Just before Arizona’s immigration law SB 1070 went into effect at the end of July, a federal judge temporarily blocked certain of the most controversial sections. In the wake of the ruling, Peter Schrag, author of Not Fit for Our Society: Immigration and Nativism in America, gave his point of view on immigration on the Washington Post’s Political Bookworm blog.

Schrag finds that with every wave of immigration in America, there has been a corresponding rise in anti-immigrant sentiment, with nearly every immigrant group faced with opposition at one time or another. With relation to the Arizona law, he finds that current strategies have not stopped people from crossing the US-Mexico border illegally. He proposes some alternative ways to prevent illegal immigration, like increased enforcement of labor laws and economic development in Mexico. Read Peter Schrag’s full Political Bookworm op-ed.

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