Undesirable Immigrants: Why Racism Persists in International Migration

by Andrew S. Rosenberg

Overview

How the racist legacy of colonialism shapes global migration

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 officially ended the explicit prejudice in American immigration policy that began with the 1790 restriction on naturalization to free White persons of “good character.” By the 1980s, the rest of the Anglo-European world had followed suit, purging discriminatory language from their immigration laws and achieving what many believe to be a colorblind international system. Undesirable Immigrants challenges this notion, revealing how racial inequality persists in global migration despite the end of formally racist laws.

In this eye-opening book, Andrew Rosenberg argues that while today’s leaders claim that their policies are objective and seek only to restrict obviously dangerous migrants, these policies are still correlated with race. He traces how colonialism and White supremacy catalyzed violence and sabotaged institutions around the world, and how this historical legacy has produced migrants that the former imperial powers and their allies now deem unfit to enter. Rosenberg shows how postcolonial states remain embedded in a Western culture that requires them to continuously perform their statehood, and how the closing and policing of international borders has become an important symbol of sovereignty, one that imposes harsher restrictions on non-White migrants.

Drawing on a wealth of original quantitative evidence, Undesirable Immigrants demonstrates that we cannot address the challenges of international migration without coming to terms with the brutal history of colonialism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691238746
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	08/09/2022
Series:	Princeton Studies in International History and Politics , #198
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Andrew S. Rosenberg is assistant professor of political science at the University of Florida.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations xi

Preface xv

Acknowledgments xix

1 Introduction: A Ruinous, Residual Racism 1

2 The State, Sovereignty, and Migration Policy 30

3 Colonialism, Immigrant Desirability, and the Persistence of Inequality 60

4 A Forensic Approach to Racial Inequality 93

5 Unmasking Racial Bias in a "Color-Blind" World 116

6 Colonialism and the Construction of Undesirability 174

7 The Expansion of Closure in the Modern International Order 218

8 Conclusion: Reflections on the Future 268

Appendix A Baseline Model Details 295

Appendix B Graded Response Model 298

Appendix C Immigration Policy Analysis 300

Bibliography 309

Index 345

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Undesirable Immigrants reveals how racially neutral migration policies yield racially biased policy outcomes and traces the roots of the problem to legacies of colonization and imperialism. Rosenberg is clear-eyed in exhorting the international community to look beneath the veneer of legal colorblindness.”—Nazli Avdan, author of Visas and Walls: Border Security in the Age of Terrorism

“Rosenberg’s historical analysis pierces the illusion that state sovereignty is predicated on immigration control. A novel statistical method then shows that the effects of these controls around the world is to discriminate by race, regardless of the intent of individual policymakers. These tightly argued provocations are certain to stir debate.”—David Scott FitzGerald, coauthor of Culling the Masses: The Democratic Origins of Racist Immigration Policy in the Americas

“Timely and provocative.”—Errol A. Henderson, author of The Revolution Will Not Be Theorized: Cultural Revolution in the Black Power Era

“Rosenberg’s pathbreaking and compelling book demonstrates the unassailable fact of inequality in the migration policies of states.”—Robert Vitalis, author of Oilcraft: The Myths of Scarcity and Security That Haunt U.S. Energy Policy

Editorial Reviews

Winner of the Race, Ethnicity, and Migration Best Book Award, American Political Science Association

From the Publisher