Comparative Immigration Policy: North American and European Perspectives 2100-ERASMUS-CIPN
COURSE SCHEDULE
WEEK 1
Why Compare Migration Policy? Institutions, Categories, and the Politics of Control
This opening session introduces the basic questions that will guide the course: what migration policy is, why states adopt different approaches, and how we can tell whether policies actually achieve what governments say they are intended to do.
We will consider what comparison can reveal about migration policy, including how similarities and differences in institutions, political interests, legal frameworks, and administrative practice shape policy choices and outcomes across jurisdictions.
The session also examines the categories through which governments distinguish between migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, workers, and other groups, treating both policy objectives and policy categories as questions for analysis in their own right.
WEEK 2
The International Migration and Refugee Regimes: Institutions, Rights, and State Discretion
This session examines the international refugee regime through the tension between state sovereignty and international protection.
We will consider what the Refugee Convention protects, what it leaves outside its scope, and why states have preserved substantial discretion over admission and status.
Particular attention is given to the Convention’s individualized persecution standard and its limited fit with contemporary mass displacement: why are people fleeing war and generalized violence not automatically recognized as Convention refugees, even when international organizations commonly describe them as refugees?
The session asks what the existing regime achieves, where its limits and exclusions lie, and whether those limits reflect necessary legal distinctions or an outdated and politically selective system of protection.
WEEK 3
United States: Immigration, Asylum, Enforcement, Temporary Protection / Memo Workshop
This session examines the structure and politics of U.S. immigration policy, with particular attention to the U.S.–Mexico border, unauthorized migration, enforcement, and the extensive role of executive discretion.
We will consider how asylum, Temporary Protected Status, humanitarian parole, and DACA create different forms of legal protection and precarity, and how changing administrations can dramatically alter their operation.
The session also explores the role of ICE, immigration courts, federal–state conflict, and public opposition in shaping deportation and enforcement outcomes.
WEEK 4
Canada: Selection, Temporary Migration, Asylum, and Humanitarian Admission
This session examines Canada’s managed immigration model through the tensions between selection, temporariness, asylum, and humanitarian admission.
We will consider how economic immigration, temporary work and study programs, and the growing pathway from temporary to permanent status distribute security and precarity unevenly across migrant groups.
The session then distinguishes refugee protection from exceptional humanitarian measures such as the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET), as well as humanitarian and compassionate (H&C) relief, asking how humanitarian framing can obscure other policy logics, including labor market incorporation, self reliance, administrative flexibility, and limited commitments to permanence.
We also examine the Safe Third Country Agreement and recent restrictions on access to asylum, before considering Canada’s sharp 2024–2026 shift away from rapid immigration growth and what this reversal reveals about the political, economic, and institutional limits of the Canadian model.
WEEK 5
European Union: Free Movement, Immigration, Asylum, and Temporary Protection
This session examines the European Union as a distinctive system of migration governance, combining internal free movement with highly regulated migration and asylum for nationals of third countries.
We will consider how EU institutions and member states share authority over Schengen, asylum, border control, and the 2024 Pact on Migration and Asylum, including the growing externalization of migration control.
The session also introduces the Temporary Protection Directive as an exceptional response to mass displacement, preparing for the following week’s comparison of protection for displaced Ukrainians.
WEEK 6
Comparing Temporary Protection: Displaced Ukrainians across the EU, Canada, and the United States
This session compares temporary protection for Ukrainians in the European Union, Canada, and the United States, examining how different legal instruments produce different rights, forms of security, and routes beyond temporary status.
We will consider how humanitarian admission interacts with labor market incorporation, private and family support, administrative discretion, and assumptions of eventual return, and how prolonged displacement turns duration and permanence into central policy problems.
Particular attention is given to the evolving EU framework, including the 2026 decision extending temporary protection until 4 March 2028 and introducing a new condition related to military obligations for certain beneficiaries, as an example of how temporary protection can be redefined over time.
WEEK 7
Borders, Irregular Migration, and Enforcement in Comparative Perspective
This session examines how states produce, police, and enforce the boundary between regular and irregular migration.
We will consider how legal status can become irregular through changing rules and administrative decisions, why migrants undertake dangerous journeys or rely on smugglers when regular pathways are unavailable, and how enforcement operates at the border, within state territory, and through cooperation with other countries.
Particular attention is given to deportability, detention and removal, externalized enforcement, and the tension between humanitarian protection and coercive control, including Canada’s administrative deferral of removals and recent U.S. deportations of Ukrainians through Poland.
