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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.

Summary: This study contributes to the ongoing efforts to address systemic inequality within social work by examining Canadian social workers' attitudes toward immigrants who are permanent residents (PR), refugees, temporary residents (TR), or undocumented immigrants. Using a cross-sectional design with a convenience sample (n = 653), we explore how social workers' attitudes toward immigrants vary in relation to (a) respondents' demographics, (b) contact with immigrants, (c) perceptions of equal opportunities among immigrants, (d) perceptions of deservingness for immigrants with different legal statuses, and (e) the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on these attitudes. Findings: While Canadian social workers generally express positive attitudes toward immigrants, there is a slightly stronger endorsement for PR and refugees to access public services compared to nonstatus (NS) immigrants and TR. Social workers who identify as conservative or have limited contact with immigrants are more likely to perceive NS immigrants as potential criminal threats or burdens on the healthcare system. Significantly, a majority of respondents feel that their social work training inadequately prepares them to work effectively with immigrants. Applications: Canadian social workers advocate for principles of diversity, inclusion, and commitment to social justice. However, perceptions regarding which immigrants deserve access to social services vary based on legal status, suggesting a limitation in social workers' professional mandate. The study discusses implications for social work education and training, emphasizing the need to address and unsettle systemic racism within the profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 recent years, Canada has moved towards a system of 'two-step' immigration, wherein a growing proportion of new permanent residents are selected from people who are already in the country on a temporary work permit. While the 'two-step' selection approach has been lauded as improving immigrants' labour market outcomes, the process to achieve permanent residence can be complex and the stringent selection criteria prevent many migrants from attaining permanent status. In this paper, we examine the administrative burden that migrants with precarious status encounter in their interactions with state immigration bureaucracies as they try to attain permanent residence through economic programmes. The research is based on a qualitative analysis of interviews with 20 migrants with precarious status in the provinces of Ontario, Alberta and Quebec. Participants describe the stressful life consequences resulting from confusing and opaque administrative processes, unpredictable wait times, costly application fees, bureaucratic errors and a lack of accountability. We theorise how such experiences of administrative burden can compound into forms of bureaucratic violence that prolong migrant precarity, exacerbating the legal violence inherent in state immigration categories which deny full social rights to migrants without permanent residence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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,' [...]

A growing proportion of immigrants enter Canada on temporary resident permits to study or work, or they enter as asylum seekers—all with limited rights or access to permanent residence. As a result, transnational family separation is a growing phenomenon among immigrants who are unable to migrate as a family or who face barriers to family reunification. Using a systems-centered intersectional lens, the authors examine pathways to transnational family separation among immigrant women who arrived in Canada with precarious immigration status. Analysis draws from qualitative interviews with 35 immigrant women living in different regions of Ontario, Canada. Through examining intersecting social systems and processes, the authors analyze how transnational family separation is constituted through embedded gendered, racial, and class processes in Canada's immigration system and labor market, which normalize family separation as a common experience for racialized immigrants in Canada. Given the harms associated with prolonged family separation, the authors urge the social work profession to advocate for immigration policies that prioritize family reunification and uphold the rights of migrants to maintain family unity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

This article examines how the right to sponsor family members' immigration is framed by migrant caregivers in relation to Canadian legislation and political rhetoric. We focus on official immigration policy and political rhetoric between 2014–2018, a period when Canada imposed stringent language and education requirements on migrant workers seeking permanent residence. By examining how political rhetoric frames migrant caregivers as not earning "enough" to migrate with their families, we illustrate how lawmakers promote tolerance for differential inclusion within multicultural discourse. Migrant caregivers, the majority of whom originate in the Philippines, similarly employ market-based values to position themselves as deserving the right to sponsor their family members' immigration. They also draw upon traditional ethics of reciprocal obligation, however, to frame their relationship to Canadian employers and the state in ways that reconstruct the terms of multicultural citizenship in Canada. [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.

