RUBEN NAVARRETTE JR. THE UNION-TRIBUNE

'A crisis of our own making'

October 22, 2008

It is remarkable that so many of those who rail against illegal immigration don't really understand the terrain. This includes folks at Washington, D.C., think tanks who write about immigration without interacting with actual immigrants, TV commentators who remake themselves for higher ratings, and opportunistic politicians who spin anger and prejudice into votes.

At the other end of the spectrum are those who actually know what they're talking about. They have logged long hours and done their homework, which might include interviewing real people – hundreds of them on both sides of the border.

They include Douglas Massey, a Princeton sociology professor and nationally acclaimed expert on immigration who for more than 20 years has monitored the U.S.-Mexico border, tracked immigration patterns, chronicled the Mexican migrant experience, and studied both the Mexican communities that cast off migrants and the U.S. communities that receive them.

Massey recently shared some of what he has learned in a lecture sponsored by the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California San Diego. If there is one thing about which he is absolutely sure, it is that we're not facing an invasion but rather what he calls “a crisis of our own making.â€