BOOK REVIEW: ILLEGAL, ALIEN OR IMMIGRANT: THE POLITICS OF IMMIGRATION REFORM

Law and Politics Book Review
November 3, 2009
Reviewed by Karen A. Woodrow-Lafield, Maryland Population Research Center, University of Maryland College Park. Email: WoodrowLafield [at] cs.com.

Illegal, Alien or Immigrant: The Politics of Immigration Reform by Lina Newton. New York and London: New York University Press, 2008. 240pp. Cloth $65.00. ISBN: 9780814758427. Paper $22.00. ISBN: 9780814758434.

pp.795-801

This well-written and insightful book provides an interesting synthesis on the content and patterns of Congressional debate in the making of immigration policies. Newton examines how the official rhetoric about immigration reforms holds a set of narrative types matching policy options associated with images or social constructions of groups to whom reform measures would accordingly direct either rewards or punishments. Many social scientists, professionals, and practitioners have become knowledgeable of many aspects of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) and the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA or IIRAIRA), and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (also known as the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, PRWORA, or PREWORA). Newton contributes to understanding immigration reform in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, what these laws involve, how these laws were made, and why immigration reform continues to be on the agenda. Despite considerable attention from policymakers, there is an accumulation of perceived and real inadequacies, failures, and brokenness, along with unanticipated consequences.

The published record from the Congressional floor serves as a database for Newton’s systematic discourse analysis, as she extracts specific narratives of the IRCA and the IIRIRA debates and contrasts the “causal storiesâ€