Book Fair: Johnson on Johnson

Kevin Johnson, dean at the UC Davis Law School, has a non-neurotic approach to making a nomination for the Underbelly summer Book Fair--Kevin nominates his own book, Opening the Floodgates: Why America Needs to Rethink its Borders and Immigration Laws (NYU Press 2004). Here's a bit of the publisher's blurb.

Seeking to re-imagine the meaning and significance of the international border, Opening the Floodgates makes a case for eliminating the border as a legal construct that impedes the movement of people into this country. Open migration policies deserve fuller analysis, particularly on the eve of a presidential election. Kevin R. Johnson offers an alternative vision of how U.S. borders might be reconfigured, grounded in moral, economic, and policy arguments for open borders. Importantly, liberalizing migration through an open borders policy would recognize that the enforcement of closed borders cannot stifle the strong, perhaps irresistible, economic, social, and political pressures that fuel international migration. Controversially, Johnson suggests that open borders are entirely consistent with efforts to prevent terrorism that have dominated immigration enforcement since the events of September 11, 2001. More liberal migration, he suggests, would allow for full attention to be paid to the true dangers to public safety and national security.

Afterthought: Kevin also co-hosts (with Bill Hing, whose recommendation appeared here earlier) at the influential ImmigrationProf Blog. Again, recall that for your convenience, we will be collecting all the Book Fair posts here.