What They’re Saying:

“This is a powerful book that takes on an urgent and under-researched topic. Here in one place at last is an overview and analysis of the shifting landscape of immigration control and the increase of executive power in the U.S. that have characterized the last decade. It is a must-read, not just for immigration scholars, but for all who want to stay informed of the trajectory of American democracy.” -- Kitty Calavita, University of California Irvine

“Robert Koulish's timely and hard-hitting analysis lays bare how elites have brought home the ‘war on terror’ via immigration control policy...A must-read for immigrant advocates and civil libertarians.” -- Ron Hayduk, City University of New York, author of Democracy for All: Restoring Immigrant Voting Rights in the United States

What it’s About:

While the idea of immigration embodies America’s rhetorical commitment to democracy, recent immigration control policies also showcase abysmal failures in democratic practice. Immigration and American Democracy examines these failures in terms of state sovereignty, neoliberalism, and surveillance-based techniques of social control.

The ideological argument for privatization is not new. But immigration has provided a laboratory for replicating on American soil the sorts of outsourcing travesties that have occurred in America’s war in Iraq. As an outcome, abusive executive powers—many delegated to state and local governments and private actors—are manifested every day in data collection, spying, detention, and deportation hearings, and in many cases bypassing the Constitution. The practice of privatization extends this leviathan immigration state by clamping down on civil liberties without having to oblige the courts.

Ultimately, Koulish examines the contested terrain between democratic and undemocratic forces in the immigration policy domain and concludes with recommendations for how democratic forces might well still win out.

About the Author:

Robert Koulish, Ph.D., is a political scientist.  He is Research Associate Professor and Director of MLAW Programs at the University of Maryland. MLAW consists of a College Park Scholars Living-Learning Program in Justice and Legal Thought and a Minor in Law and Society.  He has written for The Baltimore Sun, the online Monthly Review, and various law reviews and journals. Please contact him at rkoulish@gmail.com

Immigration and American Democracy

Subverting the Rule of Law

Paperback•$29.95•240pp ISBN 978-0-415-99618-1