The impact of precarious legal status on immigrants' economic outcomes

In turn, immigration policies are linked to the way governments collect, organize and present survey and administrative data on immigration; to regulations meant to put policies into practice; to the implementation of policies through programs, budget allocations, personnel decisions and the like; and to actual patterns of newcomer entry and incorporation. [...] These binaries may or may not correspond to people’s practices: permanent immigrants may spend time abroad, and some temporary residents may return again and again, raising questions about the permanence of the former and the temporariness of the latter.9 The binaries ignore the possibility of de facto settle- ment. [...] Debating the changing organization of work and labour insecurity To advance our understanding of immigrant labour market incorporation, we look at a second body of literature dealing with the reorganization of work and attendant labour insecurity in the new economy. [...] The notion of gloves-off strategies suggests how the tactics of individual employers can downgrade the legal and normative terms of the employment relationship for all workers in a place of employment, regardless of status. [...] Legal status trajectories To test the relationship between precarious work and precarious legal status, the project sur- vey asked respondents about their status at the time of arrival and at the time of the interview and the range of strategies (legal, formal or informal) they used to improve their legal status in Canada.