By Kelly Bescherer, Stephan Scheel

The capacity to establish migrants' legal identities is key to states' attempts to control access to their territories. This paper introduces the concept of regimes of proof to shed light on this often-neglected aspect of border and migration control and related migrant struggles. Negotiations around legal identities play a central role in deportation, but also in migrants' access to rights and government services. At the current conjuncture, this tension has become particularly relevant: new digital means of identification such as biometric residency cards or the analysis of mobile phone data are rapidly being introduced across the globe to establish and fix migrants' identities and to determine their country of origin. Drawing on ethnographic research in West Africa and Germany, we consider the implications of shifting regimes of proof in the context of asylum, deportation and regularisation procedures to highlight the centrality of identification to all aspects of migration management.

International MigrationVolume 63, Issue 6 Nov 2025

By Rupert Horsley

Human smuggling across these regions continues to evolve rapidly. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, significant changes have emerged in the volume and direction of migratory flows and smuggling networks. These shifts are closely linked to ongoing political, economic and security developments, including protracted conflict, governance crises and economic uncertainty.

Since 2016, the GI-TOC has monitored the political economy of human smuggling and trafficking in North Africa and the Sahel. This work was expanded and formalised in 2018 with the establishment of the North Africa and Sahel Observatory (NAS-Obs). Through annual country reports and thematic studies, the Observatory has provided a detailed understanding of the actors, routes and dynamics shaping mobility and exploitation in the region.

The 2025 series features country reports on Libya, Niger, Chad and Tunisia. Together, they capture the current transformations in human smuggling across both regions: from the persistence of hybrid smuggling systems in Libya, to evolving migration routes through Niger and Chad, and the increasing mobility of Sudanese refugees across North Africa. The reports also analyse the political and security contexts driving these trends, including the deepening conflict in Sudan, ongoing instability in Libya, and growing pressures along Tunisia’s coastal migration routes.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, . 2025. 36p.

By The American Immigration Council

The first six months of the second Donald J. Trump administration have arguably seen the most significant changes to U.S. immigration policy in the nation’s history. Taken one by one, as they have been announced or revealed, the effect can be overwhelming: it seems impossible to even comprehend everything that has happened, much less to understand it in a systematic way or to anticipate what might come next. The purpose of this report is not to recapitulate the last six months of chronology. Nor is it to contextualize the last six months within the history of immigration policy. The administration is simultaneously continuing some policy trends in place under the previous administration; taking latent powers within immigration law and using them as a matter of course; reanimating laws whose enactment predates the modern immigration system; and asserting wholly new powers that have never existed in law before. Lists like these can make anyone feel as though they have no idea what is actually going on. We aim to do the opposite of that: to provide a framework for the American people to understand what has been done to noncitizens, the communities in which they live, and the entire U.S. immigration system since January 20, 2025. We hope this framework will remain useful as the Trump administration continues its effort to fundamentally transform the American government, character, and role in the world. Our report is organized as a survey of the immigration policy landscape as of mid-2025, seeking to answer three key questions: The first six months of the second Donald J. Trump administration have arguably seen the most significant changes to U.S. immigration policy in the nation’s history. Taken one by one, as they have been announced or revealed, the effect can be overwhelming: it seems impossible to even comprehend everything that has happened, much less to understand it in a systematic way or to anticipate what might come next. The purpose of this report is not to recapitulate the last six months of chronology. Nor is it to contextualize the last six months within the history of immigration policy. The administration is simultaneously continuing some policy trends in place under the previous administration; taking latent powers within immigration law and using them as a matter of course; reanimating laws whose enactment predates the modern immigration system; and asserting wholly new powers that have never existed in law before. Lists like these can make anyone feel as though they have no idea what is actually going on. We aim to do the opposite of that: to provide a framework for the American people to understand what has been done to noncitizens, the communities in which they live, and the entire U.S. immigration system since January 20, 2025. We hope this framework will remain useful as the Trump administration continues its effort to fundamentally transform the American government, character, and role in the world. Our report is organized as a survey of the immigration policy landscape as of mid-2025, seeking to answer three key questions.

Washington, DC: American Immigration Council, 2025. 74p.

