U.S. Immigration Law and the Control of Labor: 1820-1924 - Paperback

by Susan Bibler Coutin (Foreword by), Kitty Calavita (Author)

Reagan's 1986 immigration reform law offered a composite of contradictory measures: sanctions curtailed employment of undocumented workers while other programs enhanced labor supply. Immigration law today continues the theme of contradictions and unmet goals. But hasn't it always been so? Examining a century of U.S. immigration laws, from the nation's early stages of industrialization to enactment of the quota system, Calavita explores the hypocrisy, subtext, and racism permeating an unrelenting influx of European labor. - Now in its Second Edition, this groundbreaking book offers a materialist theory of the state to explain the zigzagging policies that alternately encouraged and ostensibly were meant to control the influx. The author adds a 2020 Preface to place the historical record into modern relief, even in the age of presidential characterization of immigrants as violent criminals and terrorists. - Writing in a new Foreword, Susan Bibler Coutin is "struck by the relevance of Calavita's analysis to current debates over immigration policy," as this social history "reveals alternatives to the present moment: over much of U.S. history, government officials actively recruited immigrants, even when segments of the public sought restrictions." The aim was not "social justice or human rights, but rather to fuel economic expansion, depress wages, and counter unionization." The book is recommended to a wide audience: "The theoretical discussion is accessible to new students as well as established scholars, and the rich documentary record sheds light on how current dynamics were set in motion." - "Calavita lucidly and brilliantly clarifies the linkages among economic structure, ideology, and law making. She effectively depicts the history of U.S. immigration legislation as a series of attempted resolutions to recurring dilemmas rooted in the fiscal and legitimation crises facing the state." - Marjorie Zatz, Vice Provost, UC-Merced, in International Migration Review (1986) - ABOUT THE AUTHOR: KITTY CALAVITA is Chancellor's Professor Emerita of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine. Much of her work examines the interplay of political, ideological, and economic factors in the implementation of immigration law, the treatment of white-collar crime, and, most recently, prisoners' rights. In all of these cases, she explores what they can tell us about relations of power and state processes. Her books include Inside the State: The Bracero Program, Immigration, and the INS (1992; reprinted with new foreword, 2010); Big Money Crime: Fraud and Politics in the Savings and Loan Industry (1997); Immigrants at the Margins: Law, Race, and Exclusion in Southern Europe (2005); Invitation to Law & Society: An Introduction to the Study of Real Law (2010; second edition, 2016); and Appealing to Justice: Prisoner Grievances, Rights, and Carceral Logic (2015).