Borders and Belonging: Toward a Fair Immigration Policy - Hardcover

by Hiroshi Motomura (Author)

A uniquely broad and fair-minded guide to making immigration policy ethical.

Immigration is now a polarizing issue across most advanced democracies. But too much that is written about immigration fails to appreciate the complex responses to the phenomenon. Too many observers assume imaginary consensus, avoid basic questions, or disregard the larger context for human migration.

In Borders and Belonging, Hiroshi Motomura offers a complex and fair-minded account of immigration, its root causes, and the varying responses to it. Taking stock of the issue's complexity, while giving credence to the opinions of immigration critics, he tackles a series of important questions that, when answered, will move us closer to a more realistic and sustainable immigration policy. Motomura begins by affirming a basic concept--national borders--and asks when they might be ethical borders, fostering fairness but also responding realistically to migration patterns and to the political forces that migration generates. In a nation with ethical borders, who should be let in or kept out? How should people forced to migrate be treated? Should newcomers be admitted temporarily or permanently? How should those with lawful immigration status be treated? What is the best role for enforcement in immigration policy? To what extent does the arrival of newcomers hurt long-time residents? What are the "root causes" of immigration and how can we address them?

Realistic about the desire of most citizens for national borders, this book is an indispensable guide for moving toward ethical borders and better immigration policy.

Author Biography

Hiroshi Motomura is the Susan Westerberg Prager Distinguished Professor of Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law. He is the author of Immigration Outside the Law (Oxford 2014), Americans in Waiting (Oxford 2006), many influential articles on immigration and citizenship, and he is a co-author of the law school casebook, Immigration and Citizenship: Process and Policy. He has testified in Congress and served on the ABA Commission on Immigration. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the International Migration Review and was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2018.