Although the United States is in the midst of the largest immigration experience in its history, there is little recognition of the effects that immigration policy has on parallel policies to achieve national economic and social objectives.

In his new edition, Vernon Briggs, Jr., describes and analyzes current national policy on mass immigration in terms of the economic and social impact it has had on the nation's labor force. Drawing on both historical and contemporary material, Briggs shows how immigration policy in the twentieth century has shifted from being primarily a social policy to become a political policy and why it needs to become an economic policy as the nation prepares to enter the twenty-first century.