Getting Immigration Right: What Every American Needs to Know (Paperback)

~ David Coates (Editor), Peter Siavelis (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Getting Immigration Right focuses on what is arguably the most important aspect of the current immigration debate: how best to understand and resolve illegal immigration from Mexico. The scale and character of illegal immigration is only one facet of the “immigration problem” currently before Congress and the president, but it is its most contentious and visible face. It is also the one part of the contemporary immigration story that attracts the most intense opposition, the most widely disseminated mythologies, and the most powerfully advocated solutions. What to do about illegal immigration from Mexico is a major political question of our time.

The book’s wide-ranging and timely discussion includes legal and non-Mexican immigration. It sets the context of immigration before exploring the job experiences of illegal immigrants and their quest for the American dream. The contributors then focus on the causes and consequences—economic and social—of immigration, both legal and otherwise, and vividly describe the Latino experiences of illegality, including crossing the border and living in fear of deportation. In addition, the reform of immigration law is discussed from three distinct viewpoints: one conservative, one liberal, and one libertarian. The volume closes with its editors’ own proposals for comprehensive immigration reform. With a foreword by Alejandro Portes, a professor of sociology at Princeton University and author of Immigrant America: A Portrait.

About the Author

David Coates holds the Worrell Chair in Anglo-American Studies at Wake Forest University. He previously held chairs in political economy and labor studies at the universities of Leeds and Manchester in the United Kingdom. His latest book, which includes a survey of the current immigration debates, is A Liberal Tool Kit: Progressive Responses to Conservative Arguments (Praeger Publishers, 2007). He lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Peter Siavelis is the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation Fellow and an associate professor of political science at Wake Forest University. He has been a visiting professor at the Catholic University of Chile. He is the author of The President and Congress in Post-authoritarian Chile: Institutional Constraints to Democratic Consolidation (Penn State Press, 2000). He lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Potomac Books Inc. (May 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597972657
• ISBN-13: 978-1597972659
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 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: #609,856 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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5.0 out of 5 stars College-level collections will find this an excellent starting point for debate, November 16, 2009

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

Getting Immigration Right: What Every American Needs to Know offers a discussion of Mexico-US immigration politics, policies, and procedures, and comes from top experts on the topic. Any interested in Mexican immigration to this country will find this an outstanding collection of essays considering past and future policies, including legal rights, non-Mexican immigration issues, causes and results of immigration policies, and more. College-level collections will find this an excellent starting point for debate.