By Justyna Sempruch

In Fantasies of Gender and the Witch in Feminist Theory and Literature, Justyna Sempruch analyzes contemporary representations of the “witch” as a locus for the cultural negotiation of genders. Sempruch revisits some of the most prominent traits in past and current perceptions in feminist scholarship of exclusion and difference. She examines a selection of twentieth-century US American, Canadian, and European narratives to reveal the continued political relevance of metaphors sustained in the archetype of the “witch” widely thought to belong to pop-cultural or folkloristic formulations of the past. Through a critical rereading of the feminist texts engaging with these metaphors, Sempruch develops a new concept of the witch, one that challenges traditional gender-biased theories linking it either to a malevolent “hag” on the margins of culture or to unrestrained “feminine” sexual desire. Sempruch turns, instead, to the causes for radical feminist critique of “feminine” sexuality as a fabrication of logocentric thinking and shows that the problematic conversion of the “hag” into a “superwoman” can be interpreted today as a therapeutic performance translating fixed identity into a site of continuous negotiation of the subject in process. Tracing the development of feminist constructs of the witch from 1970s radical texts to the present, Sempruch explores the early psychoanalytical writings of Cixous, Kristeva, and Irigaray, and feminist reformulations of identity by Butler and Braidotti, with fictional texts from different political and cultural contexts.

West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2008.

Edited by Alan Gallay

The essays in this collection use the complicated dynamics of Indian slavery as a lens through which to explore both Indian and European societies and their interactions, as well as relations between and among Native groups.

Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2010.

By Andrew Woolford

This Benevolent Experiment is a nuanced comparative history of Indigenous boarding schools in the United States and Canada. Because of differing historical, political, and structural influences, the two countries have arrived at two very different responses to the harm caused by assimilative education.

Lincoln: Nebraska University Press, 2015. 

By Jeffrey Lesser

Jeffrey Lesser focuses on São Paulo’s Bom Retiro neighborhood to examine the competing visions of wellbeing in Brazil among racialized immigrants and policymakers and health officials.

There is a saying in Brazil: “Mosquitoes are democratic: they bite the rich and the poor alike.” Why then is bad health---from violence to respiratory disease, from malaria to dengue---dispersed unevenly across different social and national groups? In Living and Dying in São Paulo, Jeffrey Lesser focuses on the Bom Retiro neighborhood to explore such questions by examining the competing visions of well-being in Brazil among racialized immigrants and policymakers and health officials. He analyzes the fraught relationship between Bom Retiro residents and the state and health care agencies that have overseen community sanitation efforts since the mid-nineteenth century, drawing out the connected systems of the built environment, public health laws and practices, and citizenship. Lesser employs the concept of “residues” to outline how continuing historical material, legislative, and social legacies structure contemporary daily life and health outcomes in the neighborhood. In so doing, Lesser creates a dialogue between the past and the present, showing how the relationship between culture and disease is both layered and interconnected.

Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2025.

By Peter Hopkins

Available open access digitally under CC BY NC ND licence. Everyday experiences of anti-Muslim racism include accounts of Islamophobia in public spaces, in the school playground, on social media and on public transport. This book explores how Islamophobia pervades the daily lives of Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim, drawing upon work by the author and leading researchers. Everyday Islamophobia tends to be regarded as low level or trivial. This book considers the influence of organisations, agencies, and individuals on those who find themselves negotiating its significant harms in education, the community and online. It concludes by exploring strategies to challenge and resist Islamophobia.

Bristol UK: Bristol University Press, 2025. 

By The Right Hon. Viscount Bryce

When Essays and Addresses in War Time appeared in December 1918, the Great War had not yet fully settled into memory. The armistice was scarcely a month old; the dead lay uncounted; the maps of Europe were still provisional, and new nations were appearing almost daily. It was into this unsettled moral and political landscape that Viscount James Bryce (1838–1922) published this set of reflections — part justification, part analysis, and part moral plea — for what he regarded as one of civilization’s defining struggles.

Bryce was no ordinary commentator. Historian, jurist, diplomat, and moral philosopher, he had served as British ambassador to the United States (1907–1913) and was known across Europe and America as one of the most lucid defenders of democratic government. His monumental works — The Holy Roman Empire (1864) and The American Commonwealth (1888) — had already secured his international reputation. Yet Essays and Addresses in War Time reveals another dimension: a statesman confronting the collapse of Enlightenment ideals under the strain of modern total war, and seeking to explain to neutral nations why the conflict could not be reduced to a mere clash of power or empire, but must be seen as a moral contest over the principles of civilization itself.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. 156p.

By Mohamed Nassir

In a report published in September 2025, Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia, Aftab Malik, reveals that anti-Muslim prejudices have been increasingly prevalent in Australia in recent years. He finds that these issues have been exacerbated by geopolitical events such as 9/11 and the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict. Malik’s Report attributes this to factors such as negative media coverage and “divisive comments by politicians”. It concludes with 54 recommendations for the Australian government to consider in combating Islamophobia.

In his report published on 12 September 2025, Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia, Aftab Malik, describes the rise of anti-Muslim sentiment in Australia as “pervasive and, at times, terrifying”. The report entitled, A National Response to Islamophobia: A Strategic Framework for Inclusion, Safety and Prosperity, argues that, despite there being no universally accepted definition of Islamophobia, it should be acknowledged that incidents of privilege and discrimination against Australian Muslims are increasing.

