Citizens, Strangers, and In-Betweens: Essays on Immigration and Citizenship

Immigration is one of the critical issues of our time. In Citizens, Strangers, and In-Betweens, an integrated series of fourteen essays, Yale professor Peter Schuck analyzes the complex social forces that have been unleashed by unprecedented legal and illegal migration to the United States, forces that are reshaping American society in countless ways. Schuck first presents the demographic, political, economic, legal, and cultural contexts in which these transformations are occurring. He then shows how the courts, Congress, and the states are responding to the tensions created by recent immigration. Next, he explores the nature of American citizenship, challenging traditional ways of defining the national community and analyzing the controversial topics of citizenship for illegal alien children, the devaluation and revaluation of American citizenship, and plural citizenship. In a concluding section, Schuck focuses on four vital and explosive policy issues: immigration’s effects on the civil rights movement, the cultural differences among various American ethnic groups as revealed in their experiences as immigrants throughout the world, the protection of refugees fleeing persecution, and immigration’s effects on American society in recent years.

Peter H. Schuck is Simeon E. Baldwin Professor at Yale Law School. He is the author or editor of many books and articles including Citizenship Without Consent: Illegal Aliens in the American Polity (with Rogers M. Smith), Paths to Inclusion: The Integration of Migrants in the U.S. and Germany, Suing Government: Citizen Remedies for Official Wrongs, Agent Orange on Trial: Mass Toxic Disasters in the Courts, Foundations of Administrative Law, and Tort Law and the Public Interest: Competition, Innovation, and Consumer Welfare.