Brown Bag Series- Denial, Deterrence, and Disenchantment: Why Many Never Immigrate

This book complements abundant research on immigrants by contributing novel data, knowledge, and theories about those who might have immigrated but did not, despite the benefits of migration to immigrants and migrant-origin and migrant-destination societies. The book examines three mechanisms that reduce immigration: denial of visas, deterrence of many from applying for visas, and ex-immigrants' disenchantment with immigration. Jacob Thomas extends the push-pull model of migration into a push-retain-pull-repel model that better explains why potential immigrants remain ambivalently immobile, providing evidence that retain factors in origin societies and repel factors in destination societies counteract and outweigh the push and pull factors that motivate immigration. Might-have-been-immigrants' narratives reveal an (im)mobility paradox: the factors that facilitate migration—socio-economic resources and social ties—also often impede immigration across different stages of the life course. Finally, examining denial, deterrence, and disenchantment alongside each other stimulates readers to think more globally about inequalities in migratory opportunities by revealing how countless people who never immigrate due to either denial, deterrence, or disenchantment are socio-economically stratified with respect to one another in ways that mirror theories of how immigrants are stratified in destination societies.