 The report begins by examining the rise of anti-Muslim sentiments in Australia in recent years and identifies some of the key factors that explain the phenomenon. It concludes with 54 recommendations aimed at addressing the problem. These recommendations are a valuable resource for countries like Singapore, which value social harmony and strive to protect vulnerable groups and foster inclusivity.

S. Rajarat nam School of International Studies, NTU Singapore, 2025. 6p.

By Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year, published in 1722, is a powerful and evocative account of the Great Plague that devastated London in 1665. Though written decades after the event, the narrative is presented as the firsthand observations of “H.F.,” a saddler living in the city, and blends historical fact with fictional storytelling. Defoe, who was a child during the outbreak, drew upon official records, personal testimonies, and his own journalistic instincts to reconstruct the atmosphere of a city under siege by disease.

The plague of 1665 was the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in England, killing an estimated 100,000 people—nearly a quarter of London’s population at the time. It was part of the Second Pandemic, a series of plague outbreaks that began with the Black Death in the 14th century and continued into the 18th. The disease spread rapidly through crowded urban areas, exacerbated by poor sanitation, limited medical knowledge, and ineffective containment measures. The government imposed quarantines, marked infected houses with red crosses, and employed “watchmen” to enforce isolation, while mass graves and plague pits became grim symbols of the crisis.

Defoe’s narrative captures the fear, confusion, and moral dilemmas faced by Londoners during this time. He details the breakdown of social order, the flight of the wealthy, the suffering of the poor, and the varied responses of clergy, physicians, and common citizens. The book is not only a historical document but also a reflection on human behavior in the face of catastrophe. Its themes of resilience, public health, and social responsibility remain strikingly relevant, offering timeless insights into how societies confront pandemics.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. 202p.

By Edward Carpenter

“Civilisation” is a word that evokes triumph — of human ingenuity, collective organisation, rising standards of living, the unfolding of arts and sciences, the building of cities, bridges, empires. And yet, as Edward Carpenter’s 1889 work Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure; and Other Essays demonstrates, civilisation can also be approached as a problem: as a state of society marked by dis-ease, alienation, and unsustainability. Carpenter, a socialist, poet, philosopher and social reformer, treats civilisation not simply as the progress of humankind but as a complex and ambivalent phenomenon — one that may require “cure” as much as celebration.

In this volume Carpenter brings together his earlier lectures and essays — including the eponymous essay “Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure,” along with essays on science, morality, custom, and society.The book thus serves as both a diagnosis of modern Western society and an expression of an alternative vision for humanity’s social and moral development.

In the following pages we will consider: first, the intellectual and historical context of the work; second, the major themes and arguments set out by Carpenter; third, the structure of the essays and the particular significance of the titular essay; fourth, an evaluation of the work’s place in the history of social thought; and fifth, pointers for contemporary reading, criticism and further research.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. 164p.

Edited by Shira M. Goldenberg , Ruth Morgan Thomas , Anna Forbes, Stefan Baral

This open access book provides a comprehensive overview of the health inequities and human rights issues faced by sex workers globally across diverse contexts, and outlines evidence-based strategies and best practices. Sex workers face severe health and social inequities, largely as the result of structural factors including punitive and criminalized legal environments, stigma, and social and economic exclusion and marginalization. Although previous work has largely emphasized an elevated burden and gaps in HIV and sexually transmitted infection (STI) services in sex work, less attention has been paid to the broader health and human rights concerns faced by sex workers. This contributed volume addresses this gap. The chapters feature a variety of perspectives including academic, community, implementing partners, and government to synthesize research evidence as well as lessons learned from local-level experiences across different regions, and are organized under three parts: Burden of health and human rights inequities faced by sex workers globally, including infectious diseases (e.g., HIV, STIs), violence, sexual and reproductive health, and drug use Structural determinants of health and human rights, including legislation, law enforcement, community engagement, intersectoral collaboration, stigma, barriers to health access, im/migration issues, and occupational safety and health Evidence-based services and best practices at various levels ranging from individual and community to policy-level interventions to identify best practices and avenues for future research and interventions Sex Work, Health, and Human Rights is an essential resource for researchers, policy-makers, governments, implementing partners, international organizations and community-based organizations involved in research, policies, or programs related to sex work, public health, social justice, gender-based violence, women's health and harm reduction.