Applying selected psychoanalytic constructs from Freud and Klein to recent pervasive rhetoric around anti-immigration in the United States, we conducted a critical discourse analysis of media and policy representations of immigrants in recent news coverage in the United States regarding the Trump Administration's response to (1) asylum claims related to domestic violence and gang violence and (2) undocumented immigrants. We illustrate how feared bad object/immigrants are constructed alongside the imagined good object/nationalism, as exemplified by Trump's motto – "Make America Great Again" (MAGA). We argue how this paranoid-schizoid position reifies racism veiled under nationalism and discuss how social workers could work together toward the depressive position re-imagining America-as-the-whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Canadian Experience" is a paradox for many immigrants in Canada and contributes to their exclusion from the labour market. Through an analysis of Canadian English print media, from 2006 to 2011, we illustrate how "Canadian Experience" discourse places the responsibility of immigrant labour market integration on immigrants themselves and constructs their experiences of exclusion as non-racial. This is theorized as a "post-racial" strategy that relies on anti-racialism (avoidance of racial references) to deny the existence and effects of racism, thereby allowing the Canadian public to maintain its façade of innocence but perpetuates "racism without racists". The discourse de-historicizes postcolonial racial hierarchy and promotes a de-racialized neo-liberal model for immigrant inclusion. This has implications for anti-racism and settlement service provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including systemic inequities; transformative scholarship; and social work's professional values.

