Immigration is an issue capable of dividing otherwise like-minded people. Identify a group whose members tend to agree on political issues--liberals, conservatives, isolationists, internationalists, environmentalists, free marketers--and one will tend to find that within the group there is no strong majority opinion about US immigration policy. This important new book examines how public finance shapes individual preferences towards immigration policy in the United States.

America at Risk gathers original essays by a distinguished and bipartisan group of writers and intellectuals to address a question that matters to Americans of every political persuasion: what are some of the greatest dangers facing America today? The answers, which range from dwindling political participation to rising poverty, and religion to empire, add up to a valuable and timely portrait of a particular moment in the history of American ideas. While the opinions are many, there is a central theme in the book: the corrosion of the liberal constitutional order that has long guided the country at home and abroad. The authors write about the demonstrably important dangers the United States faces while also breaking the usual academic boundaries: there are chapters on the family, religious polarization, immigration, and the economy, as well as on governmental and partisan issues. America at Risk is required reading for all Americans alarmed about the future of their country. Contributors Traci Burch James W. Ceaser Robert Faulkner Niall Ferguson William A. Galston Hugh Heclo Pierre Manent Harvey C. Mansfield Peter Rodriguez Kay Lehman Schlozman Susan Shell Peter Skerry James Q. Wilson Alan Wolfe Robert Faulkner is Professor of Political Science at Boston College. Susan Shell is Professor of Political Science at Boston College. "America at Risk goes well beyond the usual diagnoses of issues debated in public life like immigration, war, and debt, to consider the Republic’s founding principles, and the ways in which they have been displaced by newer thoughts and habits in contemporary America. A critical book for understanding our present condition." —Francis Fukuyama, Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies "In this penetrating book, the nation’s finest social and political thinkers from across the spectrum take a careful and no-holds-barred look at the dangers facing the American political system. The conclusions are more unsettling than reassuring---but that is because they are honest and real." —Norm Ornstein, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute "In the midst of overwrought pundits, irate soccer moms, and outraged bloggers, it is difficult to distinguish genuine dangers from false alarms and special pleading. This book enables us to do so, in a way that helps us to actually think about, not just feel anxious about, threats to those features of American society that are worth cherishing. The authors range in ideology and expertise, but they are uniformly judicious, incisive, and informative. This is a fascinating book about issues that the political system usually ignores or exaggerates." —Jennifer L. Hochschild, Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government and Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University

This issues-based reference work (available in both print and electronic formats) shines a spotlight on immigration policy in the United States. The U.S. is a nation of immigrants. Yet while the lofty words enshrined with the Statue of Liberty stand as a source of national pride, the rhetoric and politics surrounding immigration policy all-too-often have proven far less lofty. In reality, the apparently open invitation of Lady Liberty seldom has been without restriction. Throughout our history, impassioned debates about the appropriate scope and nature of such restriction have emerged and mushroomed, among politicians, among scholars of public policy, among the general public. In light of the need to keep students, researchers, and other interested readers informed and up-to-date on status of U.S. immigration policy, this volume uses introductory essays followed by point/counterpoint articles to explore prominent and perennially important debates, providing readers with views on multiple sides of this complex issue. While there are some brief works looking at debates on immigration, as well as some general A-to-Z encyclopedias, we offer more in-depth coverage of a much wider range of themes and issues, thus providing the only fully comprehensive point/counterpoint handbook tackling the issues that political science, history, and sociology majors are asked to explore and to write about as students and that they will grapple with later as policy makers and citizens. Features & Benefits: The volume is divided into three sections, each with its own Section Editor: Labor & Economic Debates (Judith Gans), Social & Cultural Debates (Judith Gans), and Political & Legal Debates (Daniel Tichenor). Sections open with a Preface by the Section Editor to introduce the broad theme at hand and provide historical underpinnings. Each section holds 12 chapters addressing varied aspects of the broad theme of the section. Chapters open with an objective, lead-in piece (or "headnote") followed by a point article and a counterpoint article. All pieces (headnote, point article, counterpoint article) are signed. For each chapter, students are referred to further readings, data sources, and other resources as a jumping-off spot for further research and more in-depth exploration. Finally, volume concludes with a comprehensive index, and the electronic version includes search-and-browse features, as well as the ability to link to further readings cited within chapters should they be available to the library in electronic format.

From anxiety about Muslim immigrants in Western Europe to concerns about undocumented workers and cross-border security threats in the United States, disputes over immigration have proliferated and intensified in recent years. These debates are among the most contentious facing constitutional democracies, and they show little sign of fading away. Edited and with an introduction by political scientist Rogers M. Smith, Citizenship, Borders, and Human Needs brings together essays by leading international scholars from a wide range of disciplines to explore the economic, cultural, political, and normative aspects of comparative immigration policies. In the first section, contributors go beyond familiar explanations of immigration's economic effects to explore whose needs are truly helped and harmed by current migration patterns. The concerns of receiving countries include but are not limited to their economic interests, and several essays weigh different models of managing cultural identity and conflict in democracies with large immigrant populations. Other essays consider the implications of immigration for politics and citizenship. In many nations, large-scale immigration challenges existing political institutions, which must struggle to foster political inclusion and accommodate changing ways of belonging to the polity. The volume concludes with contrasting reflections on the normative standards that should guide immigration policies in modern constitutional democracies. Citizenship, Borders, and Human Needs develops connections between thoughtful scholarship and public policy, thereby advancing public debate on these complex and divisive issues. Though most attention in the collection is devoted to the dilemmas facing immigrant-receiving countries in the West, the volume also explores policies and outcomes in immigrant-sending countries, as well as the situation of developing nations—such as India—that are net receivers of migrants.

A leading law review offers a quality eBook edition. This first issue of 2013 (Winter 2013, Volume 80) features articles and essays from internationally recognized legal and immigration policy scholars, including an extensive Symposium on immigration and its issues of policy, law, and administrative process in the United States. In addition, the issue includes articles by scholars and student-editors on other issues of law and policy. The issue serves, in effect, as a new and extensive book on cutting-edge issues of immigration law and policy in the United States by renowned researchers in the field. It is presented in modern eBook format and features active Tables of Contents; linked footnotes and URLs; careful digital presentation; and legible tables and images.

Prepared by the Commission on Growth and Development, this volume brings together and evaluates the state of knowledge on the relationship between poverty, equity, and globalization.

Many low-income countries and development organizations are calling for greater liberalization of labor immigration policies in high-income countries. At the same time, human rights organizations and migrant rights advocates demand more equal rights for migrant workers. The Price of Rights shows why you cannot always have both. Examining labor immigration policies in over forty countries, as well as policy drivers in major migrant-receiving and migrant-sending states, Martin Ruhs finds that there are trade-offs in the policies of high-income countries between openness to admitting migrant workers and some of the rights granted to migrants after admission. Insisting on greater equality of rights for migrant workers can come at the price of more restrictive admission policies, especially for lower-skilled workers. Ruhs advocates the liberalization of international labor migration through temporary migration programs that protect a universal set of core rights and account for the interests of nation-states by restricting a few specific rights that create net costs for receiving countries. The Price of Rights analyzes how high-income countries restrict the rights of migrant workers as part of their labor immigration policies and discusses the implications for global debates about regulating labor migration and protecting migrants. It comprehensively looks at the tensions between human rights and citizenship rights, the agency and interests of migrants and states, and the determinants and ethics of labor immigration policy.

Looking to the year 2030, this volume explores the social, economic and environmental forces which, in OECD countries, may combine to attract migrants of various types and backgrounds, and which, primarily in the developing world, may persuade people to leave or stay at home.