ABSTRACT

Immigration is one of the critical issues of our time. In Citizens, Strangers, and In-Betweens, an integrated series of fourteen essays, Yale professor Peter Schuck analyzes the complex social forces that have been unleashed by unprecedented legal and illegal migration to the United States, forces that are reshaping American society in countless ways. Schuck first presents the demographic, political, economic, legal, and cultural contexts in which these transformations are occurring. He then shows how the courts, Congress, and the states are responding to the tensions created by recent immigration. Next, he explores the nature of American citizenship, challenging traditional ways of defining the national community and analyzing the controversial topics of citizenship for illegal alien children, the devaluation and revaluation of American citizenship, and plural citizenship. In a concluding section, Schuck focuses on four vital and explosive policy issues: immigration's effects on the civil rights movement, the cultural differences among various American ethnic groups as revealed in their experiences as immigrants throughout the world, the protection of refugees fleeing persecution, and immigration's effects on American society in recent years.

part One|15 pages

Contexts

chapter 1|13 pages

The Immigration System Today

part Two|71 pages

The Courts and Immigration

part Three|72 pages

The Politics of Immigration

part Four|87 pages

Citizenship and Community

chapter 7|13 pages

The Devaluation of American Citizenship

chapter 8|31 pages

The Reevaluation of American Citizenship

chapter 9|10 pages

Consensual Citizenship

chapter 10|31 pages

Plural Citizenships

part Five|110 pages

Current Policy Debates