WEEK 8
Poland: Migration, Ukrainian Displacement, and the Politics of Selective Solidarity
This session examines Poland’s transformation from a country of emigration into a major destination for labor migrants and displaced people, with particular attention to the changing position of Ukrainians before and after 2022.
We will consider how labor market incorporation, national identity, security politics, and perceptions of deservingness shaped Poland’s contrasting responses to Ukrainian displacement and asylum seekers arriving through Belarus, as well as conflicts over the division of authority between Poland and the European Union in migration governance.
The session concludes by examining the erosion of public and political solidarity toward Ukrainians by 2026, asking how prolonged settlement can reshape the boundaries between the welcomed refugee, the economically useful migrant, and the politically contested outsider.
WEEK 9
The Politics of Immigration: Parties, Public Opinion, Deservingness, and Welfare
This session examines how immigration becomes politically meaningful through public attitudes, media discourse, party competition, and judgments about who is deserving of admission, membership, and social support.
We will consider how perceptions of economic and cultural threat, identity, contribution, and belonging shape attitudes toward migrants and refugees, and how political parties can increase or reduce the salience of immigration by framing it as an economic resource, a social concern, or a cultural and security threat.
The session also examines how these political and social classifications are experienced by refugees themselves, particularly through welfare, employment, integration, and expectations of self reliance and gratitude.
Across these perspectives, we will ask whether public opinion drives political responses to immigration, whether political and media actors help produce those attitudes, and how ideas of deservingness become translated into different expectations of who may enter, belong, receive support, and remain.
WEEK 10
Comparative Research Design and Final Paper Workshop
This concluding session brings together the comparative approaches developed throughout the course and applies them to students’ final research projects.
We will review how to formulate a manageable analytical question, select cases on meaningful grounds, choose methods appropriate to the research problem, and use legal, policy, academic, and empirical sources to support a clear argument.
Students will workshop their research questions, case selection, provisional arguments, evidence, and research design with peers and the instructor, with particular attention to scope, feasibility, and the limits of inference.
The session will also revisit major themes from the course, including the role of institutions, legal categories, political actors, public attitudes, and administrative practices in shaping migration policy across jurisdictions.
We will conclude with a brief discussion of the future of immigration and refugee policy, major critiques of existing approaches, and students’ own perspectives and experiences across different national contexts.
Required preparation
Final Paper Research Binder / Workshop Materials. Bring a brief working research packet containing your research question; cases or jurisdictions and grounds for comparison; provisional argument or expectation; proposed method and evidence; short paper outline; 5–8 key sources; and one or two questions or problems for feedback.
This packet is required preparation for Week 10 and forms part of that session’s participation assessment; it is not a separate graded assignment.
Before the workshop, revisit Walk (1998), “How to Write a Comparative Analysis.”
Course coordinators
Mode
Learning outcomes
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
Explain and compare major approaches to immigration, asylum, temporary protection, and migration enforcement across North American and European jurisdictions.
Analyze how legal categories, institutions, political priorities, and administrative practices shape rights, security, mobility, and access to permanence.
Analyze how authority and responsibility for admission, protection, mobility, and enforcement are divided between sovereign states and international, regional, and supranational institutions.
Use comparative analysis to identify meaningful similarities and differences between migration policy systems and explain their causes and consequences.
Evaluate migration policies using academic research, legal and policy documents, government sources, and contemporary reporting, distinguishing empirical evidence from normative claims.
Prepare a concise comparative policy memo that translates research into clear analysis and advice grounded in evidence using professional practices common in government and policy settings.
Develop an independent research paper that advances an original analytical argument, engages relevant scholarship and evidence, and applies comparative concepts or methods.
Assessment criteria
Participation and preparation — 20% — Ongoing
Each seminar is assessed on a 0–2 scale based on preparation, engagement with the assigned material, and substantive contribution to seminar discussion and activities.
Contributions may include whole class discussion, small group work, exercises, questions, or responses to other students.
Quality of engagement is more important than frequency of speaking, and attendance alone does not constitute participation.
The final participation grade is calculated from the student's best nine seminar sessions and rescaled to 20%, allowing one session to be missed without penalty.
Additional absences may be accommodated in extraordinary circumstances, which must be communicated to the instructor.
Comparative Policy Analysis Memo — 30% — Due at the end of Week 6
1,000–1,200 words. Compare a specific immigration or protection policy instrument or problem across two jurisdictions. Full assignment instructions and guidance appear below.
Final research paper — 50% — Exam period
2,000–2,500 words (BA) / 3,000–3,500 words (MA).
Develop an original analytical argument. Papers should normally compare two or more jurisdictions.
A paper focused on one jurisdiction requires prior instructor approval and a clearly defined comparative dimension.
