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Reviews
| Deporting Our Souls: Values, Morality, and Immigration Policy. By Bill Ong Hing. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. xiii + 220 pp. Notes and index. $29.00 (paper).
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In Deporting Our Souls, Bill Ong Hing argues that public debate on immigration policy is morally barren if it does not address the nation's responsibility to integrate into civil society those immigrants who work in the United States. Addressing a broad audience, he asks readers to consider the human costs incurred when many immigrants are not able to forge stable social relationships because of extreme impoverishment and exclusion from membership in the political community. In Hing's analysis, reflexive fear of foreigners is the emotional force buttressing a U.S. immigration policy that became increasingly harsh after September 11, 2001. |
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Yet restrictive trends in immigration policy are not new. The first chapter traces the modern political history of illegal immigration policy, which grew more punitive in each decade after passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. The third chapter documents continuing efforts to undermine the family-unification principle that lies at the foundation of the legal immigration system. |
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While some of the arguments concerning illegal and legal immigration policy are familiar, the second chapter—which focuses on the negative effects of recent changes in deportation rules—presents a fresh perspective and new empirical evidence for the author's claims. Hing shows how grounds for deporting an immigrant have gradually expanded since the late 1980s, particularly when the reason for deportation is conviction for an aggravated felony. The definition of an aggravated felony includes not only very serious crimes such as murder or rape, but also lesser offenses, such as theft, if the term of imprisonment imposed is at least one year. |
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Drawing on his experience as a practicing immigration lawyer and his deep knowledge of immigration history, Hing recounts several illuminating case histories. The stories reveal the life circumstances that lead immigrant youth to join gangs and adults to commit assault or burglary, sometimes out of desperation and as a consequence of emotional disorders. In many cases, the individuals came to the U.S. after fleeing persecution and staying temporarily in refugee camps. Rather than deportation, a humane approach toward many refugees would emphasize rehabilitation guided by a theory of relational justice as explicated in criminology literature. The relational justice approach is restorative and attempts to reestablish informal social bonds missing in the lives of certain persons who run afoul of the law. Methods include group therapy, counseling, and job training. Youth courts in Great Britain serve as one model that has successfully used family intervention to reduce recidivism. |
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Preventive steps would help. In its closing pages, the author offers a glimpse of several service programs that may be models for fostering immigrant civic integration at the local level. An Omaha center is helping integrate Sudanese refugees into the local community. Newcomer centers have been successful in Sioux City, Iowa; Forth Smith, Arkansas; and Louisville, Kentucky. The Latino Initiative of the North Carolina Center for International Understanding leads study-abroad trips to Mexico for community leaders and educators to question cultural stereotypes. These examples suggest that the tradition of welcoming immigrants has not been lost in American communities. |
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This spirited argument for an enlightened immigration policy is a welcome contribution. The extended discussion of the ethics of immigration policy would have benefited from a fuller engagement of philosophical debates about the complicated issues at hand. What are the boundaries between citizens and noncitizens in liberal democratic states? Should political communities extend membership to foreigners, and if so, when and on what terms? Although there is a brief discussion of Michael Walzer's theory of distributive justice, the merits and counterargument are not closely examined. Nonetheless, the logic of the author's moral argument is clear enough to motivate a serious reexamination of the current direction of American immigration reform.
Carolyn Wong
Carleton College
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