considered, followed by the advantages that a policy of co–development has for these actors: for receiving nations in terms of meeting labour force needs, reducing demographic problems, and controlling illegal immigration; and for source countries in terms of increased access to visas, increased amounts and efficacy of remittances, and the return and re–circulation of skilled and seasonal workers, and retirees. The interests of the immigrants themselves will be considered at various points throughout the discussion, in the context of the effects that the various policies of receiving and sending countries will have on them.     

The new grounds for deportation of European Union citizens in the United Kingdom

Politicians often mention immigration enforcement, and deportation in particular, as a means to assert state sovereignty. This article looks at deportation through exiting the European Union, an event that was interpreted as regaining sovereignty from the supra-national organisation. New immigration regulations in the United Kingdom were meant to end the EU Freedom of Movement and equalise the statuses of EU- and non-EU migrants in the United Kingdom. The research question this article addresses is the following: how do the new immigration regulations and policies affect the possibility of deportations of EU citizens in the United Kingdom? With the lens of Interpretive Policy Analysis, the article analyses primary sources and expert interviews. It concludes that the deportability of EU citizens has increased post-Brexit. It also anticipates that the deportability of EU citizens will be differentiated, as rough sleepers, former convicts and irregular migrants may be first to be targeted with deportation.     

Social effects of migration in receiving countries

This paper examines the impact of post-1945 migration into Western, Middle, and Northern Europe from Southern Europe, Turkey, and Northern Africa, and migration to the traditional immigration countries by Asian and Latin American immigrants, on the social structures of receiving countries. Between 1955 and 1974, 1) traditional migration to the US and Australia became less important for European countries while traditional receiving countries accepted many immigrants from developing countries; and 2) rapid economic revival in Western and Northern Europe caused a considerable labor shortage which was filled by migrant workers especially from Southern Europe, Turkey, and Northern Africa, who stayed only until they reached their economic goals. Since 1974, job vacancies have declined and unemployment has soared. This employment crisis caused some migrants 1) to return to their countries of origin, 2) to bring the rest of their families to the receiving country, or 3) to lengthen their stay considerably. The number of refugees has also significantly increased since the mid-970s, as has the number of illegal migrants. After the mid-1970s, Europe began to experience integration problems. The different aspects of the impact of migration on social structures include 1) improvement of the housing situation for foreigners, 2) teaching migrants the language of the receiving country, 3) solving the unemployment problem of unskilled migrants, 4) improvement of educational and vocational qualifications of 2nd generation migrants, 5) development of programs to help unemployed wives of migrants to learn the language and meet indigenous women, 6) encouraging migrants to maintain their cultural identity and assisting them with reintegration if they return to their original country, 7) coping with the problems of refugees, and 8) solving the problems of illegal migration. Almost all receiving countries now severely restrict further immigration. [Those policies should result in improved development of aid policies towards sending countries. Immigration from other countries to those of the European Economic community should be limited to that for humanitarian reasons.     

The Role of Immigrants in the Italian Labour Market

In little more than a decade, Italy has become a country characterized by immigration from abroad. This pattern is far removed from what central-northern European countries experienced during the 1950s and the 1960s.
Immigration has not been explicitly demanded by employers, nor has it been ruled by agreements with the immigrants' countries of origin, nor perceived as necessary for the economic system. For all these reasons, immigration has been chaotic and managed in an emergency and approximate way, even though it is deemed useful and is requested by the "informal" as well as the "official" economy.
Following presentations of statistics on trends in the phenomenon, three issues are analysed:
- how immigrants are integrated into a labour market that has not called them and into circumstances characterized by the absence of public policies to help them in their job search.
- whether it is possible to separate regular immigration involved in the "official" market from irregular immigration in the hidden economy, considering advantages of the first and harmful effects of the second for the Italian socio-economic system.
- whether it is appropriate to address complementarity between immigrant labour and the national labour force in a country with 2,500,000 unemployed workers and heavy territorial unbalances.     

Irregular migration: an international perspective

Despite the heightened awareness of irregular migrations worldwide, a certain misappreciation or underestimation of the saliency of irregular migration issues persists. Conflict in the strife-torn Indian state of Assam, for example, has been widely publicized, but its roots in immigration issues linked to communal tensions are insufficiently understood. Conflict around the globe seems increasingly to involve, both as cause and effect, migrants in irregular status whose problematical or illegitimate presence itself is at issue. The global recession prompted governments in immigration-welcoming countries to adopt more restrictive stances vis-a-vis immigration at a time when global migratory pressures were expanding enormously. As if by a process of demonstration effect, 1 country after another began to view migratory flows with alarm--flows which previously had been regarded as benign or quantitatively unimportant. Part I of this special issue examines a variety of public responses to irregular migration. Part II looks at legalization issues in a number of national contexts. Part III contains 3 comparative reflections on immigration reform in industrial democracies. Part IV provides an overview and sampling of recent empirical and survey research findings on irregular status migrants, primarily in the US. This special issue is intended to encourage further research on irregular migration, foster better understanding of this complex phenomenon, and contribute to enlightened public policy-making.     

