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As part of a national survey on social workers' attitudes toward immigrants and immigration (N=4,499), we collected information on respondents' perceptions of immigrants as threats and respondents' views on structural inequality as it pertains to immigrants' opportunities for success. Contrary to the Council on Social Work Education's Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards stating the need for social workers to understand the existence and functioning of structural forces of inequality, nearly a third of our respondents denied that immigrants are disadvantaged compared to U.S.-born citizens, and more than a third denied that disadvantage is related to race, ethnicity, or national origin. Those who denied disadvantage were more likely than those who did not to see immigrants as threats. We provide interpretations for these findings and offer some recommendations for social work research and education geared toward deepening practitioners' knowledge of the structural barriers faced by immigrants.

In this article, we apply theories of non-citizenship assemblage to conceptualise the dynamic relationship of social determinants of health for international students in Canada who face barriers to accessing COVID-19 vaccines and verifying their vaccination status. Social workers' roles in responding to and reducing these inequities are also discussed with attention to micro practice, meso service integration, and macro public policy advocacy. Through theorising assembled inequities emerging from Canada's COVID-19 vaccination policies, this article offers guidance for future social work research and practice towards promoting justice and equity for transnational populations who are often excluded from domestic social welfare programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores international domestic workers' response to employer abuse and exploitation following changes to Canada's Live-in-Caregiver Program in 2014. This research followed an interpretive policy analysis research design, using feminist, participatory, and action research methods. University-based researchers, advocates, and peer researchers collaborated to develop and implement the project's research and advocacy goals. Thirty-one caregivers in Toronto and Calgary participated in individual and/or focus group interviews to discuss access to permanent residence, working conditions and forms of support. Many shared examples of labor exploitation and psychological hardship due to precarious work conditions and long periods of family separation. Barriers to accessing services and fear of losing status led the majority of caregivers to rely primarily on informal networks for mutual aid and support. This paper identifies how changes in Canada's temporary foreign worker program for live-in-caregivers exacerbates the structural violence of migrant care work, where the risk for abuse, exploitation, and risk of losing status is normalized. Migrant caregivers accept the precarious work conditions with the promise of permanent residence and the chance to improve their lives for themselves and their children. Towards envisioning improvements in social service delivery, our research highlighted the need for social services to increase outreach and safety planning for migrant workers who are vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, and the loss of legal immigration status. Our research also supports grassroots advocacy to call for all migrant workers to be granted permanent resident status upon arrival to ameliorate the structural violence of migrant labor., Author(s): Rupaleem Bhuyan [sup.1] [sup.2] , Lorraine Valmadrid [sup.2] , Esel Laxa Panlaqui [sup.2] [sup.3] , Novabella L. Pendon [sup.2] , Pearlita Juan [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) 0000 0001 2157 [...]

In the context of U.S. public policy, "battered immigrant" signifies a person who is eligible to adjust his or her status under immigration law if he or she can demonstrate they have suffered domestic violence in the United States perpetrated by a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident. Among community organizers, the term "battered immigrant" signifies a broader range of people for whom legal immigration status plays a role in their options for safety planning and/or leaving an abuser, the potential threat of deportation, and the eligibility for public benefits. Based on an ethnographic study of domestic violence advocacy with South Asian immigrants in Seattle and around the United States, this article examines how the difference in signification has direct social and political consequences with regard to who may access the benefits and protection offered to victims of domestic violence in the United States. (Contains 3 tables.)

Asian populations living in the United States share similar cultural values that influence their experiences with domestic violence. However, it is critical to recognize how differential cultural beliefs in the context of immigration and adjustment to life in the United States affect attitudes, interpretations, and response to domestic violence. This article discusses findings from community-based participatory action research that explores how Cambodian immigrant women talk about domestic violence, what forms of abuse contribute to domestic violence, and what strategies they use to cope with and respond to abuse in their lives. The richness of this research lies in the stories that immigrant women tell about their struggle and their strength in addressing domestic violence.

