Immigration has been a contentious issue for decades, but in the
twenty-first century it has moved to center stage, propelled by an
immigrant threat narrative that blames foreign-born workers, and
especially the undocumented, for the collapsing living standards of
American workers. According to that narrative, if immigration were
summarily curtailed, border security established, and ""illegal aliens""
removed, the American Dream would be restored.
In this book, Ruth Milkman demonstrates that immigration is not the
cause of economic precarity and growing inequality, as Trump and other
promoters of the immigrant threat narrative claim. Rather, the influx of
low-wage immigrants since the 1970s was a consequence of concerted
employer efforts to weaken labor unions, along with neoliberal policies
fostering outsourcing, deregulation, and skyrocketing inequality.
These dynamics have remained largely invisible to the public. The
justifiable anger of US-born workers whose jobs have been eliminated or
degraded has been tragically misdirected, with even some liberal voices
recently advocating immigration restriction. This provocative book
argues that progressives should instead challenge right-wing populism,
redirecting workers' anger toward employers and political elites,
demanding upgraded jobs for foreign-born and US-born workers alike,
along with public policies to reduce inequality.
