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

Leila Simona Talani, Matilde Rosina

Paperback (01 Sep 2025)

$39.96

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New: Paperback (12 Jun 2025) ~~RRP $41.64~~ $31.56

Publisher's Synopsis

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.

About the Publisher

Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Our products cover an extremely broad academic and educational spectrum, and we aim to make our content available to our users in whichever format suits them best.We publish for all audiences-from pre-school to secondary level schoolchildren; students to academics; general readers to researchers; individuals to institutions. Our range includes dictionaries, English language teaching materials, children's books, journals, scholarly monographs, printed music, higher education textbooks, and schoolbooks.