MA papers are expected to engage more deeply with theory, competing explanations, and methodological choices.
Detailed grading criteria for the memo and final paper will be provided during the course. BA and MA students complete the same policy memo; expectations for the final research paper differ by level as indicated above.
Unless otherwise indicated, stated word limits exclude the reference list and any appendices.
COMPARATIVE POLICY ANALYSIS MEMO
30% · 1,000–1,200 words · Due at the end of Week 6
Students will prepare a concise comparative analysis of a specific migration policy instrument or problem across two jurisdictions.
The memo should identify a clearly defined policy issue, establish meaningful grounds and common criteria for comparison, analyze consequential similarities and differences and their effects, and present a clear policy implication or recommendation where appropriate.
The two cases should be used comparatively to explain what these patterns reveal about how migration policy operates.
A short workshop in Week 3 will focus on defining the policy problem and audience, choosing appropriate cases, establishing common criteria for comparison, distinguishing analysis from description, evaluating policy options and consequences, and writing concise recommendations.
Students should consult the two short guidance readings below before the workshop.
FINAL RESEARCH PAPER
50% · 2,000–2,500 words (BA) / 3,000–3,500 words (MA) · Exam period
Students will develop an original analytical argument on a question related to immigration, asylum, refugee protection, temporary protection, or migration governance.
Papers should normally compare two or more jurisdictions.
A paper focused on a single jurisdiction may be undertaken only with prior approval from the instructor and must have a clearly defined comparative dimension.
Students should formulate a focused research question, explain the significance and grounds of the comparison, engage relevant academic literature, including theoretical work where appropriate, and draw on suitable legal, policy, or empirical evidence, and develop a clear analytical argument.
MA papers are expected to engage more substantially with theory, competing explanations, and methodological choices.
Students should determine their paper topic by the end of Week 8, before the Week 10 final paper workshop.
The final paper will be due during the examination period, likely in the second half of January; the exact deadline will be confirmed during the course.
Students who need to submit the paper and receive their final grade earlier may request an earlier arrangement.
Such requests require a meeting with the instructor in advance to agree on an appropriate submission and grading timeline and to discuss any questions about preparation that the student may have.
OPTIONAL EXTRA CREDIT
Students may complete an optional short presentation individually or in pairs.
The presentation should engage with a migration policy question related to the course and apply concepts or comparative approaches developed in the seminar to a specific policy, case, or current issue.
Presentations should advance an analytical argument and not simply summarize background information.
Individual presentations should be approximately 10 minutes; presentations by pairs should be approximately 10–15 minutes.
The presentation schedule will be announced after the course begins and will depend on the number of students who sign up.
Presentations will take place no earlier than Week 6.
A presentation may earn up to +5 percentage points added to the weighted score from the required course components.
The final course score is capped at 100%.
Extra credit is applied only when the weighted score from the required assessments is already passing (60% or higher), so the presentation supplements rather than replaces the required coursework.
Examples include, but are not limited to:
Temporary migration as a tool of labor market exploitation: comparing Poland and Canada
International refugee law and state sovereignty: where do the limits of migration control lie?
How does public opinion shape deportation and enforcement outcomes across countries?
Temporary protection and legal precarity over the long term: comparing responses to displaced Ukrainians
Who is considered “deserving” of protection? The politics of selective humanitarian admission
Students are encouraged to develop their own topic in consultation with the instructor.
FINAL GRADE CONVERSION
The weighted score from the required assessments is calculated on a scale of 100 points.
A final score of 60% is required to pass the course.
Any earned extra credit points are then added, subject to the rules above, and the resulting score is converted to the University grade scale as follows:
90–100% — 5.0
85–89% — 4.5
75–84% — 4.0
70–74% — 3.5
60–69% — 3.0
0–59% — 2.0 (fail)
Grade boundaries are applied to the final numerical score as calculated; scores are not rounded across a grade boundary.
ACCOMMODATIONS
Students who require reasonable accommodations in relation to course participation, assessment, or deadlines are encouraged to contact the instructor as early as possible. Appropriate arrangements will be made in accordance with University procedures and the circumstances of the individual student. The course is organized as ten seminars of 90 minutes each. It begins with comparative approaches and the international migration and refugee regime, then moves through the United States, Canada, and the European Union before examining temporary protection, borders and enforcement, Poland, and the politics of immigration. The final session is devoted to comparative research design and the final paper. Most weeks combine two principal academic readings with short legal, policy, or current affairs materials serving distinct analytical purposes. Total required preparation will normally remain within approximately 30–45 pages, or the equivalent in short online and primary materials. Recommended readings are optional and provide additional depth or alternative perspectives.