Social Cohesion & Identity
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This book takes stock of the impact of the crisis on immigrant integration in Europe and the United States. It assesses where immigrants have lost ground, using evidence such as levels of funding for educational programs, employment rates, trends toward protectionism, public opinion, and levels of discrimination.
The book focuses on three case studies: the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany. The volume includes chapters analyzing public opinion and media coverage of immigration issues in each country. Additional chapters propose strategies for unblocking opposition to thoughtful, effective immigration-related reforms.
Mexico's efforts to help its migrants succeed in the U.S. offer a new example of an immigrant-sending country looking to improve its emigrants' lives and connect with its diaspora. This report examines Mexico's approach to its migrants and details the activities of the government's attempt to map the expanding range of its educational, health care, financial, and civic programs.
Intermarriage is considered a test of integration: the higher the rate, the more integrated the group. Olga Nottmeyer of DIW Berlin finds that while immigrants from Turkey, by far Germany's largest immigrant group, have had low rates of intermarriage in the first generation, intermarriage rates among second-generation Turkish men are increasing.
Voters’ brains connect words, phrases, images, values, and emotions, and these connections — known as networks of association — influence their receptiveness to political messages, often far more strongly than facts and rational arguments. This report shows that to reach those who have not yet made up their mind on a particular issue, advocates and leaders need to understand the associations a term such as “immigrant” spark in the mind of the electorate and strengthen positive associations while weakening negative ones.
Germany has de facto been receiving immigrants for the last four decades, but the government only began actively dealing with the long-term impact of immigration a decade ago. Since the 1990s, Germany shifted away from stemming flows to recognizing its identity as a country of immigration and managing the impact of immigration on society.
Recent developments in the United States (including the 2008 elections and shifts in organized labor’s stance on immigration) have created new openings for comprehensive immigration reform, possibly including a path to legal residence and citizenship for illegal immigrants. But the author argues that the extent of this opening may be overstated by some advocates.
U.S. media coverage of immigration has hindered effective policy reform for years, a trend which has been exacerbated by the recent transformation in the ways Americans get their news. This has conditioned and even distorted public perceptions by portraying a largely gradual, orderly, and legal phenomenon as chaotic, criminal, and controversial.