Immigration, Social Justice, and the Practice of Social Work

SW788, Section 001

This class addresses a critical need for social work students by focusing specifically on immigration—one of the most volatile and hotly debated issues of our time—and the social work profession. How we respond to the myriad questions about immigration and immigrants and the problems generated by public policy responses to various kinds of immigration, will determine how our society and economy will look and function in the future. Nearly all SSW students will be faced with social service controversies, policy development debates and policy consequences, community antagonism, activism and community dislocations during their social work career because the consequences of immigration, and the ways that public policy and community behavior affect immigrants and their families (and the rest of us), are little understood by both the public and by policy makers.