Speaker:
Robbie Totten, Visiting Assistant Professor, UCSB Political Science Department

The volume of international migration has been rapidly rising in recent decades and America is the largest recipient state of immigrants in the world today. In response to controversial and pressing issues stemming from immigration, President Obama and Congress are attempting comprehensive reform in 2013 on a scale arguably not seen since the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. And since 9/11, select national security issues (notably, terrorism and enforcement) have dominated the immigration debate in Washington and are informing policy decisions. Despite the urgency of this topic, the International Relations (IR) discipline---a field equipped to help the policy world in this area---has had relatively little to say regarding it. This talk will use IR/Security Studies concepts and literature and case studies of American immigration policy decisions over the past two centuries to reveal that academic and Washington's thinking on national security and immigration is incomplete and provide a more balanced view in the area.