ABSTRACT
Centering the human rights paradigm in international migration scholarship, one can change the focus from the costs and benefits of international migration for sending and receiving countries and begin to consider the global, human impact of international migration and immigration control. It changes how sociologists approach the study of international migration. Sociologists who study international migration ask how many people migrate, who migrates, why people migrate, what happens to them once they arrive in the host country, and how migration affects sending communities. One major area of study for international migration scholars involves an analysis of what happens to voluntary labor migrants and refugees upon reaching their destinations. The dominant paradigm in sociology is assimilation: the process by which an immigrant settler and future generations of immigrants become part of the host country. Work in the field of international migration renders it evident that migrants do not live in a vacuum and that connections between countries are intimate and persistent.
