The Immigration Crisis: Nativism, Armed Vigilantism, and the Rise of a Countervailing Movement

Immigration remains one of the most pressing and polarizing issues in the United States. In The Immigration Crisis, the political scientist and social activist Armando Navarro takes a hard look at 400 years of immigration into the territories that now form the United States, paying particular attention to the ways in which immigrants have been received. The book provides a political, historical, and theoretical examination of the laws, personalities, organizations, events, and demographics that have shaped four centuries of immigration and led to the widespread social crisis that today divides citizens, non-citizens, regions, and political parties. As a prominent activist, Navarro has participated broadly in the Mexican-American community’s responses to the problems of immigration and integration, and his book also provides a powerful glimpse into the actual working of Hispanic social movements. In a sobering conclusion, Navarro argues that the immigration crisis is inextricably linked to the globalization of capital and the American economy’s dependence on cheap labor.