In their publication “Culling the Masses”, David Scott FitzGerald and David Cook-Martín explored how democratic and liberal countries enacted and used laws to discriminate against populations (FitzGerald & Cook-Martín, 2014). It is quite evident that authoritarian regimes like Cuba that may have been assumed to harbor a higher degree of immigration discrimination ended up better than liberal regimes like the United State of America (FitzGerald & Cook-Martín, 2010). As a matter of fact, the US ended up with immigration policies that restricted Asian and African immigrants from citizenship (FitzGerald & Cook-Martín, 2014). In David Scott FitzGerald and David Cook-Martín's view, immigration policy design may take a vertical or a horizontal dimension (FitzGerald & Cook-Martín, 2015).
Vertical dimension in immigration policy approach is influenced by local factors such as local politics, class, institutions, status of the economy and the general public view (FitzGerald & Cook-Martín, 2015). The prevailing local or domestic situations of these local factors may prompt or guide on the perceived necessary steps to either influence change or maintain status quo. When considerations are inclined towards making immigration decision based on vertical dimensions, chances are that those decisions will be discriminatory (FitzGerald & Cook-Martín, 2015). Notably enough, a few domestic factors such as civil institutions may have led to the collapse of such discriminatory policies (FitzGerald & Cook-Martín, 2015).
On the other hand, the horizontal dimension in a country’s immigration policies formulation takes an approach that is influenced by international institutions and other countries within the region where that country is located (FitzGerald & Cook-Martín, 2015). The horizontal dimension is very important since in most cases it leads to formulation of policies that foster equality and abolish immigration discrimination. It is mostly applied when the neighboring countries and international bodies seek to repeal immigration policies in a country that are deemed discriminatory and retrogressive.
References
FitzGerald, D. S., & Cook-Martín, D. (2014). Culling the Masses: The Democratic Origins of Racist Immigration Policy in the Americas. Harvard University Press.
FitzGerald, D. S., & Cook-Martín, D. (2010). Liberalism and the Limits of Inclusion: Racialized Preferences in Immigration Laws of the Americas, 1850-2000. Journal of Interdisciplinary History , 41 (1), 7-25.
FitzGerald, D. S., & Cook-Martín, D. (2015). SYMPOSIUM David FitzGerald’s and David Cook-Martín’s Culling the Masses: The Democratic Origins of Racist Immigration Policy in the Americas. Ethnic and Racial Studies , 38 (8), 1285-1327.
