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Why Immigration Policy Is Hard: And How to Make It Better
Immigration policy is hard, involving difficult decisions and trade-offs. But, as Alan Manning – former chair of the UK's Migration Advisory Committee – makes clear, this doesn't mean that we can't do much better.
We should start, Manning says, by ditching simplistic views that frame immigration as either wholly good or wholly bad. We will always have, and need, some level of immigration. But, just as inevitably, we will have rules on who can and cannot immigrate as more people are likely to want to move to high-income countries than residents will want to admit. To set those rules, we need reliable evidence to adjudicate among the often-competing claims of the economy, culture, justice and democracy. Manning supplies such evidence in abundance, guiding us through cutting-edge international research on the many ways immigration affects people's lives, including effects on their jobs and incomes, their taxes and public services, and their communities.
Why Immigration Policy Is Hard is an indispensable resource for informed debate on one of the most charged subjects in public life today.
We should start, Manning says, by ditching simplistic views that frame immigration as either wholly good or wholly bad. We will always have, and need, some level of immigration. But, just as inevitably, we will have rules on who can and cannot immigrate as more people are likely to want to move to high-income countries than residents will want to admit. To set those rules, we need reliable evidence to adjudicate among the often-competing claims of the economy, culture, justice and democracy. Manning supplies such evidence in abundance, guiding us through cutting-edge international research on the many ways immigration affects people's lives, including effects on their jobs and incomes, their taxes and public services, and their communities.
Why Immigration Policy Is Hard is an indispensable resource for informed debate on one of the most charged subjects in public life today.
416 pages, Hardcover
Published February 3, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 30, 2026
wake up babe new personality based on a book just dropped
July 2, 2026
A very good synthesis of previous research on the subject of immigration in high-income contexts. He puts into words a circle of immigration policy which he calls ‘the infernal cycle’, which describes the cyclical frustrations and harshness towards of immigration policy. I like it as an academic book but it’s not the best read ever; I much prefer the Hein de Haas version of the similar book: How Migration Really Works: A Factful Guide to the Most Divisive Issue in Politics.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews