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The Border Within: The Economics of Immigration in an Age of Fear
An eye-opening analysis of the costs and effects of immigration and immigration policy, both on American life and on new Americans.
For decades, immigration has been one of the most divisive, contentious topics in American politics. And for decades, urgent calls for its policy reform have gone mostly unanswered. As the discord surrounding the modern immigration debate has intensified, border enforcement has tightened. Crossing harsher, less porous borders makes unauthorized entry to the United States a permanent, costly undertaking. And the challenges don’t end on the other side.
At once enlightening and devastating, The Border Within examines the costs and ends of America’s interior enforcement—the policies and agencies, including ICE, aimed at removing immigrants already living in the country. Economist Tara Watson and journalist Kalee Thompson pair rigorous analysis with deeply personal stories from immigrants and their families to assess immigration’s effects on every aspect of American life, from the labor force to social welfare programs to tax revenue. What emerges is a critical, utterly complete examination of what non-native Americans bring to the country, including immigration’s tendency to elevate the wages and skills of those who are native-born.
News coverage has prompted many to question the humanity of American immigration policies; The Border Within opens a conversation of whether it is effective. The United States spends billions each year on detention and deportation, all without economic gain and at a great human cost. With depth and discipline, the authors dissect the shock-and-awe policies that make up a broken, often cruel system, while illuminating the lives caught in the chaos. It is an essential work with far-reaching implications for immigrants and non-immigrants alike.
For decades, immigration has been one of the most divisive, contentious topics in American politics. And for decades, urgent calls for its policy reform have gone mostly unanswered. As the discord surrounding the modern immigration debate has intensified, border enforcement has tightened. Crossing harsher, less porous borders makes unauthorized entry to the United States a permanent, costly undertaking. And the challenges don’t end on the other side.
At once enlightening and devastating, The Border Within examines the costs and ends of America’s interior enforcement—the policies and agencies, including ICE, aimed at removing immigrants already living in the country. Economist Tara Watson and journalist Kalee Thompson pair rigorous analysis with deeply personal stories from immigrants and their families to assess immigration’s effects on every aspect of American life, from the labor force to social welfare programs to tax revenue. What emerges is a critical, utterly complete examination of what non-native Americans bring to the country, including immigration’s tendency to elevate the wages and skills of those who are native-born.
News coverage has prompted many to question the humanity of American immigration policies; The Border Within opens a conversation of whether it is effective. The United States spends billions each year on detention and deportation, all without economic gain and at a great human cost. With depth and discipline, the authors dissect the shock-and-awe policies that make up a broken, often cruel system, while illuminating the lives caught in the chaos. It is an essential work with far-reaching implications for immigrants and non-immigrants alike.
304 pages, Hardcover
Published January 17, 2022
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December 15, 2024
America has always been a land of wandering souls and settled hearts, a place where people rise and fall in quiet testament to the dreams they carry. One would think, with immigration winding through every vein of our daily life, that we’d be more invested, ready to peer deeply into this vast human current. Yet, most folks remain either deeply unaware, willfully uninformed, or largely apathetic about the issue, whether legal or otherwise.
I’ve seen the immigration knowledge gap crack wide open in two distinct ways. On one side stand the well-meaning neighbors, wrinkling their brows and asking, “Why can’t they just come the right way?”—as if there’s an orderly queue at the foot of Lady Liberty. On the other side, there’s a failure to grasp just how the push and pull of migration ripple through farmland and factory towns, through schools and neighborhoods, leaving behind lasting changes we’re only half awake to. And in the haze of mainstream media and social feeds, the entire topic gets pressed down to a single notion: “the border.” That’s a mighty small window through which to watch something this sprawling and alive.
For a long stretch of my life, I was starved for a resource that would examine this business of immigration with even-handed honesty and methodological rigor, one that an everyday American could pick up and say, “Ahhh, now I see.”
