Fixing America's Broken Immigration System: Introduction

In January 2008, at the meeting of the American Historical Association, I had coffee with two colleagues, Gary Gerstle and George Sánchez, with whom I share an abiding interest in labor and immigration history, as well as current politics. We hatched an idea to hold a conference on immigration policy reform, which we believed would potentially be back on Congress's agenda after the new administration—we did not know at the time who would be the next president—took office. Ours certainly would not be the first conference on immigration policy. But we wanted to bring two perspectives that are not commonly aired in policy debates today: the historical perspective and the international perspective. We decided to bring together historians, social scientists, advocates, policy analysts, and journalists for a gathering in Washington, D.C., where we hoped to get the attention of those on Capitol Hill. We were fortunate that the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies agreed to host and cosponsor the event and that we were able to work with historian Sonya Michel, the center's new director for United States studies. Additional cosponsors included Columbia University, the University of Southern California, and Vanderbilt University.