Migration and immigrant policies have topped the political agenda in many European countries in the past decade. European countries vary widely in their policies. This variation is sustained in part by the institutional condition that immigrant integration policy is still mostly a national affair – in contrast to rules for trans-border travelling that have Europeanized to a large extent. National differences in the institutional structure of policy-making in these domains may explain these differences in portrayal and decisions that follow. Policy actors resort to different types of institutional venues (legal venues, expert venues, political, etc.) to portray immigration and immigrant issues and influence policy decisions. This panel considers how differences in the institutional dynamics of policy-making are related to differences in the process and results of framing the migration/integration problem. It aims to develop a better understanding of how and why migration and integration of immigrants into national societies are framed in specific ways, by exploring the institutional dynamics of policy-making rather than by assuming that ‘national policy models’ or ‘national integration regimes’ determine policy decisions.