By good fortune, Tara Watson and Kalee Thompson supply just such a voice. What they’ve produced is arguably the most readable, balanced, and exquisitely researched study on the economic, social, and human impact of immigration available today. As a former undocumented immigrant myself—now a proud U.S. citizen—I’ve personally experienced many of the episodes recounted in this book in-the-flesh. I can confirm the accuracy of its narrative and its profound ability to capture the complexities, realities, and absurdities of modern immigration policy.
At its core, the authors tackle two main questions: “Does the United States benefit from immigration?” and “Is interior enforcement truly effective at reducing undocumented arrivals?” Their findings are steeped in nuance, underscoring how a complex socio-economic issue resists any neat, cost-benefit accounting.
Whether undocumented immigrants help or hurt native-born workers hinges on two factors: the natives’ social and educational backgrounds, and whether migrants act as “substitutes” or “complements.” As the authors show, those harmed by immigration typically lack a high school diploma and hold low-skill jobs—groups that include a disproportionate number of Black and Latino workers as well as earlier immigrant arrivals. These individuals face slightly depressed wages and diminished bargaining power as new laborers enter the field, willing to accept lower pay and harsher conditions.
Meanwhile, workers for whom immigrants serve as complements gain a significant boost. Freed from lower-level tasks, they move into higher-paying, communication-driven roles, where the opportunity to specialize raises both their productivity and their earnings potential.
At the macro level, immigrants bolster local economies in two principal ways. First, their relatively low-cost labor lowers prices for goods and services across the board. Second, they fuel consumption by renting apartments, buying groceries, and paying for haircuts and non-tradable services that invigorate local markets. However, these gains are less robust than some might expect. Because many immigrants tend to be poorer and less well-educated than their native counterparts, they often purchase fewer goods and of lower quality, and a considerable portion of their earnings flows back to their home countries through remittances rather than cycling through the U.S. economy.
One often-overlooked benefit of immigration stems from migrants’ greater mobility compared to native-born workers. Because they’re more willing and able to move in pursuit of better opportunities, immigrants effectively “grease the wheels” of the economy by supplying labor where demand is highest and reducing the labor surplus in struggling local markets.
In the presence of low-cost labor, immigrants can slow the pace of automation while offering an alternative to offshoring for businesses under economic pressure. This effect is significant. When California’s agricultural producers lost access to seasonal workers from Mexico—known as the “Braceros”—they switched to automated harvesters and, in turn, shifted production to crops more amenable to mechanization. The result? A narrower range of fresh food choices for American consumers.
Immigrant labor, particularly in domestic and caregiving roles, has profound implications for high-earning families and the elderly. Research shows that when an immigrant workforce is readily available, college-educated women can devote more hours to their careers instead of spending that same time on childcare and housework—without sacrificing educational or recreational activities with their children. In cities where hiring immigrant domestic help is more difficult, these same women reduce their out-of-home work and shoulder basic childcare responsibilities themselves.
A similar dynamic extends to eldercare: as immigrants fill positions like home health aides and housekeepers, older adults are more likely to remain in their homes rather than enter institutional care facilities. This not only preserves the dignity and comfort of "aging in place" but also correlates with tangible health benefits, including fewer falls among nursing home residents. Such evidence highlights a multifaceted economic and social contribution: by lowering the cost of domestic labor, immigrants broaden options for working women and improve the quality of life for the elderly.
Yet for all the evidence of immigrants fueling economic dynamism, a stubborn myth persists: that an influx of foreign-born workers drives up crime. In The Border Within, the authors systematically dismantle this misconception. They present data revealing that, despite fitting the typical demographic profile—young, often low-income males—immigrants actually have far lower incarceration rates than native-born Americans. The difference, scholars argue, can be traced to “selection bias”:
Of course, the picture grows more complex across generations. First-generation immigrants tend to be especially law-abiding, but subsequent generations sometimes see a slight rise in criminal activity—what the authors call “downward assimilation.” There’s also evidence that heightened competition in the labor market might drive some vulnerable U.S.-born groups, including Black men, toward illegal activities when their economic prospects worsen.
