Illegal - by Elizabeth F Cohen (Hardcover)
Similar Products
Products of same category from the store
All
Product info
<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>"In Illegal, prominent political scientist Elizabeth Cohen explores the dark history of US immigration policy and proposes a major new plan for full-scale reform. As Cohen shows, the US has always maintained the right to exclude people from entry-from those deemed to have seditious intent to a broad category of "undesirables," which has at times included epileptics, prostitutes, beggars, and anarchists. Cohen traces the particular invention of "illegal" immigration to 1882, when the Chinese Exclusion Act was enacted to suppress immigration by "undesirable" peoples of the world. Later, through the 1924 National Origins Quota Act, Congress massively expanded the scope of racial immigrant exclusions. However, as Cohen points out, the Registry Act of 1929 quietly provided a way for people who had come to the US without legal status to eventually become legal and to naturalize. In subsequent decades, Congress began to distinguish legal from illegal immigration by mapping out the first roads to citizenry. Yet when the registry system was eventually undone in 1986 with the introduction of selective "amnesty" for documented immigrants, the problem of "the undocumented" snowballed into a legal and economic disaster. Employers kept hiring undocumented workers, incentivizing immigration, but a lack of papers could place migrant families in legal limbo. Thus, by 1996, we had a citizenship crisis -- one exacerbated when terrorism became linked with unlawful immigration, manufactured by a Congress that had allowed its citizenship -- related functions to atrophy"--<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><b>A political scientist explains how the American immigration system ran off the rails -- and proposes a bold plan for reform </b> <p/>Under the Trump administration, US immigration agencies terrorize the undocumented, target people who are here legally, and even threaten the constitutional rights of American citizens. How did we get to this point? <p/>In <i>Illegal</i>, Elizabeth F. Cohen reveals that our current crisis has roots in early twentieth century white nationalist politics, which began to reemerge in the 1980s. Since then, ICE and CBP have acquired bigger budgets and more power than any other law enforcement agency. Now, Trump has unleashed them. If we want to reverse the rising tide of abuse, Cohen argues that we must act quickly to rein in the powers of the current immigration regime and revive saner approaches based on existing law. Going beyond the headlines, <i>Illegal</i> makes clear that if we don't act now all of us, citizen and not, are at risk.<p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>"A concise but unflinching look at the barbaric state of immigration in America...The author is a sharp examiner of the relevant data and research, and she is shrewd enough not to drown in the political quicksand surrounding immigration. However, she doesn't shy away from controversy, exploring the dangers of white nationalism and taking into account the pragmatic reasons to formulate a fair immigration policy that doesn't prostrate itself before communal fear...An even-keeled examination."--<b><i>Kirkus</b></i><br><br>"A fascinating dive into our country's lawless immigration enforcement regime and how it developed."--<b><i>Alex Nowrasteh, the Cato Institute</b></i><br><br>"A timely and unsparing account of how our immigration enforcement regime has 'gone off the rails'. Cohen shows that we had a system we could have built upon that was far less brutal to immigrants and more representative of democratic values. But instead, for political reasons as diverse as 9/11 and the steady beat of xenophobia, we abandoned it. Is there a way forward? In a clear and compelling statement Cohen shows us that our democracy is in danger, what must change, and how to make change happen. An urgent and powerful book."--<b><i>Janelle Wong, University of Maryland, CollegePark</b></i><br><br>"Cohen draws on a wealth of historical evidence to present her dire portrait of America's immigration system, and her commonsense solutions feel both necessary and attainable...[A] trenchant call to action."--<b><i>Publishers Weekly</b></i><br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br><b>Elizabeth F. Cohen </b>is a professor of political science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. The author of <i>The Political Value of Time</i>, she lives in New York City.
Price History
Price Archive shows prices from various stores, lets you see history and find the cheapest. There is no actual sale on the website. For all support, inquiry and suggestion messagescommunication@pricearchive.us