Impact of the 1996 Welfare Reform and Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Acts on Caribbean Immigrants

SUMMARY

This paper examines the impact of the 1996 Welfare Reform and Illegal Immigration and Immigrant Responsibility Acts on Caribbean immigrants in the United States. Drawing from the conceptual framework posited by Dye's (1984) Elite Preference Modelof policy analysis, the author argues that the three laws have created enormous economic and psychological difficulties among families in the United States. Developing countries in the Caribbean region have been severely impacted by the law since they have had to accommodate returning citizens when they are deported under provisions of immigration policies. The question for consideration by this paper is how may the legal and human rights of deportees be balanced against the rights of the U.S. government to secure its borders and ensure the security of its citizens? The paper also addresses issues of immigration, and international relations particularly the north-south dialogue between powerful developed countries such as the United States and small developing states of the Caribbean.     

“If You Want to Be Russian Go to the United States”

Abstract

The latest and largest group of Russian immigrants arrived in the United States after 1983, when the Soviet Union collapsed. This was the first time in over seventy years that Russia's Jews were allowed to leave Russia. Unlike many other immigrants, this group had lived in a country where little or no contact had been allowed with the outside world. Not unlike Plato's characters living in a cave, the Russian Jews saw the outside world only as it had been portrayed in Russian propaganda. Mistrust of the Soviet regime led to fantasies and confusion about it.

Understanding this group of immigrants requires knowing something of Jewish life in Russia during the last hundred years. In an enclosed, totalitarian, oppressive society, individuals developed character traits that were necessary for survival. Some of these will be discussed in this article. Lack of knowledge on the part of the immigrants as well as on the part of American human services professionals has often led to culture shock for both groups. Misunderstandings, unrealistic expectations, and difficulties with language have caused frustration, anger, and hurt.

Increased cultural knowledge has been necessary to open up communication between immigrant clients and American service providers. Many signs have begun to point the way to different attitudes and greater     

Strengthening Intergenerational/InterculturalTies in Immigrant Families (SITIF)

Abstract

Intergenerational/intercultural conflict is a significant stressor in immigrant families that occurs because of differential acculturation between migrant parents and their children. In spite of its negative mental health consequences, few empirically tested interventions address this problem. Strengthening Intergenerational/Intercultural Ties in Immigrant Families (SITIF) is a culturally-sensitive, community based intervention that aims to strengthen the intergenerational relationship. It promotes immigrant parents' emotional awareness and empathy for their children's experiences, cognitive knowledge and understanding of differences between their native and American cultures, and teaches behavioral parenting skills with the objective of enhancing intergenerational intimacy. SITIF was tested with a group of 16 middle class and 14 working class immigrant Chinese parents. Using objective and subjective assessment tools, the findings provide empirical support for SFTiF's effectiveness in enhancing parenting skills and strengthening the inter-generational relationship in immigrant Chinese American families.     

Seeing/being double: how African immigrants in Canada balance their ethno-racial and national identities

With increased transnational ties to their homelands, immigrants' ontology now verges on being double – and, consequently, on seeing double – most of the time. This double consciousness, and the attendant dearth of fixity in identity among immigrants, has led some to wonder where the allegiance of minority immigrants, in particular, lies. Can these immigrants be loyal to both their ethno-racial identity and their host national identity? Is the identification with one's ethno-racial background and national identity a zero-sum game in which one side of the loyalty equation gains only at the expense of the other? This study examines these issues, using African immigrants (specifically, Ghanaians and Somalis) in Canada as a case study. In particular, we use multinomial logistic regression to predict the factors that prompt these immigrants to identify as: ‘just Canadians’, ‘just Ghanaians/Somalis’, or as ‘Ghanaian-/Somali-Canadians’. The study is significant not only because of the lack of research on African immigrants' identity formation in Canada, but also because immigrants' identity has significant bearing on their settlement and integration in host societies.     

Examining recidivism among foreign-born jail inmates: does immigration status make a difference over the long term?

The topic of ‘illegal’ immigration is currently the focus of intense ideological and policy debate in the United States. A common assertion is that those without legal immigration status are disproportionately involved in criminal offending relative to other foreign-born populations. The current study examines the long-term recidivism patterns of a group of male removable aliens compared to those foreign-born with legal authorisation to be present in the Unites States. The sample includes 1297 foreign-born males released from the Los Angeles County Jail during a 1-month period in 2002, and the follow-up period extends through 2011. Using three measures of rearrest and a rigorous counterfactual modelling approach, we find no statistically significant differences between the two groups in likelihood, frequency, or timing of first rearrest over 9 years. The findings do not lend support to arguments that removable aliens pose a disproportionate risk of repeat involvement in local criminal justice systems.     

Early Exposure to Violence in the Family of Origin and Positive Attitudes towards Marital Violence: Chinese Immigrant Male Batterers vs. Controls

This study examined self-reported early exposure to violence in the family of origin and positive attitudes towards marital violence as risk factors in court-referred Chinese immigrant male batterers (N = 64) versus controls (N = 62). Early exposure to violence was positively correlated with marital violence, but it alone did not differentiate the batterers from the controls, as both groups were widely exposed to it. While it was significantly correlated with marital violence in the batterer group, it was significantly correlated with depression in the control group. Positive attitudes towards marital violence were not only correlated with marital violence but also sufficient to differentiate the batterers from the controls. It also partially mediated the effect of early exposure to violence on marital violence. These two risk factors together accounted for 21.9% of the variance in marital violence over and above sociodemographic variables and marital dissatisfaction. Research and treatment implications based on these findings were outlined.

Tlatelolco's Persistent Legacy: A Comparative Analysis of Three Mexican Novels

This article analyses how three Mexican novels, published between 1971 and 1999, respond to the effects of political violence on national identity. It focuses particularly on fictional representations of state-sponsored, politically motivated murder and on how survivors negotiate a social space forever changed by unsolved crimes. The article concludes that an important consequence of political violence is that it undermines the validity of systems of representation that once seemed capable of portraying the national community. Each of the three novels interpreted here adopts a different stance regarding literary language's relationship to its ever-changing sociopolitical contexts.     

Political Ideology,Perceived Threat,and Justice Towards Immigrants

In multiethnic societies, issues of justice and fairness have become the focus of intense public debate. Although current psychological theories of distributive and procedural justice concentrate on multiple normative rules that guide allocation decisions, there is little research that focuses on the particular relationship between immigrants as recipients and members of the host society as allocators. In the present study Germans were asked about their opinions as to what Turkish immigrants in Germany deserve or are entitled to and to which degree they pose a threat to German culture. Political orientation of the allocator turns out to be an important predictor of how distributive and procedural justice concerns are evaluated. Both conservatives and liberals exhibit a different conception of what counts as distributive justice. With regard to procedural justice, however, liberals and conservatives did not differ much. Moreover, perceived threat to German culture is significantly related to distributive justice but not to procedural justice.     

“中国移民问题”：来自中俄的不同观点

“中国移民问题”是后苏联时代俄罗斯各界讨论甚至炒作的热点问题，但中国官方人士并不认可这一“问题”在俄罗斯的存在。中俄双方应就与人口跨国流动有关的概念性问题加强了解和沟通，以便达成共识，从而能更加妥善地解决相关问题。     

The enfranchisement of resident aliens: variations and explanations

What explains the timing of the liberalization of citizenship laws? Although scholars have offered a number of competing explanations for differences among citizenship regimes, few have examined the timing of liberalization and retraction of rights for non-citizens. To investigate the timing of both liberalization and reversal, this study examines the historical expansion of voting rights for non-citizen residents (VRA). Given both the symbolic and substantive consequences of VRA, democracies may proceed slowly when liberalizing political rights and may retract them quickly. Two bodies of scholarship offer competing explanations. The “national resilience” thesis suggests that differences in cultural definitions of citizenry, political institutions, and social policies produce national citizenship regimes that evolve slowly. By contrast, the “policy constraints” thesis asserts that domestic institutions enact human rights norms that expedite convergence around a common set of political rights. This study tests these explanations by examining the timing of liberalization of VRA in 25 democracies between 1975 and 2010. It finds factors that drive the timing of liberalization differ from those that cause the reversal of rights. While policy constraints best explain the timing of liberalization, policy constraints interact with national resilience factors to explain the retraction of rights.