Even so, the overriding conclusion stands: the belief that immigration inherently breeds violence doesn’t hold water once the facts are laid bare. Far from perpetrating more crime, most immigrants arrive here with powerful incentives—family ties, personal sacrifice, and a desire for stability—that keep them out of trouble and committed to building a better life.
One of the most overlooked dimensions of the immigration debate involves the millions of U.S.-citizen children living with undocumented parents. As the authors note, an estimated 4.1 million such children reside in households caught between harsh enforcement measures and societal indifference. The idea that we can isolate “immigrant families” from “citizen families” simply doesn’t hold: deporting or economically disadvantaging parents always reverberates through the American-born children who rely on them.
Complicating matters further, K–12 education for these kids—often English-language learners—comes at a substantial short-term cost to state and local governments, yet pays dividends in the long run by fueling a more productive future workforce. In essence, the authors underscore a stark question: if we fail to invest in immigrant children, what does it say about our national commitment to the next generation of Americans?
By the time Watson and Thompson reach the subject of enforcement, it becomes painfully clear that the billions spent annually yield minuscule results. Less than one percent of the undocumented population is deported each year, and even those removals come at a steep cost—fractured families and heightened anxieties for millions more. Meanwhile, the labor market remains largely unchanged. The authors argue that Republicans, caught between a socially conservative base and a business sector reliant on immigrant workers, have fashioned a brand of “performative enforcement” that never significantly reduces the immigrant labor force.
Watson and Thompson also point to two concerns that deserve honest debate. The first is the real, though modest, adverse impact on less-educated workers—including many US-born Black men—who see their job prospects diminish in the face of increased competition. The second is the preservation of a perceived “traditional American identity,” which translates into fear and rhetoric that rarely acknowledges immigration’s deeper complexities.
In the end, The Border Within shows us that expensive, aggressive tactics target the most vulnerable without solving our economic challenges or restoring any romantic notion of Americana. It’s a sobering reminder that simplistic, heavy-handed policies rarely address the true breadth of what immigration is—or what it could be—for this country.
Highest Possible Recommendation!
I’ve seen the immigration knowledge gap crack wide open in two distinct ways. On one side stand the well-meaning neighbors, wrinkling their brows and asking, “Why can’t they just come the right way?”—as if there’s an orderly queue at the foot of Lady Liberty. On the other side, there’s a failure to grasp just how the push and pull of migration ripple through farmland and factory towns, through schools and neighborhoods, leaving behind lasting changes we’re only half awake to. And in the haze of mainstream media and social feeds, the entire topic gets pressed down to a single notion: “the border.” That’s a mighty small window through which to watch something this sprawling and alive.
For a long stretch of my life, I was starved for a resource that would examine this business of immigration with even-handed honesty and methodological rigor, one that an everyday American could pick up and say, “Ahhh, now I see.”
By good fortune, Tara Watson and Kalee Thompson supply just such a voice. What they’ve produced is arguably the most readable, balanced, and exquisitely researched study on the economic, social, and human impact of immigration available today. As a former undocumented immigrant myself—now a proud U.S. citizen—I’ve personally experienced many of the episodes recounted in this book in-the-flesh. I can confirm the accuracy of its narrative and its profound ability to capture the complexities, realities, and absurdities of modern immigration policy.
At its core, the authors tackle two main questions: “Does the United States benefit from immigration?” and “Is interior enforcement truly effective at reducing undocumented arrivals?” Their findings are steeped in nuance, underscoring how a complex socio-economic issue resists any neat, cost-benefit accounting.
Whether undocumented immigrants help or hurt native-born workers hinges on two factors: the natives’ social and educational backgrounds, and whether migrants act as “substitutes” or “complements.” As the authors show, those harmed by immigration typically lack a high school diploma and hold low-skill jobs—groups that include a disproportionate number of Black and Latino workers as well as earlier immigrant arrivals. These individuals face slightly depressed wages and diminished bargaining power as new laborers enter the field, willing to accept lower pay and harsher conditions.
