In the advanced democracies since the 1990s, social movements are ga1n1ng force, and some of them have come to exert a considerable influence on policy outcomes. The immigration politics has been one of the policy areas where the policy impacts of social movements have been most conspicuous. My research project aims first to describe how the rise of social movements has transformed the policy process on immigration. Special emphasis will be placed on explaining how different the roles and policy impacts of social movements are between countries and among policy fields and why. The analytical frameworks of social movement study and policy process analysis will be combined. Secondly, it also tries to find out to which direction the immigration policies are heading under the policy impacts of social movements. This will allow us to tell if globalization will bring about some convergence on immigration policy and under what conditions.