The Migration Question: Politics, Economics and the Failure of Border Security

This authoritative book proposes a fresh perspective on international migration, offering decisive answers to the big questions, and dismantling the main myths surrounding one of the most salient issues of today’s global politics. Who are these migrants? Do they steal our jobs?
Can we help them in their home countries? Do border controls improve security? Are open borders desirable? Leila Simona Talani and Matilde Rosina address these issues and more in their deeply researched study of migration into both Europe and the United States.

Assessing globalisation’s impact on international migration, the authors find that it is virtually impossible to stop contemporary flows from the Global South to North. In this context, policies designed to control, limit or deter immigration simply transform some or all regular migrants into irregular ones--exacerbating insecurity for citizens of the receiving state, and criminalising the migrants.

Through empirical research including original surveys and interviews, Talani and Rosina demonstrate conclusively that the only solution to this short-circuit world of securitisation and criminalisation is for the Global North to open its doors to the migrants already, inevitably, coming through--particularly since the evidence shows that regularising migration is a positive-sum game, in economic, social and security terms.

Leila Simona Talani has been Professor of International Political Economy in the Department of European and International Studies, King’s College London, since 2014; Editor of Palgrave Macmillan’s series on the ’Politics of Citizenship and Migration’ since 2020; and the founding Director of the Centre for Italian Politics @EIS, King’s College London. In 2017, she was awarded the Pierre Keller visiting professorship at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. She was also appointed Jean Monnet Chair of European Political Economy by the European Commission in 2012.

Matilde Rosina is Lecturer in Global Challenges at Brunel University London, and Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics. Her work lies at the intersection of international migration, public policy and international relations. An expert on migration and asylum matters, she earned her PhD from King’s College London, winning the King’s Outstanding Thesis Prize.