ABSTRACT
Immigration is one of the most widely discussed and debated issues globally in the twenty-first century. It represents an important contemporary social transformation, linking nations and diverse peoples across and within national boundaries. Between 1985 and 2005, the Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM) estimated that approximately two hundred million individuals were residing outside their country of birth, of these the largest numbers are hosted by Europe, followed by Asia and then North America (GCIM 2005; United Nations 2009; see also Fix et al. 2009).
