ABSTRACT
The convergence of international migration with the welfare state since 1945 has added a second meaning: access to the social welfare system. Sustained immigration has forced western states to invent new combinations of rights for a range of migrants who are neither aliens nor full members of the host society. Using the welfare state to manage the resettlement of allied aliens fused bureaucracies involved in foreign policy, international migration, and social welfare. The Refugee Act of 1980 institutionalized the link between a status in the hierarchy of international migration and a status in the welfare state. The refugees' special status in the public aid system is temporary, but it represents a significant extension of social rights to a migrant population. Although the American state created a special social welfare status for Indochinese refugees to promote their adaptation, the welfare stigma rapidly transformed the refugees from valued emigres to burdensome welfare clients.
