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Shulman views lax immigration policy as “a colossal failure,” devastating the economic conditions of “low-wage and African American workers” (p. xiii). He insists, “Immigration is not inevitable. Most immigration is legal and can be changed by the stroke of a pen.. . . The issue is not our capacity to reduce immigration, but our political will” (p. xiii). The book aims to summarize the literature and to provide evidence supporting a more restrictive policy. And although Shulman’s conviction is clearly stated and aim is timely, I cannot recommend this book as a guide on public policy. For a better book with a similar view, I recommend George J. Borjas’ Heaven i Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy (1999). Shulman’s book is a collection of papers, loosely organized with uneven quality. Each chapter uses its own style of tables and citations, leaving an impression of minimal editorial effort. And despite an explicit claim to influence public policy, there are few significant insights for policy makers, as the authors approached the immigration issue as a basic scientific question. Demonstrating that immigration growth is associated with increasing joblessness among native workers does not imply that restricting immigration will raise natives’ employment rates. (We will further assume the authors successfully solved the problem of estimating a causal effect of immigration from cross-sectional observational data, even though this assumption can easily be challenged). For example, after providing evidence of recent-immigrant Latino men (in occupations in metropolitan areas) negatively affecting native African Americans’ wages, Lisa Catanzarite pointed out, “the findings do not support a sweeping conclusion that immigrant employment is generally harmful to native workers or to native minorities” (p. 69). The labor market is a social institution managed by people with memories and prejudices. Imagine the president and congress passing legislation that makes millions of immigrants illegal in this country, funds deportation of all immigrants, and empowers the homeland security agency to guard the borders. Unfortunately, such an impressive legislative action would do nothing to eradicate racial prejudices of employers and expectations and behaviors of jobless natives. In the meantime, many factors can alter the consequences of a restricted immigration policy. The global capitalist system can offset any possible gain in employment by shipping jobs offshore. The immediate negative impact of changes in agricultural and service industries on the country’s economy can also outweigh any gains from the policy change. The current plights of low-skilled Americans, especially African American men, leave shameful marks on this country’s conscience. Finding and implementing policy solutions will demand great political will and resources. This collected work failed to convince me that a restricted immigration policy is one of these solutions.

Book Review: The Palestinian Impasse in Lebanon: The Politics of Refugee Integration