This book draws together and unifies analysis of immigration into the major EU countries and the US, making digestible and transparent the major trends and dramatic developments of the past decade. While the influence of the welfare state on immigration incentives is a key issue, various other influences on both legal and illegal migration are analyzed, together with the implications of migration for the market outcomes on these two continents.

Hanson approaches immigration through the lens of economics. The results are surprising. By focusing on the economic costs and benefits of legal and illegal immigration, Professor Hanson concludes that stemming illegal immigration would likely lead to a net drain on the U.S. economya finding that calls into question many of the proposals to increase funding for border protection.

Immigration is an issue capable of dividing otherwise like-minded people. Identify a group whose members tend to agree on political issues--liberals, conservatives, isolationists, internationalists, environmentalists, free marketers--and one will tend to find that within the group there is no strong majority opinion about US immigration policy. This important new book examines how public finance shapes individual preferences towards immigration policy in the United States.