up, and some left the country and returned en masse to nonviolently confront border authorities and demand reentry to the country where they came of age.
This kind of grassroots organizing and mobilizing is often effective, but it can also provoke backlash. A major goal of this book is to diminish that backlash by addressing people’s concerns about immigration.
Since the first edition of this book was published, we have facilitated numerous dialogues on immigration with students, activists, and others in communities throughout the United States. These dialogues have reinforced our impression that many people are open to a deeper understanding of immigration and the forces that drive it.
As we said in 2007: “Every day, more people are realizing that immigrants are here to stay. They are our friends, our parents, our partners, our neighbors, ourselves. Either we condemn them to live as a permanent underclass, or we look for ways to integrate them into a more just and inclusive society.”
This is not an easy task. The problems with our immigration system grow out of the history and legacy of slavery and colonialism, and are closely linked to the systems of labor exploitation and imprisonment that remain in effect today.
Following the gains of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, overtly racist rhetoric grew less acceptable within our legal framework, so policymakers claimed to be “colorblind” as they developed new systems to maintain the old racist structures. Politicians and the media shifted from openly slurring specific ethnicities and nationalities to branding groups of people as “criminals,” “welfare queens,” “gangsters,” “illegals,” “invaders,” and “terrorists.” These and many other labels are used to keep people “in their places” as racial others: behind walls, in cages, and stripped of power on the job in fields, forests, homes, and restaurants.
This book challenges such labels. We start with a demographic overview in chapter 1: what does the data say about who comes to the United States, from where, and how many? In chapter 2, we explore why people come here: what are the circumstances that impel them to leave their countries? Chapter 3 takes a look at how our country has treated refugees, now and in the past. Chapters 4 and 5 address questions about “illegality”: what does it mean, why do so many people end up without legal status, and what challenges do they face? We then discuss the impact of immigration on the economy (chapter 6), and on health, environment, and culture (chapter 7). Chapter 8 challenges the myths that paint immigrants as criminals or terrorists. In chapter 9 we consider various approaches to immigration enforcement, both at the border and in the country’s interior: how do these systems work, what do they accomplish, and at what cost? Because harsher enforcement often comes packaged with “softer” measures like amnesty and guest worker programs, we move in chapter 10 to the impact of such programs. In chapter 11, we return to enforcement, focusing on detention and deportation practices. We finish the book by considering the meanings of “open borders” and imagining what a more open immigration policy might look like in practice.
We hope this book contributes to deep, critical dialogues about the ways in which racism, exclusion, and exploitation are embedded within the politics of immigration in the United States. We believe such dialogue can help to strengthen movements that resist oppression, build solidarity, and develop strategies toward a more just political system.
Authors’ Notes
What’s new in the second edition?
THIS SECOND EDITION IS MORE than a simple update of the 2007 version. Many illuminating articles, books, reports, and academic papers on the topic of immigration have appeared over the past ten years, and these have enabled us to expand and improve the content. We’ve also revised, edited, and reorganized the text in an effort to make it clearer; in doing this we’ve benefited greatly from our experience facilitating dialogues on immigration, and from suggestions, critiques, and other feedback from many people.
Several chapters, notably chapter 3 (on refugees) and chapter 11 (on detention and deportation), have been substantially expanded and almost completely rewritten. Entirely new sections have been added to chapter 2 (“Why are children coming here from Central America?”); chapter 9 (about “Operation Streamline” and the post-2008 slowdown in unauthorized immigration); and chapter 10 (about “Deferred Action”).
We have added brief introductions to the start of each chapter, summarizing the main points that follow. There is a greater emphasis on how the social construction of race has shaped immigration policy. The immigration law chronology that was left out of the first edition (but was posted on the website for the book) has been included here, and expanded.
The entire book is more rigorously researched and cited. Sources are provided for virtually every piece of information in the book. There are more than twice as many endnotes in this edition as there were in the original book, and a number of the endnotes include additional details or data as well as sources.
Where did these questions come from?
People who complain about immigrants often rely on arguments that are mostly based on myths. These myths are powerful because they tap into fears about jobs, wages, and changing communities. Well-funded anti-immigrant organizations and politicians try to exploit such fears to gain political advantage.
Even if we reject the anti-immigrant myths, we sometimes lack the tools we need to respond effectively when they emerge from the mouths of co-workers, family members, neighbors, or friends.
The idea of this book is to address people’s fears with facts and honest arguments, to encourage everyone to take a deeper and broader look at immigration and its root causes, and to suggest some possible courses of action. We hope this book will reach people with genuine concerns about immigration, and be a useful source for immigrants and their supporters seeking to foster public dialogue around the issue.
Who are we talking to?
We hope this book is read by all kinds of people: immigrants and U.S.-born citizens, people with and without legal immigration status. We have alternated between referring to these different groups of readers as “you,” “we,” or “they” at various times over the course of the book. This is not meant to offend or exclude anyone, or to distance ourselves from anyone, but rather to acknowledge the diversity of our readers and encourage them to occasionally step into someone else’s shoes and see things from a different perspective.
Disclaimer
This book is not designed to explain to immigrants how they can legalize their status in the United States. That would require a whole book