As part of emerging scholarship on border governance, this article examines how discourses of "fraud" in Canada merge with public management techniques to produce structurally embedded borders. We focus on regulatory changes introduced between 2010 and 2014 that aimed to deter and punish people who participate in "marriage fraud." We then present the gendered and racialized impact of antifraud regulations through a case analysis of the implementation of Conditional Permanent Resident status (PR) from 2012 to 2017, which required some newly sponsored spouses and partners to remain in a conjugal relationship with their sponsor for two years after immigration. Our analysis of parliamentary proceedings illustrates how public management logics and the use of new digital technologies are mobilized to expand border enforcement practices internally and outside the territorial boundaries of the nation. We argue that despite the repeal of conditional PR in 2017, the deterrence of marriage fraud through structurally embedded borders continues to regulate racialized immigrants in exclusionary ways that disproportionately impact women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper presents findings from an exploratory study with Master of Social Work (MSW) graduates in Canada to explore the extent to which their classroom and practicum learning addressed social justice and anti-oppressive practice. Thirty-five MSW graduates took part in a semi-structured online survey regarding the quality of social justice knowledge and practice skills in their field instruction and coursework. The survey also examined how graduates employ social justice in their current social work practice. The majority of the study sample reported favorable educational outcomes and embraced social justice goals in their current practice. Discourse analysis of written comments, however, identified a disconnect between social justice theory, field education, and the overall climate of the social work program. Despite an explicit endorsement of social justice values by the program and the profession, graduates reported limited opportunities to learn anti-oppressive practice or apply social justice theories in their field education. We argue that the 'hidden curriculum' in social work education reflects market pressures that privilege task-oriented goals while 'mainstreaming' social justice rhetoric. Skills to confront oppression with transformative change are viewed as abstract goals and thus less useful than clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores how Latina women fleeing gender-related violence seek protection for themselves and their children under Canada's humanitarian laws. Rising emphasis on border control contributes to a growing number of forced migrants whose transnational movement is constructed as “illegal.” Migrants who fall outside legal migration channels are exposed to precarious conditions that can lead to further violence. Through interpretive analysis of in-depth interviews with women from Mexico and Central America, we explore how immigration policies produce gendered forms of “illegality.” We also highlight how women's migration in search for rights and protection represents a form of substantive citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Based on a survey of 1,124 social workers in the United States, this article examines how practitioners' attitudes towards immigrants and their general knowledge of immigration varied according to the content of their social work education. Although the majority of practitioners reported receiving coursework on practice with immigrants, this showed no effect on their attitudes or knowledge. In contrast, coursework on immigration policy predicted more favorable attitudes towards immigrants. Considering the mounting anti-immigrant sentiment and retrenchment of immigrants' rights in the United States, the results suggest the need to further explore what course work content is needed to prepare social workers for the current needs of the field. We argue that social work education must expand upon existing cultural competence models of practice with immigrants, to better prepare social workers to address the deepening social exclusion of undocumented immigrants in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines how nongovernmental service providers navigate devolutionary trends in Canada, in both immigration control and integration policy, when responding to migrants who come to them for help and support. Drawing upon conceptualizations of citizenship as a 'negotiated relationship' (), I explore how social service providers, who work amidst a complex interplay of federal, provincial, and local policies, can influence both who is deemed worthy of social membership and what rights an individual can successfully claim from the state. Empirically, this article focuses on observation of community meetings and conversational interviews with service providers in violence against women shelters in Toronto, Ontario, Canada's most populous and diverse city. While service providers navigate different levels of government to advocate for women's rights to seek safety from abuse, I argue that both individual service providers and the organizations in which they work monitor and constrain the degree to which they openly challenge state authority to restrict immigrants' 'right to have rights' (, 296). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Devolutionary trends in immigration and social welfare policy have enabled different levels of government to define membership and confer rights to people residing within the political boundary of a province or municipality in ways that may contradict federal legal status. Drawing upon theories of postnational and deterritorialized citizenship, we examined the legal construction of social rights within federal, provincial, and municipal law in Toronto, Ontario. The study of these different policy arenas focuses on rights related to education, access to safety and police protection, and income assistance. Our analysis suggests that the interplay of intra-governmental laws produces an uneven terrain of social rights for people with precarious status. We argue that while provincial and municipal governments may rhetorically seek to advance the social rights of all people living within their territorial boundaries, program and funding guidelines ensure that national practices of market citizenship and the policing of non-citizen subjects are reproduced at local levels. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We present a discourse analysis of social work practitioners’ commentaries on undocumented immigrants that were collected from a survey of practicing social workers’ attitudes toward immigration and immigrants. Analyzing 198 open-ended comments, we explore the discursive mechanisms practitioners employ to construct undocumented immigrants, and their professional responsibilities toward them. These views are illustrative of the ways in which the profession determines inclusion and exclusion, writ large in national immigration policies and laws and played out in the arenas of social work and social services. Disparate views of practitioners highlight tensions in the profession's relationships to law and social policies as well as to its own ethics and identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this work was to survey social work practitioners regarding their attitudes towards immigrants, and to develop a multidomain scale measuring these attitudes. A convenience sample of 1,124 practitioners in 47 states participated in the survey, which was administered online. The 28 attitude questions were designed as Likert scale items probing five domains: immigrant assimilation, perceived threat, immigration policy, receipt of social services, and responsibilities of social workers towards immigrants. The practitioners exhibited positive attitudes towards immigrants in general, but were less favorable towards undocumented immigrants, reflecting the bifurcation of immigrants into deserving and undeserving populations, a problematic trend evident in society at large. Scale scores for the five domains were all strongly intercorrelated and did not appear to tap into different underlying domains around which attitudes varied. Thus, data from the five domains were collapsed into a single attitudes scale that had a test−retest reliability of 0.97 and a Cronbach's alpha of 0.95. More favorable attitude scales scores were predicted by Hispanic ethnicity, a liberal political outlook, higher income, and more community and professional contact with immigrants. Those working at organizations with “don't ask, don't tell” policies regarding client's documentation status and at agencies that provide services to undocumented immigrants had more favorable attitude scale scores. This study illustrates the need for social work to better address the impact of immigrant policies on access to services and clarify the professional ethics towards both legal and undocumented immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the construction of social rights in public policy and social service delivery in Canada. It presents an analysis of the strategies applied by service providers to maximize social rights for migrants while mitigating the effects of immigration enforcement. It concludes that social workers and other service providers are obliged to develop policy alternatives to redress injustice facing migrants with precarious status in the nation.

Many Native women embrace the term two-spirit to capture their sexuality and gender expression. By analyzing the narratives of five two-spirit women who are Native activists, we explored contemporary understandings of the concept and what it means for Native communities. The incorporation of the identity within indigenous world views, its manifestation in terms of (be)coming out, and the triple stressors of heterosexism, racism, and sexism emerged as key themes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]