Lobbying to Stay: the Chinese Students’ Campaign to Stay in Australia

This paper examines the way in which onshore asylum seekers lobby to stay in the host country permanently, and how they interact with local institutions. This study is based on a multi‐method case study of about 45,000 Chinese nationals in Australia, mostly students, who sought to stay after the so‐called political disturbance of 1989 in China. The students succeeded in obtaining residence by pursuing intensive lobbying activities over a period of about four years from June 1989 to November 1993, becoming the largest onshore migration intake in Australian history. This paper is concerned with how the students and their organizations negotiated the changing stance of the Australian government towards asylum seekers, and the way in which the students harnessed resources in the campaign. It examines the strategies adopted by the students, the roles of the main local institutions in the issue, and analyses the permissiveness of local polities.     

Migration of Highly Skilled Chinese to Europe: Trends and Perspective

Since China's economic opening and reforms in 1978, the country has broadened and deepened its exchanges and relations with other countries. This has contributed to the increase in the scale of international migration of highly skilled Chinese abroad. The impact of the migration of highly skilled Chinese on China and the relevant nations particularly deserve attention and study. Following the earlier migration flows mainly to the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the migration of highly skilled Chinese to Europe has become a notable new trend. Currently, the flow of international migration of highly skilled Chinese personnel is mainly oriented toward Europe and the United States. While studying abroad has been the main form of migration of the skilled, this has now been joined by the migration of technical and professional staff, and the trend is increasing. The main country of destination for Chinese students is the United States, which absorbs more than half of the total, while Australia and Canada receive the largest number of skilled Chinese manpower. The United States also receives a large number of Chinese technical personnel, but its proportion has declined, while the flow to Europe has sharply increased. This development may be attributed to the global expansion of economic, scientific and technological, as well as cultural and educational exchanges and cooperation. But it is also the result of an increase in the educational investment made by the Chinese people following the continuous increase in China's economic strength and the population's personal income. Of greater importance are the gaps between China and Europe at the scientific, technological, and educational levels and the research and marketing environment. The intervening changes in labour market and immigration policies in European and American countries accelerate the trend further. For all of these and other reasons, the spatial distribution of Chinese students will become more balanced and play a positive role in the promotion of mutually beneficial exchanges between China and other countries.     

Taiwanese Immigrant Entrepreneurs in Canada and Transnational Social Space

This article explores the migration of Taiwanese immigrant entrepreneurs to Canada and their transnationalism. Their presence in Canada is documented and described with statistical data on their demographic characteristics, human capital, and economic capital. An assessment of their transnationalism is provided by primary qualitative data gathered through in‐depth interviews. Overall, the review of the literature on Taiwanese migration to various countries, and their transnationalism, indicates that research has primarily been conducted in Australia and the United States, while it remained understudied in Canada. The article makes a case for contextualizing Taiwanese entrepreneurial migration in terms of a global immigration marketplace and the specific business migration programmes in Australia, United States, and Canada. Further, the article argues for the appropriateness of conceptualizing these Taiwanese entrepreneurs as operating within the theoretical framework of transnational social space. The findings on transnational social space include the importance of transnational familial networks, transnational business circuits, and transmigration. Transnational familial networks constitute a form of “capital” as the dispersal is a “resource”. The transnational business circuits include three types: (1) Asian production‐North American distribution; (2) retail chains; and (3) import‐export, all spatially distributed with their multiple national sites. In selected areas of the presentation and discussion of the data the policy implications of the findings are explored. These include discussion of the implications of this transnationalism on Canadian policies such as immigration, multiculturalism, business development, international trade, economic development, and citizenship. There is clearly a lack of harmonization among migration policy and other social and economic policies in Canada. While Canadian multiculturalism policy facilitates transnationalism, Canadian citizenship policy is shown to conflict with and discourage transnational practices.     

The Economy of Seeking Asylum in the Global City

This article explores asylum seeker survival strategies and agency in relation to the structural, post‐industrial conditions that have emerged in Hong Kong. The focus is on the livelihoods of asylum seekers within spaces of illegality and social exclusion, how such spaces are formed, and how asylum seekers exploit local conditions to establish profitable networks across borders. The article considers asylum seekers' engagement in income‐generating activities and the importance of legal status in the sectors of the economy in which they most often work: recycling and trading. Far from being a burden to society or opportunistic deviants taking advantage of Hong Kong's economic prosperity, as they are normally depicted in public discourse, asylum seekers are economically productive. They act in economic spaces in which disadvantaged strata of the local resident population organize their means of survival, thereby improving the economic opportunities for locals.     

