480 MAREN MÖHRING
process of identity formation in the new Federal Republic. As it had
done with the dramatic limitation of the right of asylum, Germany moved
closer to European standards by altering its citizenship laws in 1999.
With the immigration legislation (Zuwanderungsgesetz) passed in 2005,
Germany fi nally had to admit that it was a country of immigration and
that migration could not be stopped. Having conceded this point, it was
only logical for the German state to try to channel and regulate this per-
sistent immigration. Since this shift, economic and demographic factors
(as well as others) have shaped German migration management, which
has once again allowed for seasonal and commuter migration patterns.
One of these new patterns has fostered the infl ux of Eastern European
women who have been part of a rapidly growing sector of household-re-
lated services in what can be seen as a prime example of the feminiza-
tion of migration appearing at a global level. Furthermore, these new
migration patterns have clearly shown that Germany has reacquired its
key position in terms of east to west migration since 1989. Germany,
however, is also a popular destination country for south to north migra-
tion patterns. Immigrants have been moving north from non-European
regions for a while, but due to the economic and fi nancial crises, an
increasing number of Europeans from the Mediterranean region have
been heading northward.
Whereas both East and West used migration as a political instrument
during the Cold War, cost-benefi t calculations have become much more
dominant today. Such considerations were of course nothing new be-
cause they had certainly surfaced in the debates on expellees, foreign
Gastarbeiter and Vertragsarbeiter, Aussiedler, and asylum-seekers. In-
deed, they have been a constant element in dealing with migration since
at least the late nineteenth century when Germany went from being a
country of emigration to one of immigration. Likewise, the constitutive
role played by foreigners, or rather their exclusion, in nationalization
processes is not something specifi c to Germany, but rather a general
feature of modern states. The large-scale racist attacks directed at non-
Germans over the course of reunifi cation clearly revealed the violent side
of exclusion processes. At the same time, they were an expression of the
historic failure to recognize the reality that Germany was a country of
immigration and to act accordingly. Moreover, the freedom of movement
and travel inherent to migration has proven to be signifi cant for German
history before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Despite the current fas-
cination with mobility that has characterized both migration and mobility
studies, however, the right to come to a place and to stay there should
not be brushed aside.