1. Immigration State as a Taken for Granted Framework to Analyze Social Inequalities in Migration Studies

In social sciences dominant discourses on migration mainly address the subject of migrants ’ social mobility within the receiving context. They particularly focus on the complex interrelation between the ethnic and class divisions that encourage the economic and political inequality in the country of destination (Alba/Nee 2003; Portes/Rumbaut 2006). Intentionally caricaturing this, one could argue that ‘migration studies have to analyze the formation of social inequalities exclusively within the framework of an immigration state’. Hence, this notion is implicitly included in the conceptual ar-guments of many migration studies that focus on the formation of social inequali-ties. The conventional research interests of these studies address conditions that influence migrants ’ access to education, welfare or the labour market as well as their social mobility in the country of destination. The article presented is sceptical of this unquestioned commitment, not only because it equates the nation state with the social unit of society, but also because it overlooks the impacts of transnational and global relationships on the formation o