As journalist Roger Lowenstein points out in his New York Times profile of Borjas, the number of immigrants in the US labor force far surpasses the total number of unemployed: “[T]he majority of immigrants can’t literally have ‘taken’ jobs; they must be doing jobs that wouldn’t have existed had the immigrants not been here.
Meanwhile, workers for whom immigrants serve as complements gain a significant boost. Freed from lower-level tasks, they move into higher-paying, communication-driven roles, where the opportunity to specialize raises both their productivity and their earnings potential.
[Researchers] examine wage changes within firms that experienced an influx of undocumented workers, and they compare those changes to general wage growth happening in other firms—a comparison that Georgia’s rapid immigrant growth made possible. Taking this approach, the results are quite different: Wages of natives and documented immigrants actually rise within a firm as the share of undocumented workers goes up, leaving legal workers with more wage growth than their counterparts in other similar firms see. These results are most pronounced in the hospitality industry, retail services, and manufacturing.
At the macro level, immigrants bolster local economies in two principal ways. First, their relatively low-cost labor lowers prices for goods and services across the board. Second, they fuel consumption by renting apartments, buying groceries, and paying for haircuts and non-tradable services that invigorate local markets. However, these gains are less robust than some might expect. Because many immigrants tend to be poorer and less well-educated than their native counterparts, they often purchase fewer goods and of lower quality, and a considerable portion of their earnings flows back to their home countries through remittances rather than cycling through the U.S. economy.
One often-overlooked benefit of immigration stems from migrants’ greater mobility compared to native-born workers. Because they’re more willing and able to move in pursuit of better opportunities, immigrants effectively “grease the wheels” of the economy by supplying labor where demand is highest and reducing the labor surplus in struggling local markets.
Borjas shows that immigrants promote the economic convergence of regions of the United States—meaning they help struggling areas catch up to booming ones. Economic theory predicts that workers in general should migrate to places with better opportunities, lowering wages in receiving regions and raising wages in sending ones. And this does happen to an extent. But the mobility of US-born workers, especially less-educated workers, is not adequate to erase the differences in rich and poor areas.
In the presence of low-cost labor, immigrants can slow the pace of automation while offering an alternative to offshoring for businesses under economic pressure. This effect is significant. When California’s agricultural producers lost access to seasonal workers from Mexico—known as the “Braceros”—they switched to automated harvesters and, in turn, shifted production to crops more amenable to mechanization. The result? A narrower range of fresh food choices for American consumers.
It seems that immigrants sometimes substitute not for US natives, but for machines. This fact helps explain the small employment impacts of immigration: Immigrants essentially create their own jobs by offering an alternative to mechanized production.
Immigrant labor, particularly in domestic and caregiving roles, has profound implications for high-earning families and the elderly. Research shows that when an immigrant workforce is readily available, college-educated women can devote more hours to their careers instead of spending that same time on childcare and housework—without sacrificing educational or recreational activities with their children. In cities where hiring immigrant domestic help is more difficult, these same women reduce their out-of-home work and shoulder basic childcare responsibilities themselves.
A similar dynamic extends to eldercare: as immigrants fill positions like home health aides and housekeepers, older adults are more likely to remain in their homes rather than enter institutional care facilities. This not only preserves the dignity and comfort of "aging in place" but also correlates with tangible health benefits, including fewer falls among nursing home residents. Such evidence highlights a multifaceted economic and social contribution: by lowering the cost of domestic labor, immigrants broaden options for working women and improve the quality of life for the elderly.
Yet for all the evidence of immigrants fueling economic dynamism, a stubborn myth persists: that an influx of foreign-born workers drives up crime. In The Border Within, the authors systematically dismantle this misconception. They present data revealing that, despite fitting the typical demographic profile—young, often low-income males—immigrants actually have far lower incarceration rates than native-born Americans. The difference, scholars argue, can be traced to “selection bias”:
There is a broad understanding among social scientists that so-called selection bias exists in who chooses to immigrate to the US. “Although there are exceptions, it is widely recognized that most immigrants, Mexicans in particular, selectively migrate to the United States based on characteristics that predispose them to low crime, such as motivation to work and ambition”.
