How do refugees navigate and reshape the EU’s geopolitics of asylum? Drawing on fieldwork in Greece, @G.Mavrommatis shows how refugees enact their geopolitics in practice, exercising freedom as possibility within and against restrictive EU and national regimes.
#OpenAccess
doi.org/10.1093/migr...
How do South Asian parents balance gender equality and safety in student migration? Studying expatriate families in the UAE, @A. M. Paul and @S. A. Parwani show daughters study abroad as often as sons, yet parents still manage risks through gendered choices.
#OpenAccess
doi.org/10.1093/migr...
How does US immigration enforcement treat pregnant migrants? @qabila.bsky.social and @M. Téllez show how detention policies under both parties render them disposable, exposing how profit extraction and racialized control persist even under claims of humanitarian exception.
doi.org/10.1093/migr...
Why do similar refugee aid deals diverge? Comparing the Jordan and Ethiopia Jobs Compacts, @S.Almasri and @A.A.Nigusie show how contrasting political strategies shaped employment reforms, showing that rapid reforms do not always lead to sustainable refugee self-reliance.
doi.org/10.1093/migr...
Screenshot of the abstract of the article, "Una Mujer Embarazada necesita el sol": Pregnant migrant women, carceral capitalism, and immigration enforcement at the US-Mexico border, by Amanda Heffernan and Michelle Téllez, in Migration Studies, Volume 14, Issue 1, March 2026. Abstract full text: The US immigration detention and deportation system is a vector for state violence against criminalized, racialized populations, in service to racial capitalism. The immigration policies of both Democrats and Republicans are designed to extract profit from migrants, disciplining them as a deportable underclass of workers while minimizing and externalizing the costs of social reproduction. The detention of pregnant women presents the immigration enforcement system with both discursive and material challenges, as detaining pregnant women entails additional potential costs and exposes the system to public critique on humanitarian grounds. Through an analysis of the experiences of detained pregnant women at the US/Mexico border, we argue that federal immigration policy in USA renders pregnant migrant women disposable and expendable, even during administrations that purport to make humanitarian exceptions for them. We describe and analyze processes of profit extraction, externalization of social reproduction, and symbolic exploitation in relation to the detention of pregnant women from the last year of the Obama administration in 2016 through 2022. Our findings demonstrate that recent Democratic and Republican administrations alike mobilize discursive and material practices to neutralize the challenge embodied by pregnant detainees, preserving and protecting an ever-expanding and privatized immigration enforcement system while causing profound harm to pregnant women and their families.
How does immigration policy intersect with reproductive oppression in the United States? Proud to share our new article exploring the experiences of pregnant people detained, excluded or expelled by US immigration enforcement from 2017-2022. @migrationjrnl.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1093/migr...
Do economic conditions shape anti-immigrant attitudes in non-Western contexts? Using survey data from Japan, @M. Aikawa finds that while opposition peaked during economic downturns, macro and individual economic indicators only partly explain shifting attitudes.
#OpenAccess
doi.org/10.1093/migr...
In our latest issue, @J.Diab explores how class shapes displacement in Lebanon after the Israel–Hezbollah escalation. The study shows wealthier families preserved comfort, while poorer households faced overcrowding and deepened precarity revealing a class-contingent process.
doi.org/10.1093/migr...
How does urban resilience in refugee governance work under centralised rule? @ricardzapata.bsky.social shows that in Turkey it often stabilises power rather than transforms it by reinforcing loyalty, adaptation, and continuity. A sharp rethink of the “local turn": doi.org/10.1093/migr...
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Urban resilience in Turkish refugee governance: Loyalty, adaptation, and continuity url: academic.oup.com/migration/ar...
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How does China manage the transition from education to skilled migration? A. Zi Wang shows that while China offers inclusive higher education access, especially for students from the Global South, significant structural barriers hinder their transition into the labour market.
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How do local actors navigate and enforce restrictive migration policies? T. Øland examines Denmark’s integration workers, showing how they function as “fiery soul” bureaucrats who both reinforce state-imposed restrictions and create space for care, order, and ethical agency.
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What determines long-term outcomes for return migrants in rural settings? Drawing on surveys, Sugden et al. show that return outcomes are deeply shaped by ongoing patterns of agrarian differentiation.
doi.org/10.1093/migr...
How do internally displaced children born during captivity in Uganda navigate post-war life? Drawing on interviews and art-making, @M.Denov and @O.Alexandrakis use the concept of #wayfinding to show how shared memory and imagination shape belonging and agentive future-making.
doi.org/10.1093/migr...
What drives host states to adopt inclusive migration policies? Daniel Rojas , Alfredo Trejo, Margaret Peters, and Yang-Yang Zhou show how border pragmatism, economic benefits, and reputational gains drove Colombia’s inclusive response to Venezuelan migration.
#OpenAccess
doi.org/10.1093/migr...
