"An excellent book with significant potential impact. The authors have done something quite novel: combined a review of the empirical social science evidence on the costs and benefits of undocumented immigration and the effects of various policies with personal stories about the lives of undocumented immigrants. The stories provoke an emotional, moral response, while the more scientific approach taken by the academic summaries provides evidence and rational calculations of costs and benefits. The writing is clear and propulsive, and the personal narratives lend a sense of urgency to the discussions of policy. If I were teaching a class on immigration economics, I would assign this book."
— Megan MacGarvie, Boston University Questrom School of Business
"In The Border Within, Watson and Thompson masterfully distill decades of economics research and interweave it with stories of real people. Anyone looking for a clear understanding of issues surrounding undocumented immigration in the United States, delivered in engaging prose, would do well to read this. It is a terrific book that gets the economics research right, makes it readable, and puts a human face on it. That is hard to do."
— Kristin F. Butcher, director of the Center on Children and Families, Cabot Family Chair, and senior fellow in Economic Studies, Brookings Institution, and the Marshall I. Goldman Professor of Economics, Wellesley College
"A very well written and carefully researched book on the benefits and costs of interior immigrant enforcement in the United States. With interesting background on US immigration policy that highlights the parallels between discrimination against new immigrants in the first globalization period and now, the authors have provided a clear and engaging presentation of the most important issues related to US immigration policy."
— Anna Maria Mayda, Georgetown University
"A thoughtful, carefully written, historically informed description of US interior immigration enforcement."
— Foreign Affairs
"Watson and Thompson address the most important issues swirling around documented and undocumented immigration today. They organize their book in an ingenious manner.The chapters are devoted to thorough, scholarly reviews of the literature on the impact of immigration on the economy,crime, and the social safety net as well as the effectiveness of immigration enforcement efforts. Interwoven throughout the book, however, are the stories of six immigrant families who have faced the issues the authors analyze, putting a human face on the scholarly discussion. . . . The quality of writing in the book is top-notch. . . . Highly recommended."
— Choice
"The Border Within [examines] the costs of aggressive interior immigration enforcement tactics in the United States in human and economic terms, describing the stress and hardship that the arbitrary enforcement environment causes to immigrant families."
— Journal of Economic Literature