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From Policy to People: Unpacking the Immigration Landscape in Unsettled Times Moderator Dr. Kamal Al-Solaylee was joined by speakers Dr. Irene Bloemraad, Dr. Thomas Lemieux and Lenya Wilks to explore immigration from multiple angles—policy, economics, and lived realities. This timely discussion, drawing on academic research and community-based experience, dove into real-world impacts on migrants and local communities in today’s unsettled political and economic times. They discussed where Canada and B.C. stand on immigration in 2025; how policy changes in Canada and beyond impact communities, jobs, and the economy; and the challenges newcomers face, and how we can create a more inclusive future. This event was presented in partnership with Stone Centre for Wealth and Income Inequality and hosted by the Faculty of Arts.Other University of British Columbia Activity 2025-04-16 Other Frame Backfire: The Trouble with Civil Rights Appeals in the Contemporary United States Many scholars and activists consider civil rights to be a powerful, effective way to frame diverse causes, but do civil rights claims actually resonate? Building on social movements, collective memory, and public opinion scholarship, we conceptualize civil rights claims in three non-mutually-exclusive ways: as a highly resonant “master frame” grounded in core American ideals of equal rights, as an appeal to the idealized memory of the Civil Rights Movement, and as racialized messaging that is likely to provoke backlash. Using these conceptualizations, we derive expectations about the effectiveness of civil rights claims across diverse issues, beneficiaries, and audiences, which we test using two large-scale survey experiments. Respondents viewed “civil rights” very positively in the abstract and broadly agreed about the meaning in both closed and open-ended survey responses: civil rights are about ensuring equal rights and treatment, rather than addressing material needs. Yet, surprisingly, framing contemporary problems—even unequal treatment—as civil rights violations reduced support for government intervention. Indeed, we find widespread frame backfire : civil rights framing was counterproductive across issues (material deprivation, unequal treatment), beneficiaries (African Americans, Mexican Americans, White Americans, undocumented Mexican immigrants), and audiences (liberals, conservatives, Whites, African Americans, Latinos). Given the consistently negative effects across respondents, these findings cannot be adequately explained as racialized backlash. Instead, we propose that civil rights claims evoke comparisons to the historic Civil Rights Movement, making contemporary hardships appear less significant and prompting unfavorable contrasts with idealized claims-making of the past. Our findings challenge assumptions that frames resonate when they align with audiences’ values or appeal to positive collective memories; indeed, invoking idealized memories risks undermining support for contemporary causes. University of British Columbia Publication 2025-05-16 Statistics Canada Advisory Committee on Ethnocultural and Immigration Statistics University of British Columbia Award 2025-03-07 Current Trends and Issues in Immigrant Citizenship Presentation for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship CanadaOther University of British Columbia Activity 2024-10-10 Other Metropolis Conference 2025 Other University of British Columbia Conference 2025-10-30 Other The Limits of Canadian Tolerance? Out-of-status migrants, human rights, and Canadian values Other University of British Columbia Event 2025-10-22 Other The Limits of Canadian Tolerance? Out-of-status migrants, human rights, and Canadian values Other University of British Columbia Event 2025-09-03 Other
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