We've expanded our Editorial Team: @aalrababah.bsky.social has joined as a new associate editor! Ala is in the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Bocconi University, focusing on migration and political violence using experiments and computational methods. Welcome to the journal!
03.10.2025 07:08 — 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0Spreading the word via @imiscoe.bsky.social @enmisa.bsky.social @migcitizenapsa.bsky.social @ecpr-migration.bsky.social @tsourapas.bsky.social
03.10.2025 06:28 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0All topics welcome! Each SI will bring together up to 15 articles, with an introduction that frames key themes, debates, and contributions to migration studies. We particularly encourage initiatives led by or including scholars from the Global South, Global East, and non-anglophone regions.
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Our call for Special Issues is now live! We welcome collections that advance theoretical debates, offer comparative insight, and push methodological boundaries. Deadline: 15 December 2025. Questions: get in touch with @mkoinova.bsky.social. Details: academic.oup.com/migration/pa...
03.10.2025 06:28 — 👍 4 🔁 6 💬 1 📌 1
Why do #subnational units restrict internal migration? Based on fieldwork in Batam, Indonesia, Isabelle Côté proposes the 'IM+IGE' framework to show how institutions, geography, and elites shape local responses to internal migration.
#OpenAccess
doi.org/10.1093/migr...
How do social networks shape migrants’ platform work? Studying food couriers in Norway, Maizi Hua introduces “copy-paste paths” to show how migrants replicate strategies through networks, supporting mobility and integration alongside risks like peer pressure and exploitation.
doi.org/10.1093/migr...
Is irregular migration really a recent phenomenon? Drawing on colonial archives, Y. Benhadda traces #lhrig, a Maghrebi term for irregular border crossing, back to colonial Morocco, challenging dominant narratives of crisis and unprecedentedness in today’s migration debates.
doi.org/10.1093/migr...
The report is available on our "About the Journal" page here under "Annual Report": academic.oup.com/migration/pa...
08.09.2025 06:34 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0We really couldn’t do this without the tremendous work and support of our current editorial team, advisory board members, and conscientious reviewers. Looking ahead, we have lots on our agenda: Open Science, widening our audiences, exploring new submission formats… Keep an eye out in the future!
08.09.2025 06:32 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0Our Impact Factor rose to 2.7, firmly in the top-quartile of Demography-indexed journals. We accepted about 1-in-5 special issue proposals on topics like “living with difference in cities” and “unusual places of sanctuary and refuge.”
08.09.2025 06:32 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
A line chart showing a steep rise in monthly submissions from 2024 onwards
A stacked line chart showing the breakdown of submissions in 2024 by world region. Most submissions consistently have come from Europe and Central Asia.
Four charts showing the distribution of days that it took each manuscript to be processed. They show a steep increase in quicker desk rejections in 2024 compared to previous years.
A table of acceptance rates from 2021 to 2024. While the final 2024 rate is pending, it suggests a decrease in acceptance rates to about 10%.
Highlights: Submissions rose by 71% to 478. Provisional 2024 acceptance rate is 9.9%. First decisions took 10 days (median), down from 36 days in 2023, mainly due to more desk rejecting. Submissions came from 80 countries, up from 60 in 2023, though mainly from Europe and Central Asia.
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A summary of key points from the first Migration Studies annual report covering calendar year 2024: submissions rise by 71%, with nearly half of them coming from Europe and Central Asia; about 10% acceptance rate; first decisions (whether sent out for external review or not) taking less time; the two-year impact factor rose to 2.7; and special issue topics included 'living with difference in cities' and 'unusual places of sanctuary and refuge'.
We are excited to release our first annual editorial report, covering 2024! Publishing data on submissions and decisions, as well as explaining policy changes, is part of our commitment to transparency. Link: static.primary.prod.gcms.the-infra.com/static/migra... #migcitsky #polisky #econsky #socsky
08.09.2025 06:32 — 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 2
How do states balance open markets with pressure to control migration? Studying Switzerland, S. Lavenex, P. Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik, M. Alvarado, and P. Lutz show how business migration as a high-skilled market model offers an escape from the liberal paradox.
#OpenAccess
doi.org/10.1093/migr...
How do migrant caravans challenge state control by manipulating time? Drawing on fieldwork and geography, Margath Walker introduces the “time of pilgrimage” to show how delays and fragmented movement disrupt migration governance and subvert state-centric temporalities.
doi.org/10.1093/migr...
What drives public attitudes toward refugees? T. Hillenbrand, B. Martorano, L. Metzger, and M. Siegel show that humanitarian messaging boosts concern and support for aid, while highlighting young male refugees increases threat perceptions and reduces support for admissions.
doi.org/10.1093/migr...
What shapes refugee liminality in rural settings? Based on fieldwork in Estonia, R. Nugin shows how legal uncertainties, ambiguous state bureaucracy, and an unstable rural economy create overlapping liminalities for Ukrainian refugees, offering new insights into their experiences.
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