Losing Control: How a Left-Right Coalition Blocked Immigration Reform and Provoked the Backlash That Elected Trump

by Jerry Kammer

Follow Pulitzer prize-winning investigative reporter Jerry Kammer as he traces the roots of America's failure to reform immigration. Losing Control tells the remarkable tale of one of the most consequential failures of governance in modern American history. It is the story of the left-right, strangest-of-bedfellows coalition of activists, ethnic groups, business interests, and civil libertarians who undermined the reforms mandated by Congress in 1986 and who continue to resist efforts to establish the worksite immigration controls that are a key part of comprehensive immigration reform.
With vivid reporting from Mexico, Central America, Washington, D.C., and across the United States, Kammer explores the tensions produced by our country's legacy as both a country of immigrants and a country of laws.
He shows how the Democratic Party has moved toward the open borders left, while the Republican Party has come under the sway of Donald Trump, whose ability to harness the populist backlash against illegal immigration-swept him into the White House. Kammer not only tells the remarkable story of how we became so divided, he explains what it will take to achieve the reforms that Washington has long promised but failed to deliver.

422 pages, Paperback

Published June 25, 2020