Cigarette Smoking Among Korean International College Students in the United States

Abstract

Objective and Participants: This study explored (1) the prevalence of cigarette smoking among South Korean international college students in the United States, (2) differences in smoking between on- and off-campus living arrangements, and (3) predictors of an increase in smoking over time in the United States Methods: An online survey was completed by 1,201 students at 52 4-year US universities (34% response rate). Results: The overall smoking prevalence was 43.5%. The smoking rate (29.0%) of female students was higher than that (4%) of female college students in South Korea. Sex, living place, living situation, length of stay as a student in the United States, home smoking rules, campus-wide tobacco-free policies, and levels of acculturative stress, anxiety, and depression were significantly associated with an increase in smoking (p < .05). Conclusions: Given the high smoking prevalence among the South Korean students on US college campuses, targeted prevention efforts for these students may be warranted.     

Asylum Discourse in New Zealand: Moral Panic and a Culture of Indifference

Recent law changes in New Zealand allowing for the detention of a “mass arrival” of asylum seekers reflect a concerning international rhetoric and associated policy trend in Australia and the United Kingdom towards those seeking asylum. This paper argues that, although the New Zealand public has not (yet) reached a “moral panic” that is prevalent within international contexts, there are concerns about a “culture of indifference” in relation to asylum seekers. By providing a policy analysis about asylum seekers and an examination on the associated discourses utilised in international contexts, this discussion presents the New Zealand context through the process of risk signification. The paper discusses how the social work profession can respond to this culture of indifference through addressing collusion (often through silence) with oppressive asylum policies, the need for stronger advocacy and action, and the associated role of social work education.     

Student Migration: Evidence from Chinese Students in the US and China

This article is based on the analysis of a pair of cross‐national parallel surveys on Chinese students, respectively inside the People's Republic of China and in the US. Specifically, it makes comparisons between two cross‐sectional groups: 1) Chinese students in a PRC university who intend to study abroad (with a subset that stated that the United States is their top destination), versus 2) Chinese students already at a US university. Building on a “motility” concept while using an “Intellectual Migration” conceptual framework and chi‐square and logistic regression analyses, it demonstrates that Chinese students' possibly returning to the PRC are significantly influenced by their gender, college GPA, family finance, assessment of China's current and future development. The results on outmigration or return migration intentions are presented, and it concludes with some policy implications and future research directions.     

Chinese Immigrants in the U.S. Labor Market: Effects of Post‐Tiananmen Immigration Policy1

The Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and ensuing government crackdown affected Chinese nationals not only at home but also around the world. The U.S. government responded to the events in China by enacting multiple measures to protect Chinese nationals present in the United States. It first suspended all forced departures among Chinese nationals present in the country as of June 1989 and later gave them authorization to work legally. The Chinese Student Protection Act, passed in October 1992, made those Chinese nationals eligible for lawful permanent resident status. These actions applied to about 80,000 Chinese nationals residing in the United States on student or other temporary visas or illegally. Receiving permission to work legally and then a green card is likely to have affected recipients’ labor market outcomes. This study uses 1990 and 2000 census data to examine employment and earnings among Chinese immigrants who were likely beneficiaries of the U.S. government’s actions. Relative to immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea – countries not covered by the post‐Tiananmen immigration policy measures – highly educated immigrants from mainland China experienced significant employment and earnings gains during the 1990s. Chinese immigrants who arrived in the U.S in time to benefit from the measures also had higher relative earnings in 2000 than Chinese immigrants who arrived too late to benefit. The results suggest that getting legal work status and then a green card has a significant positive effect on skilled migrants’ labor market outcomes.     

Studying to Stay: Understanding Graduate Visa Policy Content and Context in the United States and Australia

As the global mobility of students has continued to grow, many of those who obtain their degrees abroad are seeking opportunities to stay in the countries where they received their education. Responding to these trends, several host countries have devised visa schemes to enable international graduates to remain in the country and work after graduation. Using a summative content analysis approach, this article provides an analysis of the content of the Optional Practical Training and Temporary Graduate Visa programmes situated within the economic, political and social contexts of the United States and Australia respectively. Graduation from a domestic institution is the core requirement of these programmes, directly implicating higher education in immigration issues and placing higher education institutions at the border of the state. As such, we must consider HEIs not only as a temporary home for globally mobile student sojourners but as the starting point for transnational talent on complex migration journeys.     

Brokering International Education and (re)producing Class in Mumbai

This article discusses the role that education brokers play in the decision‐making processes of international students in Mumbai, India. Drawing on 80 interviews with students and education brokers, the analysis reveals how the services that brokers provide, and who accesses them, are shaped by the class status of prospective international students within the localized and granular hierarchies of Mumbai's upper‐middle‐class. Brokers are divided into agents and counsellors, who offer different service models and draw their clientele from two distinct segments of the upper‐middle‐class: “South Mumbai elites” and “suburban strivers”. Within these subtly differentiated landscapes of brokerage, advice from brokers can make certain students vulnerable, or hierarchise specific study destinations and trajectories. This article argues that attending to granular class differentiation within international education brokerage illuminates inequalities that exist within student cohorts from the same locality. It also outlines the policy implications of these inequalities in both sending and receiving countries.     