Cham: Springer, 2021. 272p.

dited byAmy Reed-SandovalLuis Rubén Díaz Cepeda

Following an extended period of near silence on the subject, many social and political philosophers are now treating immigration as a central theme of their discipline. In fact, there is now sufficient philosophical literature on immigration to enable us to detect clear trajectories in terms of its broad theorization. What began as a highly abstract debate over whether states do, in fact, have a prima facie right to exclude prospective migrants under at least some conditions evolved into scholarship on increasingly “applied” and “practical” questions such as refugee rights and justifications for family reunification schemes in immigrant admissions programs.1 Presently, and as part of this notable progression, immigration philosophy is in the midst of an identity “turn” in which philosophers—particularly those working within the traditions of feminist philosophy, Latinx philosophy, and the critical philosophy of race—theorize particular borders and barriers and particular migrant bodies that are visibly sexed/gendered and racialized.2 This stands in contrast to the more abstract borders and migrants featured in the original open borders debate. Such identity-based approaches tend to operate in the realm of “nonideal theory,” considering states as they are—namely, as entities that are often noncompliant with the requirements of justice—and providing conceptual analysis and solutions on that basis.

Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2021. 313p.

EDITED BY Thomas E. Sheridan and Randall H. McGuire

The Border and Its Bodies examines the impact of migration from Central America and México to the United States on the most basic social unit possible: the human body. It explores the terrible toll migration takes on the bodies of migrants—those who cross the border and those who die along the way—and discusses the treatment of those bodies after their remains are discovered in the desert. The increasingly militarized U.S.-México border is an intensely physical place, affecting the bodies of all who encounter it. The essays in this volume explore how crossing becomes embodied in individuals, how that embodiment transcends the crossing of the line, and how it varies depending on subject positions and identity categories, especially race, class, and citizenship. Timely and wide-ranging, this book brings into focus the traumatic and real impact the border can have on those who attempt to cross it, and it offers new perspectives on the effects for rural communities and ranchers. An intimate and profoundly human look at migration, The Border and Its Bodies reminds us of the elemental fact that the border touches us all.

Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2019.

By PATRICIA HYNES, ANNA SKEELS AND LAURA DURÁN

Human trafficking of children and young people is a major concern yet there is limited research on the lived experiences of those affected and even less on their post-trafficking aspirations, strengths and capabilities. This book argues that human trafficking and/or exploitation should be seen as child abuse rather than viewed through immigration or criminal justice lenses. It draws on new research from outcomes of two participatory studies with young people affected by human trafficking. The first study focuses on the development of a Creating Stable Futures Positive Outcomes Framework (CSF-POF), centred around children’s rights and based on the views of young people themselves. The second details how this framework was implemented for the first time with young people through an outcomes evaluation of the Independent Child Trafficking Guardianship (ICTG) service in England and Wales. An invaluable text, this book guides policy makers, practitioners, local authority professionals and voluntary sector organisations working to protect children and young people from human trafficking and helping them to move forwards positively following abuse.

Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2025. 187p.

By Sarah Roth, Evan Enzer, Olaa Mohamed, Kevin Ye, and Eleni Manis

Schools increasingly turn to spyware, noise detectors, and other invasive mental health prediction tools, with predictably poor results. These error-prone systems flag non-existent crises and miss real dangers.

Mental health surveillance alienates students, making it more likely that they will self-censor and isolating them from teachers and online mental health resources.

Student spyware routinely outs LGBTQ+ students and puts BIPOC youth at risk of police encounters.

New tech appears to be displacing evidence-based mental health screening.

By Corinne Worthington, Erin McFadden, Aaron Greenberg, and Eleni Manis

A year and half post-Roe, ad tech companies continue to surveil abortion seekers on abortion scheduling and abortion advocacy websites.

While ad tech companies make it incredibly difficult to avoid tracking, medical providers and advocacy organizations should take steps to minimize tracking on abortion scheduling and patient-facing informational pages.

Abortion seekers should not let these concerns stop them from seeking care, and the risk to any one individual is likely low at this stage, but the long-term implications are dire.

By Eleni Manis, Nina Loshkajian, Leah Haynes, Shivam Saran, Andrew West, and Corinne Worthington

Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) fusion centers spend over $400 million each year to expand federal, state, and local intelligence sharing, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”).

Fusion centers enable ICE to coopt local police databases and surveillance tools (like facial recognition) that otherwise couldn’t be used for deportation purposes.

Fusion center participants routinely give ICE sensitive data, violating state and local protections for undocumented immigrants.

Local police officers use fusion centers to encourage ICE to target suspects when officers can’t find enough evidence to bring charges, effectively deporting their cold cases.

Fusion centers’ opacity allows them to routinely violate state and local civil rights laws without consequence.

By Dhivahari Vivekanandasarma, Vibha Kannan, Erin McFadden, and Eleni Manis

As states go head-to-head on abortion access, medical and financial recordkeeping requirements endanger abortion providers and funders, even in states with strong abortion shield laws.

States that protect reproductive rights must strengthen laws that prohibit abortion-related data disclosure and protect telemedicine abortion access.

These laws are under test as Texas sues a New York doctor in a first, extraordinary attempt to enforce a state abortion ban beyond state lines.

In the coming years, we will likely see growing weaponization of these records to prosecute telemedicine abortion access and out-of-state patient care.