The Construction of the Geography of Immigration as a Policy Problem

Abstract

The release of 2000 U.S. Census and 2001 Canadian Census data sparked significant interest in immigrant dispersal outside major urban centers. This article analyze show the meaning of immigration settlement patterns is socially constructed by using a comparative textual analysis of newspaper coverage of census findings as well as government documents and think tank studies. The authors argue that in Canada, immigration settlement is interpreted as a national policy problem necessitating federal state intervention, whereas presentations in U.S. print media construct immigration settlement as the outcome of choices made by individual immigrants and, thus, as local policy problems. In each case, construction of immigrant dispersal draws on national mythologies and omits alternative interpretations of the geography of immigrant settlement.