1. Immigration to the European Union: The Importance of Geographic Reference in Defining Demographic Trends.
- Author
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Huntoon, Laura
- Subjects
- *
EMIGRATION & immigration , *POPULATION , *DEMOGRAPHY , *SOCIAL sciences , *SOCIAL status - Abstract
This article presents a reply to a commentary made on the article "Immigration to Spain: Implications for a Unified European Union Immigration Policy." Geographies of reference define how we view and analyze political problems. The importance of terminology is highlighted by the commentary and what implications demography itself will have on a unified European Union (EU) immigration policy. If we use immigrant to refer to individuals entering the EU, then EU citizens are no longer immigrants but citizens changing geographic location within the territory adhering to the EU. EU citizens are no longer immigrants whose movement across borders within the EU can be "controlled" by Spanish immigration policy. Nevertheless, everyone who is not a Spanish citizen is still a foreigner in Spain. Perhaps after reading too much Euro-literature, I had come to believe quite unreflectively that Spain is a unit of Europe and that Europeans or EU citizens in Spain are no longer immigrants. This idea is a reflection of a distinction that is not clearly delineated in speech but is in policy practice between immigrants originating within the EU and those originating from beyond the EU. Further distinctions in Spanish policy circles are made between economic immigrants from impoverished countries and immigrants from wealthier non-EU countries. The classification of EU citizens as foreign national and immigrant is ambiguous. In the Spanish census, EU citizens are included as foreign nationals.
- Published
- 1999
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