Of course, the picture grows more complex across generations. First-generation immigrants tend to be especially law-abiding, but subsequent generations sometimes see a slight rise in criminal activity—what the authors call “downward assimilation.” There’s also evidence that heightened competition in the labor market might drive some vulnerable U.S.-born groups, including Black men, toward illegal activities when their economic prospects worsen.
Even so, the overriding conclusion stands: the belief that immigration inherently breeds violence doesn’t hold water once the facts are laid bare. Far from perpetrating more crime, most immigrants arrive here with powerful incentives—family ties, personal sacrifice, and a desire for stability—that keep them out of trouble and committed to building a better life.
One of the most overlooked dimensions of the immigration debate involves the millions of U.S.-citizen children living with undocumented parents. As the authors note, an estimated 4.1 million such children reside in households caught between harsh enforcement measures and societal indifference. The idea that we can isolate “immigrant families” from “citizen families” simply doesn’t hold: deporting or economically disadvantaging parents always reverberates through the American-born children who rely on them.
Complicating matters further, K–12 education for these kids—often English-language learners—comes at a substantial short-term cost to state and local governments, yet pays dividends in the long run by fueling a more productive future workforce. In essence, the authors underscore a stark question: if we fail to invest in immigrant children, what does it say about our national commitment to the next generation of Americans?
“It is difficult to understand what the State hopes to achieve by promoting the creation and perpetuation of a subclass of illiterates within our boundaries.”
By the time Watson and Thompson reach the subject of enforcement, it becomes painfully clear that the billions spent annually yield minuscule results. Less than one percent of the undocumented population is deported each year, and even those removals come at a steep cost—fractured families and heightened anxieties for millions more. Meanwhile, the labor market remains largely unchanged. The authors argue that Republicans, caught between a socially conservative base and a business sector reliant on immigrant workers, have fashioned a brand of “performative enforcement” that never significantly reduces the immigrant labor force.
Watson and Thompson also point to two concerns that deserve honest debate. The first is the real, though modest, adverse impact on less-educated workers—including many US-born Black men—who see their job prospects diminish in the face of increased competition. The second is the preservation of a perceived “traditional American identity,” which translates into fear and rhetoric that rarely acknowledges immigration’s deeper complexities.
In the end, The Border Within shows us that expensive, aggressive tactics target the most vulnerable without solving our economic challenges or restoring any romantic notion of Americana. It’s a sobering reminder that simplistic, heavy-handed policies rarely address the true breadth of what immigration is—or what it could be—for this country.
Highest Possible Recommendation!
January 4, 2026
Extremely informative! Well written, engaging (sad) narratives woven throughout
February 18, 2025
Complexity abounds.
This is a thoughtful thorough analysis of the complexities involved with immigration in this country. The authors provide an almost exhaustive review of the studies and papers that have analyzed the many facets of the problem. There are no easy answers, but at some point, we must work together to solve the inhumanity involved in the existing system.
This is a thoughtful thorough analysis of the complexities involved with immigration in this country. The authors provide an almost exhaustive review of the studies and papers that have analyzed the many facets of the problem. There are no easy answers, but at some point, we must work together to solve the inhumanity involved in the existing system.
March 2, 2023
Well done mixing of individual stories and research on the overall illegal immigration picture. Lots of research issues explained in well written, understandable ways. For example, the main cause of undocumented persons is the situation in their home country -- no one goes through what undocumented US residents go through unless their families are starving or they are in physical danger. So how do we tell which policies that we have increase or decrease illegal immigration?
The stories of the immigrants are heartbreaking -- they put up with lives that are miserable (by my standards) even when the government leaves them alone, and the government's policies are confused and often pointlessly cruel.
The stories of the immigrants are heartbreaking -- they put up with lives that are miserable (by my standards) even when the government leaves them alone, and the government's policies are confused and often pointlessly cruel.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews