Millions of people arrive in North America each year, including highly skilled immigrants and temporary workers, refugees, and international students. Migration, border control, and asylum are ongoing flashpoints in Canadian, American, and Mexican relations, and deeply affect the domestic politics and economies of each country.

While migration has emerged as an only increasingly charged topic in public discourse, research has largely focused on North America’s lack of regional integration around mobility, often neglecting aspects of regional cooperation, hierarchy, and global engagement. Migration Governance in North America advances that conversation by examining the complex dynamics of mobilities across the continent through contemporary analysis and historical context. Situating North America within the global migration landscape, contributors from Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Europe unpack such issues as temporary labour mobility, border security, asylum governance, refugee resettlement, and the role of local actors and activists in coping with changing policies and politics.

In the wake of a series of significant and likely enduring changes across the continent this flagship volume puts policy developments and migrant organizing in conversation across borders, investigates often contentious domestic, regional, and global migration politics, and reveals how intersecting policy frameworks affect the movement of people.

Migration Governance in North America engages the complex dynamics of mobilities across the continent. Situating North America within the global migration landscape, it unpacks such issues as temporary labour mobility, border security, asylum governance, refugee resettlement, and the role of local actors in coping with changing policies and politics.

“An enlightening, thoroughly researched, well-written volume. As well as researchers in refugee and migration studies, sociology, human geography, and international relations, the book will hold vast interest for those within the NGO and INGO communities.” James C. Simeon, York University and co-editor of The Criminalization of Migration: Context and Consequences

“[Migration Governance in North America] broadens the discussion of migration policy beyond a single issue: not just irregular migration, not just border policy, not just labour policies. It is well suited for graduate students, practitioners, and policy-oriented scholars, owing to its theoretical and empirical contributions.” Shannon Gleeson, Cornell University and co-author of Scaling Migrant Worker Rights: How Advocates Collaborate and Contest State Power

A comprehensive and cross-disciplinary assessment of the contemporary politics of North American migration, refugee, and asylum governance.

Kiran Banerjee is Canada Research Chair in Forced Migration and Refugee Policy and associate professor of political science at Dalhousie University.

Craig Damian Smith is co-founder and executive director of Pairity, and research affiliate at the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University.