Abstract

Through a retrospective analysis of United States (U.S.) immigration history and associated discourses on migration and globalization, we focus on how the social work profession has responded to immigration as a long-standing concern for social workers. From its inception, the political economy of the U.S. has been indebted to successive waves of immigrants as an essential resource, and they remain an integral part of the U.S. economy and increased global integration. In the current context of the retrenchment of the welfare state and the dominance of the neo-liberal paradigm of political economy, social work’s contemporary response to immigration seems weak and ineffective. The conceptualization of immigration from a social work perspective remains relatively uninformed by understandings from social science. We focus on the strengths and weaknesses in the profession’s role in constructing “breakwaters,” policies and practices that are formulated to contend with the political, economic, and social impact and instabilities that result from large waves of immigration. We draw upon these insights later to reflect on the implications for social work practice and education. We argue that these weaknesses not only reflect the profession’s elementary view of immigration, but also its historical ambivalence toward the dilemmas and contradictions posed by immigration and global integration.