January 2007 Issue of Migration Information Source

The January 2007 issue of Migration Information Source is up.  (Click here).  There are two stories that struck me as particularly interesting.

Expansion of the EU

The addition of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union means another round of anxieties about labor migrants. Catherine Drew and Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah of the Institute for Public Policy Research in London explain how this enlargement is different from the historic one in 2004 and why most EU Member States favor temporary restriction. As millions of revellers across Europe celebrated New Year’s Eve 2006, Bulgarians and Romanians had something else to celebrate. On January 1, 2007, their countries became the 26th and 27th members of the European Union (EU), bringing the EU’s population to 493 million. For the two newcomers, membership will bring immense rewards in terms of economic growth, trade, cultural exchange, and global diplomatic clout. For the existing Member States, especially the 15 “old” EU states who were members before 2004, the arrival of Romania and Bulgaria heralds yet another round of anxieties about a different sort of impact: the movement of people. Worried about the potential of being overwhelmed by workers moving from poorer, new Member States to richer old ones, the treaties governing the accession of new members have a “transitional” clause that allows existing Member States to restrict the free movement of “accession” workers for up to seven years.   Click here for the full story.

Immigrants in Nebraska

Nebraska’s foreign-born population grew faster than that of any other Midwestern state between 1990 and 2000. Lourdes Gouveia and Mary Ann Powell of the University of Nebraska at Omaha shed light on the second generation’s progress in the country’s heartland.  Click here to read the story.

KJ