Be Careful How You Frame the Issues

Immigration is related to widening inequality and insecurity in the United States, but it is not the main cause of such changes and to focus on the host/immigrant conflict diverts attention from many different elite projects that have widened inequality. Moral arguments about immigration cannot just address outsiders who only want to get into nations, but must address the moral situation of people in the process of entry and especially of insider/outsiders, people already in. Over the long run, civic nationalism is a healthier model than exclusionary biological or cultural fundamentalist definitions of the national community.

Josiah McC. HeymanEmail:

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Josiah Heyman   is Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Texas at El Paso. He is the author or editor of three books and author of over 50 scholarly articles, book chapters, and essays. He can be contacted at jmheyman@utep.edu.