In this panel discussion, Steven Vertovec, Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, and Christine Lang, former MPI MMG researcher and currently at the Institute of Geography and the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (IMIS) at Osnabrück University, discussed the past and presence of nation states and their migration/integration policies, and whether migration research should indeed be reoriented by detaching itself from the nation-state. The discussion is moderated by Karen Schönwälder, research group leader at MPI-MMG.