Channels of Entry and Preferred Destinations: The Circumvention of Denmark by Chinese Immigrants

As globalization spread during the 1990s, and especially since the turn of the millennium, European states have increasingly claimed their right to assert their sovereignty by regulating migration at the level of the individual (OECD, 2001: 76–81). Political parties have succeeded in gaining support on policy statements pertaining exclusively to migration. For example, recent legislation in Denmark restricts the categories of persons eligible as refugees to “Convention refugees” satisfying only the narrowest international criteria set out in the UN Refugee Convention. The civil rights of asylum seekers are restricted by prohibiting marriage while their applications are under review. To limit family reunification among immigrants, the present Danish Government has even prohibited immigrants with permanent residence status and Danish citizens from bringing non‐Danish spouses under age 24 into the country. These attempts at border enforcement and immigration control have been described by some critics as the endeavours of European Union (EU) members to build a “Fortress Europe” against immigrants from developing countries. Policy decisions and the implementation of various measures from finger printing to radar surveillance to control immigrants have corroborated such perceptions, but this paper will show that gaining entry to a highly controlled country such as Denmark from a poorer country such as the People's Republic of China (PRC) is fairly straightforward. Politicians may wish to convey the impression of being in control of international mobility by launching diverse anti‐immigration acts, but since the immigration embargo of the early 1970s all EU countries have received millions of immigrants, and increasingly permit or accept immigrants of various kinds to reside and work within their borders (Boeri et al., 2002). Immigration from developing countries is not evenly distributed throughout the EU, but rather targets specific destinations. This article will attempt to explain the direction of Chinese immigration flows to Europe in response to labour‐market demand, rather than as a consequence of “loopholes” in a country's legal or welfare provisions. By analysing historical and demographic data on the PRC Chinese in Denmark, I attempt to demonstrate that, despite being a European country with one of the lowest asylum rejection rates for PRC Chinese, the scope of Chinese asylum seekers and regular and irregular migrants arriving by way of family reunification remained limited in the 1990s compared to southern, central, and eastern European countries. My analysis of Danish data in relation to Chinese migration suggest that destinations related to the globalization of Chinese migration is more determined by labour and capital markets than the presumed attraction of social welfare benefits provided by a European welfare state such as Denmark.     

Sending countries and the politics of emigration and destination

This article examines available means and activities of sending countries in their efforts to exert control over the "long-term temporary" emigration process. In the European case, the structure of migration has provided sending countries with ongoing channels for promoting their interests. In this picture the political dimensions of immigration are analyzed as epiphenomenal, dependent, or inconsequential. It is assumed that 1) state power directly correlates with economic power, and 2) economic and strategic power differences between states necessarily imply inequality in social and cultural terms. Although emigration may not serve the long-term "objective" interests of senders, it does provide a short-term safety value from the point of view of political managers. Both sending and receiving countries' interests are best served by a system of temporary labor migration, not permanent immigration. The receivers' ability to act according to narrow economic self-interest is restricted by a host of multilateral agreements that regulate and define the obligations and rights of the participants in international migration. Bilateral agreements not only specify the conditions of recruitment, employment, and family migration, they also provide a continuing basis for sending country influence throughout the migration process. Sending states that have a long history of emigration tend to have more developed and articulated emigration policies and commensurate institutional structures to channel and control the migration process in all stages--leaving, working abroad, and returning. The reluctance of Europe's immigrants to serve their social and political ties to their countries of origin is reinforced by the sending countries' activities aimed at insuring the continued long-term but temporary nature of migration.     

After the ‘Great White Walls’ Came Down. Debating the Ethnicity of Immigrants in Australia and the USA, 1980–1990

In 1965 and 1973, the governments of the USA and Australia, respectively, abolished their racially discriminatory immigration policies. A line had seemingly been drawn in the sand in which one's race, nationality or ethnicity would no longer be grounds for exclusion. As a consequence of these reforms, the source countries of immigrants to Australia and the USA diversified. How did politicians react to this change? This article finds that although overtly racist immigration policies had become a relic of the past, a number of mainstream politicians in both countries did not welcome the outcomes of race-blind immigration policies.     

Adult vocational training for migrants in North‐East Italy

This article contributes to the study of policies for the integration of immigrants into the labour markets of European immigration countries by focusing on the specific issue of vocational training for immigrant workers in Italy. Vocational training has a central role in the European employment strategy. Moreover, with regard to migrants, it is also relevant to the topical issue of the governance of international labour migration. The article analyses both the demand and the supply of vocational training in north‐east Italy, generally regarded as the rich and industrialised heart of the country. It draws on 30 interviews conducted with key informants and experts from local and regional governmental bodies, trade unions, employment offices, and private educational agencies in the main towns of the Veneto region. Various types of vocational training for immigrant workers are considered, from traditional full‐time courses financed by the European Social Fund to new projects for the selection and pre‐training of immigrants in their countries of origin. The extent to which these policy tools are able to meet the actual needs of immigrant workers and of the local business sector is investigated, as well as their problematic interaction with the national regulatory framework for immigration control.