Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them (Hardcover)

~ Philippe Legrain (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In all important respects Legrain is right on target." -- The Guardian

"Mr. Legrain has assembled powerful evidence to undermine the economic arguments against immigration." -- The Economist

"The book is a superb combination of direct reportage with detailed analysis of the evidence." -- Martin Wolf, Financial Times

"Required reading for any individual who wishes to engage in informed discourse about human migration in the changing 21st-century world." -- Chuck Konkel, The Globe and Mail

Review

Mr. Legrain performs an invaluable service; he makes a good case for the unpopular cause of free flows of people. The book is a superb combination of direct reportage with detailed analysis of the evidence.
(Martin Wolf Financial Times )

Mr. Legrain has assembled powerful evidence to undermine the economic arguments against immigration.
(Economist )

In all important respects Legrain is right on targetÂ…. In the context of the fearful chatter that surrounds the subject, sense as good as this needs cherishing.
(Guardian )

Immigrants boldly challenges the conventional thinking at every turn. [Legrain] makes a powerful case that free movement of people is just as beneficial as the free movement of goods and capital. The book is carefully written; the argumentation is never slapdash stuff of the xenophobes. [A]n extraordinary book, making the best case I have ever read for an open-border policy.
(George C. Leef Regulation Magazine )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 392 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press; 1st Princeton Ed edition (June 25, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691134316
• ISBN-13: 978-0691134314
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #668,665 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Immigration Opportunities, October 15, 2009

By	Simon Burrow "Persuader" (Pasadena CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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Almost everybody can agree that, over the long run, the world is better off because of human migration. Think about North America. And they can also agree that people should be able to leave a place without opportunity like Buffalo, NY and move to a place like San Jose, CA where they can have a better life. But the rational agreement ends when the immigration is happening now and the immigrants are foreign. At an emotional instinctive level people don't want strangers in the neighborhood. This discordance between people's philosophy and their politics is one of the themes of Philippe Legrain's excellent book about Immigration. In Immigrants Your Country Needs Them he looks at immigration trend and issues around the world and systematically refutes the anti-immigrant arguments. He takes apart the standard arguments about cost, jobs, welfare and acculturation rates and shows alternative ways of looking at the same data that support the argument for more immigration.
Legrain also makes very good arguments in favor of immigration. He shows the needs of the developed world for more people, how migration helps the sending countries and the tremendous benefit it gives to migrants. He uses examples from around the world to make these powerful arguments but they are not the best part of the book. Philippe Legrain is also passionate about immigration. In almost every chapter after he makes the rational argument he also makes the emotional arguments. After taking about the border control situation in the EU and the USA he writes, "all our immigration controls have is a veneer of decency, which conveniently allows us to turn a blind eye to their terrible consequences."
At the end of his introduction Legrain writes "If you believe that the world is an unequal place and that the rich should do more to help the poor, then freer international migration should be the next front in the battle for global economic justice." He then makes a compelling case to show the truth of this assertion. Well done.