The Supreme Court is winding down and this past week issued two eagerly awaited decisions, one of which dealt with immigration.

Arizona v. U.S. did not involve the issue of racial bias, though many civil rights groups have challenged it as such. Rather, the issue before the Supreme Court had to do with whether the Arizona law usurped the federal government’s authority to regulate immigration laws and enforcement.

If you are interested in finding out more information about immigration issues, our library has several books on this topic.   I have highlighted a few of the more recent ones below.

American Immigration: A Very Short Introduction – A fascinating and even-handed historical account, this book puts into perspective the longer history of calls for stronger immigration laws and the on-going debates over the place of immigrants in American society.  Oxford University Press

Immigration : A Documentary and Reference Guide  – Presents a history of US immigration, tracing the roots of the debate in the history of our profoundly divided and surprisingly cyclical response to foreign immigration.

 

 

In a New land : A Comparative View of Immigration – Drawing on the rich history of American immigrants and statistical and ethnographic data, In a New Land compares today’s new immigrants with the past influxes of Europeans to the United States and across cities and regions within the United States.