LOS ANGELES, CA – Immigration remains one of the most polarizing issues in American political life. Yet despite decades of public debate, little has changed in the way governments respond to human migration or observers critique those responses.  

In his new book, “Borders and Belonging,” legal scholar Hiroshi Motomura provides a blueprint for reframing the conversation by broadening the focus to recognize the role of climate change, the economy, race, and human rights, and how these and other factors interact with each other. 

The book is a timely reflection that comes as a new administration takes office in the United States vowing to end the asylum system as well as carry out mass deportations. 

Motomura invites readers to delve into 10 questions that provoke deeper discussions. He asks, for example, how should people forced to migrate be treated? Should newcomers be admitted temporarily or permanently, and in a country with national borders, whose voices should be heard, and why? 

Ultimately, “Borders and Belonging,” leads readers to consider what a more ethical and sustainable approach might look like, as debates continue over modern immigration policies.  

The book is hailed by experts as pathbreaking.  

“By expanding the lens of analysis—to include such issues as the root causes of migration, race in immigration history, and the respect for both the dignity of outsiders and the impact of immigration on insiders—he forces a rethinking of a wide range of issues in the current immigration debate,” said Alex Aleinikoff, dean at the New School for Social Research. 

Hiroshi Motomura is the Susan Westerberg Prager Distinguished Professor of Law and Faculty Co-Director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law. He is the author of Immigration Outside the Law (Oxford 2014), Americans in Waiting (Oxford 2006), and many influential articles on immigration and citizenship. He is also a co-author of the law school casebook, Immigration and Citizenship: Process and Policy. He has testified in Congress and served on the ABA Commission on Immigration. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the International Migration Review and was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2018 and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Resident in 2024. 

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Founded in 2020, the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law expands the law school's role as a national leader in immigration law and policy, generating innovative ideas at the intersection of immigration scholarship and practice and serving as a hub for transforming those ideas into meaningful changes in immigration policy. 

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