Negotiating everyday life in Australia: unpacking the parallel society inhabited by Asian international students through their social networks and entertainment media use

Work on the experiences of international students in Australia often point out that these students do not successfully integrate into Australian society with many international students counting very few or no Australians as friends by the time they complete their studies. Through in-depth interviews with 47 Melbourne-based higher education international students from Asia – the source of Australia's largest export education market – this study explores the ways in which international students navigate their everyday experiences in their host nation. The findings suggest that Asian international students live in a parallel society almost exclusively made up of fellow international students who primarily come from the home nation and the Asian region. This parallel society allows them to create both a sense of belonging in Australia yet not to Australia due to disengagement from local society and culture. By investigating their social networks (society) together with their consumption of entertainment media (culture), this study presents an indirect yet creative way of understanding how international students negotiate everyday life as transient migrants in the Australian city of Melbourne. Doing so, this research highlights the ways in which international students make use of social networks and entertainment media to feel a sense of belonging in a foreign country.     

Missing the Boat: Australia and Asylum Seeker Deterrence Messaging

Many of Australia's border protection policies have focused on attempts to deter the arrival of asylum seekers by boat. These include government ‘messaging’ in the hope this will influence the decision‐making of would‐be boat arrivals. This article outlines the findings of an exploratory study on the sources of information accessed by asylum seekers, prior to and during their boat journeys to Australia, about their destination country. The findings suggest that government media and Internet strategies focused on deterring asylum seekers are adopted without full regard to how information is sourced before and during these boat journeys.     

Asylum Seeking in Australia

The rise in the number of asylum seekers in Australia presents considerable challenges to the state as they are a self‐selected, demand‐driven group, whose numbers, country of origin, ethnic background, and social demographic characteristics cannot be determined in advance of their arrival. People who apply for protection at the border are regarded primarily as illegal immigrants, and only secondarily as asylum seekers, and the illegality of their entry has become the primary factor in the way they are treated by the state, rather than their need for protection. Two streams of asylum seekers and two streams of refugees have been created. There are marked differences in the treatment given while claims for protection are examined and once decisions have been made in their favor. This article examines the development of asylum policy in Australia and sets the discussion within a review of the number of people who have applied for and been granted protection in recent years.     

The New Chinese Migrants in France

Like the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, France is one of the major centres of Chinese migration in Europe. Chinese sojourners arrived in France at the beginning of the twentieth century and the 1911 census showed the presence of 238 Chinese in the country. From 1900 to World War I, this little community remained heterogeneous in its socio‐economic and professional composition (Archaimbault, 1952). Changes in this community occurred during World War I when the lack of labourers led the French Government to recruit 140,000 Chinese workers (Wou, 1939). The 2,000 to 4,000 Chinese who remained in France after the war constituted the basis of a Chinese community in France. In the 1920s, they were joined by some 2,000 student labourers (Wang, 2001; Bailey, 1988). From the 1920s to the 1940s, Zhejiang immigration in France rose until World War II and the rise of the communist party in China stopped the movement. Yet, Chinese immigration did not cease. Migrants of Chinese origin arrived essentially from the old French Indochina (Viet Nam‐Laos‐Cambodia) (Le, 1995). Immigration from these countries increased in the 1970s when different conflicts occurred. From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, France also saw the arrival, albeit in smaller numbers, of Chinese from Hong Kong and Taiwan, family members of citizens of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The new wave of Chinese migration from PRC started in the mid‐1980s and grew steadily until now, with some peaks, e.g. in the mid‐1990s. Recent fieldwork in France approached this community, in particular, those living in France with a precarious administrative status (asylum seekers or clandestine migrants). In general, the situation of the population covered by this fieldwork was still precarious. Although the paper does not include other categories such as students, entrepreneurs, or researchers, it is nevertheless possible to gather some details on the basis of French official data and reports. The following sections deal with the growing Chinese presence in France, and their precarious status. Most recent research tends to show a diversified Chinese migrant population profile; it also shows that they are still primarily active in the French ethnic Chinese market. In the initial stages of migration, the Chinese migrants continue to maintain links with China and sometimes with Chinese communities in Europe.     

