초록 열기/닫기 버튼
Seong-soo Choi / Joo Hee HanSince the establishment of United States, from the formation period to today, there have been a few vicissitudes in immigration policies. We analyze these changes of immigration polices from the perspective of a state. A state has two equivalent roles to take. A state should not only be able to extract economic resources by which it can reproduce the sovereignty but also be able to gain political legitimacy from civil communities as well. However, it is hard to keep the balance between two roles because they often conflict each other. Changes of immigration policies of presidential regimes can be explained by this frame. Since the introduction of the first federal legislation in 1891, the government could have managed to regulate influx of immigrants with legal systems. Series of presidential regimes have applied generous or restrictive immigration policies in compliance with economic and political demands of that time. Since the adoption of inclusive policy in 1965, however, U.S. had kept relatively open attitudes toward immigration. When neoliberal globalization challenged prior conditions and environments, the U.S. government tried to find a new equilibrium between two roles a state assumes. NAFTA led U.S. to have experienced massive illegal immigration from Mexico. To extract more resources from capitalists, U.S. should be more generous to immigration so that capitalists could keep wages low. However, to gain legitimacy from the majority of Native Americans U.S. should be more restrictive to immigration so that Native Americans could secure their jobs and identities. As a result, U.S. governments have had contradictive immigration policies to find equilibrium point between such economic and political demands simultaneously.
키워드열기/닫기 버튼
Immigration Policy, America, Neoliberal globalization, Immigration laws, NAFTA
