Book authors often think about timing. Will a book feel out-of-date as soon as it’s published? Or will publication come too soon, when events are so embryonic that they defy commentary?
I’ve asked myself these questions about my new book, Borders and Belonging: Toward a Fair Immigration Policy, published by Oxford University Press in late January 2025. It appeared in print just a few days after the inauguration of President Donald Trump. His administration’s attitudes and policies often seem unprecedented in the modern history of the United States. What, then, might be the value of a book on immigration policy published in a year of dramatic pivot to a new politics?
Too many decisionmakers make hasty judgments that strive for immediate results that will be visible in the current election cycle.
After much reflection during the first 100 days of the Trump administration, I’ve concluded that my concerns about timing are unfounded. This is a moment when discussion about immigration policy – not just in the United States but also worldwide – needs the uniquely comprehensive view of immigration policy that Borders and Belonging offers. Let me explain.
Thought Silos
Much of what’s written about immigration has serious shortcomings, even when the author is a thoughtful expert. Some writing articulates trenchant criticism of current policies or thoughtfully examines proposals for change, but it presents no affirmative vision of what the author favors. Other writing offers an affirmative vision, but that vision is often narrow, reflecting thinking within a type of thought silo but not venturing broadly.
Some silos reflect disciplines. Lawyers concerned with refugees aren’t fully in touch with lawyers who work with the constitutional and civil rights of noncitizens. Lawyers aren’t in conversation with sociologists, who in turn are often unfamiliar with the work of economists, philosophers, anthropologists, or historians. Specialist writers often ignore generalist readers.
Other silos are political, with writers seeing their audience as like-minded people. Other silos are geographical. Writers who are very familiar with the issues in their own country or region are often unaware of similar issues elsewhere in the world. The voices of impacted individuals and community may fail to get the attention that they deserve, or they might drive writing in ways that narrow their contribution.
Another limitation on writing about immigration policy is failure to find a reasonable balance between what’s realistic and what’s utopian. A vision that’s too realistic might react to specific events or developments but won’t identify the ideals that should drive decisionmaking in the long term. A vision that’s too utopian might assume away nation-states and make arguments for open borders or no borders that are political nonstarters.
This critique of existing writing highlights the need for a book that examines immigration policy from a combination of different perspectives that portray a realistic utopia. My audience is worldwide. This is why I wrote Borders and Belonging. Though I write largely about developments in the United States, my goal is to address a variety of analogous situations in many countries.
Ten Questions
The book is structured around ten questions that are fundamental yet rarely asked together. The first question sets the tone: why national borders, and why not?
The second question asks about how best to treat the millions of people worldwide who are fleeing dire circumstances in their home countries and seeking refuge elsewhere. I then pose the third question: who belongs to societies in ways that allow them to challenge persuasively how that society defines its future through immigration policy?
Borders and Belonging suggests a new framework for evaluating immigration policy.
Fourth, I probe the choices in deciding who gets lawfully into a country and who gets kicked out. This is related to the fifth question: what is the significance of time in making immigration policy? Here I analyze the distinction between migration that’s labeled temporary and migration that seems intended to lead to indefinite residence.
The sixth question examines the best options for dealing with the many people who live in a country without lawful immigration status. Is the best approach some sort of legalization program, or is that misguided or inadequate? This discussion leads to the seventh question: what should immigration law enforcement do? Or not do?
The eighth question asks how to take seriously the views of people who are skeptical of immigration or hostile to it – and why it’s important to do so. This is a question that many immigrants’ rights advocates have avoided, but at their political peril. The failure to engage seriously with this question has handed demagogues huge political opportunities to push for immigration restrictions that undermine the overall prosperity of destination countries in the long run.
The ninth question in Borders and Belonging examines what it means to “address the root causes of migration.” The book’s tenth and concluding question probes the big picture. It explains the sorts of injustices that national borders can enable and conceal. And it asks how history should inform the making of immigration policy.
Connecting the Questions
By now it should be clear that writing this book was a daunting project. I often felt like a pole vaulter who signs up for the decathlon. I know some aspects of immigration law and policy from knowledge and experience acquired over several decades, but I was less expert in other topics that the book covers. And yet, I felt that it was important to synthesize thinking on all ten questions, as a corrective to the vast body of writing that excludes some key questions from inquiry.
