In this book, Lisa Magaña provides a concise and thoughtful analysis of the immigration policy process from inside the bureaucratic agency formerly responsible for its implementation, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Using a combination of interviews with high- and low-level INS representatives and immigration advocates, government policy evaluations, immigrant surveys, and intensive field study, Magaña shows the disconnect that often exists between congressional immigration mandates and their actual implementation in INS district offices.

The author begins by laying out the history of the immigration bureaucracy since Congress created the first immigration office in 1864, documenting its period relocation within different federal departments and agencies. Through this analysis, she effectively shows how the status and mandates of the immigration bureaucracy have ebbed and flowed in response to popular and congressional concerns about immigration. This is a theme that she carries throughout the book.

Magaña then turns to working conditions within the INS, using information from 68 interviews with current and former INS officials to provide a “real world” look at the fiscal, legal, and bureaucratic realities faced by INS workers. Some of the concerns echo those of other bureaucratic agencies: a lack of connection between upper and lower management, a highly bureaucratic decision-making structure, lack of education of local officials regarding new policy directives, and a general lack of communication among local, state, and national offices. Others are unique to the INS, particularly the tension between the agency's service and enforcement responsibilities, and the degree to which Congress's attempts to satisfy constituent immigration concerns tend to come at the cost of rational and effective immigration policy.

As concrete examples of the difficulties faced by the INS in carrying out these conflicting mandates, Magaña provides two in-depth case studies: the implementation of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, particularly its amnesty and employer sanction provisions, and the changes in welfare and social service provision for immigrants during the 1990s. Through these experiences, she cogently shows the degree to which congressional policy is often created in response to popular pressures to be “tough” on immigration, with little attention to how effective the policy will really be or to the logistical problems it may create for the INS. For example, the decision by Congress to limit welfare eligibility for legal immigrants, along with the INS's decision to raise the cost of green card replacement, led to a huge upsurge in applications for citizenship that the INS was ill-equipped to handle. This goes a long way toward explaining why, even though most experts agree that the INS is much better at providing services than it is at enforcement, almost two-thirds of funding goes to the enforcement side, particularly the border patrol.

The book ends with a list of recommendations for how to improve the agency, including separating the service and enforcement responsibilities (pp. 68–71). This is exactly what occurred when the INS was renamed and moved under the new Department of Homeland Security. Naturalization and work-authorization documentation is now the responsibility of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and investigative and enforcement responsibilities are now under the control of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Ideally, this will address some of the concerns Magaña raises, but she also cautions that the ineffectiveness of the INS was the result of its being asked to be accountable to a number of competing interests—popular sentiment, politicians, business groups, and the immigrants themselves—without clear policy mandates. Given the politics surrounding the immigration debate, these problems are unlikely to change anytime in the near future.

Straddling the Border makes a significant contribution because it offers the first in-depth look at the history, structure, and function of the INS itself. As such, it provides important insights into what immigration policy implementation looks like on the ground, beyond the rhetoric of immigration control. Magaña's writing is clear and straightforward, and her topic is especially timely given that our expectations of the immigration bureaucracy have changed and grown yet again after the events of September 11. The book's main shortcoming is that it is largely descriptive and does not provide a theoretical framework for understanding the intersection of policy creation and implementation. That said, this is an enjoyable read, and it reminds us that our immigration bureaucracy does not do its work in isolation. Until the U.S. public becomes clear about how we view immigrants and immigration, it is likely that our immigration policy implementation will remain contradictory, muddled, and, ultimately, ineffective.