ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how states choose the level and type of immigrants they desire and how they enforce those policies to achieve their goals. States are the most important intervening factor between individuals’ migration choices and migration flows. The research in this area is theoretically rich; at least for countries of the Global North, researchers hypothesize that labor market considerations are central to immigration control policy decisions, along with interest groups and public opinion, filtered through domestic political and legal institutions. Enforcement mechanisms consist of screening potential immigrants prior to entry, inspecting immigrants at the border, and interior enforcement designed to detect, detain, and deport individuals who have skirted the state’s immigration controls. Although case study research has produced a rich array of hypotheses about the determinants of state policy, understanding of these issues has been hampered by a lack of agreed empirical referents for the concept of “immigration control.” Until researchers make progress on that front, sorting among the multiplicity of hypotheses is hampered; moreover, understanding of migration policies in the Global South is limited, with scholars only recently turning their attention to that part of the globe.