Moving Through Social Networks: The Case of Armenian Migrants in the Czech Republic

This paper brings attention to the role of social networks in the migration of asylum seekers and explores how the embeddedness of the migrants in social networks both facilitates and constrains their mobility in different phases of the migration process. It reconstructs the migration paths of eight Armenian migrant families who arrived in the Czech Republic as asylum seekers during the 1990s and the beginning of the twenty‐first century. By examining the narrated stories of the Armenian migrants it shows that social networks formed an important context for employing various migration strategies in all phases of the migration process, and that the meaning and character of migrants’ social networks changed over time. In the initial phase of decision‐making about migration as well as on their journey, it was mainly weak ties of random acquaintances that played a dominant role. The position of the migrants in those networks was rather insecure. They held a little control over the information they received, but in these vulnerable situations they had to rely on their weak ties, which strongly influenced their mobility. In the arrival and settlement phases the social context of the refugee camp hindered the cultivation of social ties outside the migrants’ circle on one hand, and facilitated development of bonding ties among the migrants on the other. Bonding social networks enabled inclusion of the Armenian migrants into various social spheres especially at the beginning of the settlement process. However, the bounded character of these networks was also recognized as excluding them from access to resources of the dominant society and preventing their social mobility in later phases of their settlement. Thus, bridging networks that provide access to certain resources of the dominant society were sought.     

Impugning the Humanitarian Defence

This article examines the claim that democratic states are justified in restricting access to asylum seekers on the grounds that failing to do so reduces public support for humanitarian refugee policies – referred to here as the humanitarian defence. Drawing on detailed historical, comparative and interpretive analysis of migration policy in Canada and Australia, the author builds on Matthew Gibney’s development of practically guided normative theory to assess cases in which political elites may legitimately enact restrictive policies in response to strong public opposition. Challenging the normative basis of the humanitarian defence, the article engages in a detailed discourse analysis of asylum crises in Canada (1987, 1999) and Australia (1979, 2001). The findings suggest that political elites do not respond to an independently arrived at, and objectively established, public opinion as implied in the humanitarian defence. Rather, political elites play a crucial role in shaping the discourse on asylum seekers and consequently, influence the very “public opinion” to which they claim to be responding. The author concludes that political elites should attempt to foster an environment in which the public accepts international obligations to refugees but accepts that in some cases political elites may be justified in implementing restrictive measures.     

When the State Becomes Part of the Exploitation: Migrants’ Agency within the Institutional Constraints in Australia

Studies have shown the unequal treatments temporary migrants face in the processes of immigration. In Australia for a short period of time and not citizens, they face conditions that allow for employer exploitation. This article is interested in exploring how institutional structures shape and normalize the choices that migrants make to work in the cash economy or other exploitative conditions. To do this, we take PRC‐Chinese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kongese temporary migrants who hold either a student or Working Holiday visa in Australia as an example. Focusing on the policymaking process, we argue that the policy outcomes produced by visa restrictions placed on international students and Working Holiday Makers sometimes do not reach an ideal outcome and at times even exacerbate problems identified in the input stage of the policy process. Such institutional effects result in a more vulnerable and exploitable situation for temporary migrants in Australia's labour market.     

Tuberculosis screening for international students

Nonimmigrant, international students entering colleges in the United States are not required to undergo screening for tuberculosis (TB). Thirty-nine percent of active TB cases in the United States are in foreign-born individuals. In an effort to minimize the occurrence of active TB on a community campus with an increasing international student population, the college health service implemented a TB-screening policy for all newly enrolled international students. For the 1997/98 school year, 171 international students from 70 different countries enrolled in classes. Fifty-nine students (35%) screened for TB had a positive skin test (greater than 10 mm induration). Of those, 34 initiated isoniazid therapy, and 27 successfully completed the prescribed regimen under supervision of the campus health office.     

The Role of Migration and Single Motherhood in Upper Secondary Education in Mexico

We investigated the link between migration, family structure, and the risk of dropping out of upper secondary school in Mexico. Using two waves of the Mexican Family Life Survey, which includes 1,080 upper secondary students, we longitudinally modeled the role of family structure in the subsequent risk of dropping out, focusing on the role of migration in single motherhood. We found that children living without a father because of international migration or divorce or separation are at a greater risk relative to children in 2‐parent households. Economic characteristics of the household provide a partial explanation for children living in single‐mother households because of divorce or separation but do not explain the greater risk of dropping out for children with fathers in the United States.     

Broken Promises and Lost Dreams: Navigating Asylum in the United States

Nearly 65 million people around the world have been displaced by war, conflict, and persecution since 2014 (UNHCR; United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2015). This yields an average of 42,000 people refugees, asylum seekers, or internally displaced every day. Displacement has adverse and disruptive consequences, including mental health problems (e.g., anxiety, depression), impaired interpersonal relationships, and heightened conflict. These consequences are compounded by profound ambiguity associated with navigating asylum in the United States. In this article, we describe the treatment of a couple from Syria who is seeking asylum in the United States. Informed by personal and professional experience, this case illustrates how ambiguous loss theory and awareness of relevant legal processes enhance our understanding of working with asylum seekers.