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The Walls Within: The Politics of Immigration in Modern America
A history of the battles over US immigrants’ rights since 1965―and how these conflicts reshaped access to education, employment, civil liberties, and more
The 1965 Hart-Celler Act transformed the American immigration system by abolishing national quotas in favor of a seemingly egalitarian approach. But subsequent demographic shifts resulted in a backlash over the social contract and the rights of citizens versus noncitizens. In The Walls Within , Sarah Coleman explores those political clashes, focusing not on attempts to stop immigration at the border, but on efforts to limit immigrants’ rights within the United States through domestic policy. Drawing on new materials from the Carter, Reagan, and Clinton administrations, and immigration and civil rights organizations, Coleman exposes how the politics of immigration control has undermined the idea of citizenship for all.
Coleman shows that immigration politics was not just about building or tearing down walls, but about employer sanctions, access to schools, welfare, and the role of local authorities in implementing policies. In the years after 1965, a rising restrictionist movement sought to marginalize immigrants in realms like public education and the labor market. Yet throughout the 1970s and 1980s, restrictionists faced countervailing forces committed to an expansive notion of immigrants’ rights. In the 1990s, with national politics gridlocked, anti-immigrant groups turned to statehouses to enact their agenda. Achieving strength at the local level, conservatives supporting immigration restriction actually acquired more influence under the Clinton presidency than even during the so-called Reagan revolution, resulting in dire consequences for millions of immigrants.
Revealing the roots behind much of today’s nativist sentiment, The Walls Within examines debates about who is entitled to the American dream, and how such dreams can be subverted for those already calling the country home.
The 1965 Hart-Celler Act transformed the American immigration system by abolishing national quotas in favor of a seemingly egalitarian approach. But subsequent demographic shifts resulted in a backlash over the social contract and the rights of citizens versus noncitizens. In The Walls Within , Sarah Coleman explores those political clashes, focusing not on attempts to stop immigration at the border, but on efforts to limit immigrants’ rights within the United States through domestic policy. Drawing on new materials from the Carter, Reagan, and Clinton administrations, and immigration and civil rights organizations, Coleman exposes how the politics of immigration control has undermined the idea of citizenship for all.
Coleman shows that immigration politics was not just about building or tearing down walls, but about employer sanctions, access to schools, welfare, and the role of local authorities in implementing policies. In the years after 1965, a rising restrictionist movement sought to marginalize immigrants in realms like public education and the labor market. Yet throughout the 1970s and 1980s, restrictionists faced countervailing forces committed to an expansive notion of immigrants’ rights. In the 1990s, with national politics gridlocked, anti-immigrant groups turned to statehouses to enact their agenda. Achieving strength at the local level, conservatives supporting immigration restriction actually acquired more influence under the Clinton presidency than even during the so-called Reagan revolution, resulting in dire consequences for millions of immigrants.
Revealing the roots behind much of today’s nativist sentiment, The Walls Within examines debates about who is entitled to the American dream, and how such dreams can be subverted for those already calling the country home.
272 pages, Hardcover
Published March 16, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 13, 2025
I came across this book while looking for information about the Hart-Celler Act (1965). This book focuses on the aftermath of the act, specifically the policy and politics around immigration from 1965-1990s. I was surprised by how timely this book felt, especially the parts that dig into conflicts between state and federal authority over immigration enforcement. But as the author writes, “the anti-immigrant movement that spurred Donald Trump into the presidency was not a recent phenomenon; instead, its shape and strategy were the result of the decades-long shifts traced in this book.” The book was informative and nuanced while remaining accessible to a curious layperson.
I started to learn a lot from this book, like about employee sanctions and the cases Plyler v. Doe and Chy Lung v. Freeman.
I started to learn a lot from this book, like about employee sanctions and the cases Plyler v. Doe and Chy Lung v. Freeman.
June 19, 2024
An informative read on changes in US immigration policy pertaining to undocumented people. It probably would've been too much to canvas alongside how that underplayed with legal immigration, but that's the only thing I wish was more prominent.
June 11, 2023
Loved this book. Here is the recommendation that I sent my rising senior who is working on an independent project on immigration
The book opens with an in-depth analysis (first two chapters) of the national conversation around Plyler vs Doe (which one of your classmates listed as the most important SCOTUS case of the Reagan Era) with the shift from Carter administration ambivalence to Reagan administration hostility to rights expansion that would grant Equal Rights Protection to undocumented immigrants. The book highlights the divided consensus in the Burger Court as the warring factions in both major political parties between restrictionists and neoliberals. The third chapter takes a look at the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill advocating employer sanctions for the employment of undocumented immigrants and the Frank amendment that Reagan officials found so noxious that it required a lengthy and contrary signing statement. Chapters 4 and 5 synthesize the political coalitions that coalesced in the mid-1990s around anti-immigrant sentiment and moved to deny undocumented immigrants AFDC benefits. I particularly appreciated the book's contextualization of these events in light of the recession that the United States weathered during these years and the disproportionate burden felt by Californians (Between 1990 and 1993, two thirds of all job losses in the United States were in CA, as a result of cuts in defense industries with the end of the Cold War. ) In such a context, the popularity of the Huddle study (which claimed that post-1970 immigrants cost the United States $42 billion annually in services) is understandable and the battle over Prop 187 makes more sense (https://www.retroreport.org/video/how... ). Chapter 6 focuses on the changing narrative around law enforcement at the US-Mexico border. Pay particular attention to the Gonzales v Peoria discussion on pages 148-160 and the expansion of the role of state and local immigration enforcement as well as the debate over the Latham amendment. In the epilogue, I noted the following key quote: "Identifying immigrants as costly burdens to the state, restrictionists drew upon arguments that appealed to those who saw the massive growth of Latino and other unauthorized immigrant populations as an indication of the new economy-- an economy that had shifted the ground beneath their own feet."
The book opens with an in-depth analysis (first two chapters) of the national conversation around Plyler vs Doe (which one of your classmates listed as the most important SCOTUS case of the Reagan Era) with the shift from Carter administration ambivalence to Reagan administration hostility to rights expansion that would grant Equal Rights Protection to undocumented immigrants. The book highlights the divided consensus in the Burger Court as the warring factions in both major political parties between restrictionists and neoliberals. The third chapter takes a look at the Simpson-Mazzoli Bill advocating employer sanctions for the employment of undocumented immigrants and the Frank amendment that Reagan officials found so noxious that it required a lengthy and contrary signing statement. Chapters 4 and 5 synthesize the political coalitions that coalesced in the mid-1990s around anti-immigrant sentiment and moved to deny undocumented immigrants AFDC benefits. I particularly appreciated the book's contextualization of these events in light of the recession that the United States weathered during these years and the disproportionate burden felt by Californians (Between 1990 and 1993, two thirds of all job losses in the United States were in CA, as a result of cuts in defense industries with the end of the Cold War. ) In such a context, the popularity of the Huddle study (which claimed that post-1970 immigrants cost the United States $42 billion annually in services) is understandable and the battle over Prop 187 makes more sense (https://www.retroreport.org/video/how... ). Chapter 6 focuses on the changing narrative around law enforcement at the US-Mexico border. Pay particular attention to the Gonzales v Peoria discussion on pages 148-160 and the expansion of the role of state and local immigration enforcement as well as the debate over the Latham amendment. In the epilogue, I noted the following key quote: "Identifying immigrants as costly burdens to the state, restrictionists drew upon arguments that appealed to those who saw the massive growth of Latino and other unauthorized immigrant populations as an indication of the new economy-- an economy that had shifted the ground beneath their own feet."
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews