Immigration has long been the subject of contentious and polarizing policy debate in the United States. If the current administration's approach to immigration policy and enforcement has generated controversy, it is only the most recent to do so, and will surely not be the last. This course examines the larger U.S. immigration story against the background of international migration policy. It dwells on an apparent contradiction: on the one hand, among our country's most repeated foundational stories is that, to quote John F. Kennedy, our country is “a nation of immigrants”; on the other hand, the fact of immigration has repeatedly raised still unresolved questions about who belongs, paths to citizenship, economic fairness and, at times, racism and xenophobia. Perhaps more than any other issue, immigration has been at the center of how we have understood the “American experiment.”

The course will take us through some of the high and low points of how people and policies have either rejected, or sought to come to terms with, the realities of immigration on the ground. We will cover multiple historical phases of the U.S. response to immigration of specific immigrant groups from Europe, Latin America and elsewhere. We will focus on some of the policy and integration challenges connected with immigration, but also the evident advantages of regular in-migration for the economy, U.S. society, culture and innovation. We will discuss legal and policy differences between migrants, refugees and asylum seekers; and how these have mattered for people coming to the U.S. We will also look at how U.S. responses to immigration are at once distinct and also comparable to responses in Europe and elsewhere to unanticipated surges of new arrivals. Ultimately, how has immigration shaped our past, and what is the promise of immigration for our collective future?

Supplemental Readings: “Immigration Myths Die Hard,” Ernesto Castañeda, Center for Latin American and Latino Studies; “What is a migrant? What is ICE? 10 terms to help you understand the debate over immigration,” Ernesto Castañeda and Daniel Jenks, The Conversation; “Climate Disaster, Human Displacement, and the Risks of Non-Economic Loss for Latin America and the Caribbean,” Robert Albro, CLALS; “A New Look at Immigrants' Outsize Contributions to Innovation in the U.S,” Katie Savchuk, Insights by Stanford Business; “How Europe is Slowly Closing Its Doors to Asylum-Seekers,” Kevin Appleby, Center for Migration Studies.