The Politics of Immigration and Education

Abstract

The United States has endured multiple periods of intensely virulent nativist sentiment and policy, from the Know Nothing movement of the 1850s, to the decades-long stretch leading to and resulting from the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, to Operation Wetback in the 1950s. If the first months of the Trump presidency are any indication, the nation may well be entering yet another such period. The Trump administration's immigration agenda is expansive. Within days of his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order closing the U.S. border to certain individuals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, and suspending refugee admissions for 4 months. The response from both courts and communities was swift, with the courts stepping in almost immediately to halt implementation. In June 2017, the Supreme Court allowed parts of a revised ban to go into effect, allowing the exclusion of visa applicants without a "bona fide" connection to the United States. Trump has also cut in half the number of refugee visas the United States will offer in 2017, severely limiting access to those arguably most in need. Although some questions remain regarding whether Trump will be able to follow through on his campaign promise to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, it is clear that he has plans to significantly increase border militarization. His administration has also taken steps to limit immigrants' appeal options to significantly speed up deportations.

Should They Stay or Should They Go? How the 2017 U.S. Travel Ban Affects International Doctoral Students

“…This study concludes that the immigration policy and travel restrictions initiated by the U.S. administration at the beginning of 2017 have affected a large pool of individuals in education, not only international students but also university faculty, administrators, and even domestic students who were confused and worried for the future of international students in this country. The political agenda of the U.S. administration is expansive and the actions taken in terms of immigration policy regarding travel restrictions and working visas “reinforce particular ideas about who is worthy of access to the U.S. and the opportunities therein” (Quinn et al, 2017, p. 708). Furthermore, as Rose-Redwood and Rose-Redwood (2017) argued, “this is a critical time for scholars who study international students to re-assess our research agenda for the field, because we simply cannot proceed as if it were business as usual within the current political context” (p. II).…”

“…The courts halted implementation once again. In June 2017, the Supreme Court “allowed parts of a revised ban to go into effect, allowing the exclusion of visa applicants without a bona fide connection to the U.S.” (Quinn, Hopkins, & Bedolla, 2017, p. 707). In September 2017, the U.S. administration released a presidential proclamation aimed at enhancing vetting processes and issued travel restrictions for citizens from Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, and Venezuela.…”

Children displaced across borders: charting new directions for research from interdisciplinary perspectives

“…In the United States context, for example, educational research has focused on basic preparedness to address refugee language, socioemotional, and cultural needs, as well as how educator normative values collide with displaced family values and perceived levels of cultural capital (Ngo 2008;Roxas and Roy 2012). Most recently critical educational scholarship has examined the very real effects fear-driven policies, practices, and discourses have on migrant and other displaced populations (Quinn, Hopkins, and Bedolla 2017), as well as how the normative politics of individual U.S. states problematically shape knowledge about displacement, yet have the potential to be transgressed by thoroughly multi-sector and rights-informed efforts that bring educational stakeholders into the fold of trafficking identification and prevention (Lemke 2019a(Lemke , 2019b. Thus, during complex temporal, spatial and social transitions within the areas of education, family, and work, young migrants also re-negotiate the limits of the law and morality, which require further analysis of the processes that maintain social boundaries and define transgressions (Huijsmans 2012).…”

“It’s Created by a Community”: Local Context Mediating Districts’ Approaches to Serving Immigrant and Refugee Newcomers

“…At the same time, the context of immigration in the United States has long been characterized by xenophobic and discriminatory practices and policies. In recent years, the climate of fear created by the large number of forced removals during the Obama administration was exacerbated by a range of Trump-era reforms, such as executive orders that issued travel bans for particular countries in Africa and Asia (including the Middle East), the escalated presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, demands for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and increased separation of migrant children from their parents (Quinn et al, 2017).Reflecting the intertwined relationship between this federal context of reception and local educational practices, recent research reveals that increased federal immigration enforcement negatively shapes teachers' and students' experiences in U.S. schools (Ee & Gándara, 2020). The context of reception denotes how a society's structural and cultural features shape the economic, social, and educational opportunities that newcomers are afforded (Portes & Rumbaut, 2006).…”