Participatory action research (PAR) is increasingly recognized as a viable approach to developing relationships with communities and working closely with them to address complex public health problems. In the case of domestic violence research, where ensuring the safety of women participants who are battered is paramount, participatory approaches to research that include advocates and women who are battered in research design, implementation, analysis, and dissemination are critical to successful and mutually beneficial projects. This article presents a case study of a PAR project that conducted formative qualitative research on domestic violence in nine ethnic and sexual minority communities. The article describes the specific ways in which a PAR approach was operationalized and discusses in detail how community participation shaped various stages of the research. Furthermore, specific actions that resulted from the research project are reported.

Aviva Chomsky, Undocumented: How Immigration Became Illegal (Boston, Beacon Press, 2015) TWO THOUSAND AND FIFTEEN IS the year Donald Trump, a leading Republican Presidential candidate, infamously calls Latinos 'violent criminals,' [...]

This investigation examined the relationships between physical, psychological, and sexual abuse along with vulnerability appraisals, positive and negative social relations, and socioeconomic resources on battered women's depression symptomatology and physical functioning. Women were recruited following an incident of partner violence that resulted in a police-report or the filing of a protection order. Participants were surveyed using a standardized questionnaire. Bivariate correlations and multiple regressions were used to examine the relationships between predictors as well as the cumulative and unique contributions of each variable set in explaining depression and physical functioning. Findings indicate that vulnerability appraisals, social relations, and socioeconomic resources significantly explain women's depression and physical functioning over and above the unique effect of specific types of partner violence. Given that women's physical and mental health are important aspects of assisting women with safety planning arm violence cessation strategies, implications for assessment and interventions for battered women are discussed. Keywords: domestic violence; battered women; depression; health; vulnerability; resources

This article presents a case study of how regional and municipal governments in Toronto, Ontario, use the concept of resilience to frame the challenges faced by immigrants and the steps governments are taking to promote immigrant integration. In the past decade, resilience has emerged as a policy framework to encourage positive adaptation of people and institutions that are facing social, economic and environmental challenges associated with population growth and economic globalisation. As a policy discourse, the concept of resilience is used to identify which immigrants need social and psychological support to better cope with pre- and post-migration stressors. Although government discourse acknowledges some of the structural inequities migrants face that require resilience (e.g. poverty, systemic racism, precarious employment), the discourse on migrant resilience notably omits government responsibility to enact structural solutions. Even the City of Toronto's anti-racism campaign, which seeks to reduce racial bias and discrimination against immigrants, frames 'civic resilience' as an individual responsibility. Despite the promise of resilience to emphasise immigrants' capabilities, we argue that resilience discourse operates as a type of diversity management strategy to identify which immigrants warrant government support to maximise their economic contributions to the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on interviews with service providers and legal advocates in Canada, this article explores how bordering practices shape front-line service delivery with immigrant women seeking safety from domestic violence. Our research examines the implementation of 'conditional permanent residence' (conditional PR) between 2012 and 2017. Conditional PR applied to some newly sponsored spouses and partners who were required to cohabit with their sponsoring spouse/partner for two years following their arrival in Canada in order to retain their permanent resident status. We illustrate how conditional PR exacerbated the vulnerabilities already facing spousal immigrants by linking deportation to the failure to cohabit with their spouse. In particular, we examine the implementation of an 'exception for abuse and neglect', whereby victims of domestic violence could apply to remove the condition on their permanent resident status. We argue that when service providers mobilized their 'ways of knowing' about domestic violence to verify a sponsored spouse's claims of abuse, they inadvertently took part in regulating 'deserving' versus deportable immigrants. This research develops a gendered analysis of deportability towards theorizing how bordering practices operate through the shadow state to regulate racialized immigrant women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including the close ties between the carceral state and the social welfare state; social workers position at the nexus of both care and control; and Spain's domestic violence services and the carceral system.

A study was conducted to investigate how new requirements to verify citizenship and identity for Medicaid directly affects social entitlements for both citizen and non-citizen populations. It is argued that devolutionary changes in welfare and immigration policy further constraints who can benefit from the full range of rights and entitlements associated with U.S. citizenship.