For example, it’s fatally narrow to consider the future of humanitarian protection without also considering what it means to address the root causes of migration. It’s incomplete to evaluate admission categories without examining what it means to migrate temporarily or permanently. Essential in considering admission categories is to ask what it means for newcomers to integrate into a new country.
What, then, are some of the key points that emerge from looking at immigration policy as broadly as I do in Borders and Belonging? In parts of the book, I debunk what amounts to conventional wisdom. The book also offers new frameworks for understanding policy choices. I also highlight essential connections among issues that are often examined in isolation. Here are five of these key points.
What Does Immigration Law Do?
First, immigration policy is often viewed as a set of rules distinguishing insiders from outsiders. In this sense, immigration law functions as the legal version of the physical border. It protects insiders from intrusion or even invasion by outsiders. But this is an incomplete view that obscures some fundamental truths about immigration policy.
What happens after newcomers arrive will depend in large part on integration.
In fact, immigration policy is what emerges from debate among insiders. Some favor more of some types of immigration. Other insiders are more skeptical or even hostile to immigration.
To see immigration policy in this broader way — as a debate among insiders about how to shape communities in the country — leads to a more forthright conversation about what’s really at stake. Invocations of invasion or national security remain relevant, but they are just part of the conversation.
Humanity Claims and Belonging Claims
Second, Borders and Belonging suggests a new framework for evaluating immigration policy. It is based on the contrast between what I call “humanity claims” and “belonging claims” as ways to challenge immigration policy. I define humanity claims as challenges that are grounded in notions of what no human being should have to endure. Examples include the cruelty that is all-too-often a part of immigration law enforcement, such as separating children from parents, or leaving migrants to drown at sea or to die of thirst in deserts.
In contrast, belonging claims are the basis for challenges that are based on connections to communities in a country. These connections show that some people belong. In turn, they have claims to fair treatment that are more persuasive than the claims of strangers. Belonging claims often take the form of civil rights or constitutional claims, such as claims to equal treatment, under national law. In contrast, humanity claims often adopt the rhetoric of human rights.
Who Belongs?
Third, the notion of belonging claims necessarily begs the question, who belongs? The intervention in Borders and Belonging is that belonging claims are not based belonging to a majority or dominant community or culture. What matters is belonging to some community or communities within the country’s physical borders.
This approach to belonging relies only in part on legal status. People with persuasive belonging claims need not be citizens. They may be lawful permanent residents or hold a similar durable status in other countries. They may be lawfully present on a temporary basis, or in an in-between status like Temporary Protected Status or DACA in the United States. Or they may lack lawful immigration status altogether. What matters are their functional and societal connections to the country.
Temporary or Indefinite?
Fourth, Borders and Belonging explores the distinction between temporary and indefinite migration. It’s conventional wisdom that people are in one category or the other on arrival. On this reasoning, it’s inconsistent or even deceptive to allow temporary migrants to stay indefinitely. But in truth, it makes good sense for policymakers to let in newcomers on a nominally temporary basis, and it’s natural for migrants to arrive without being sure of their plans in the medium-term and long-term. They may leave, but with the passage of time they may come to belong, and they might stay.
What happens after newcomers arrive will depend in large part on integration. Also important is a second element: the combination of ways to create real options for migrants to return to their original countries or to go back and forth. This second element makes crucial the policies that address the root causes of migration. These policies go hand in hand with admission rules that let in migrants on a temporary basis.
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The Time Dimension of Making Immigration Policy
Fifth, the discussion of temporary v. indefinite leads to a key topic: the time horizon for making immigration policy. Too many decisionmakers make hasty judgments that strive for immediate results that will be visible in the current election cycle. But this approach favors quick fixes like higher border walls and arrest statistics over fundamental changes to immigration policy that produce durable results.
These quick fixes are counterproductive. Failure to think long-term means that the infusion of resources into countries of origin is often quickly diverted into guns for containment. This means that resources don’t promote the sort of nation-building that can give people a real choice to stay at home. Patience is required for implementing effective policies, often because these policies will typically require complex transnational negotiation and cooperation.
Toward a Fair Immigration Policy
These are just five of the basic ideas in Borders and Belonging. By evaluating immigration policy in a uniquely comprehensive way, the book offers more ideas like this. I hope these ideas show the way toward a fair immigration policy.
