Through the nuanced lens of immigrant rights in the United States, Alfonso Gonzales provides a deep multisited revival of Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, the state, and mobilization. By drawing on two bookends of the recent immigrant rights movement (under George W. Bush, then Barack Obama), the author uses a series of case studies to examine the circumstances under which the “anti-migrant bloc” is able to wield power, as well as when the immigrant rights movement is poised to challenge it effectively (or not).

The research in Reform without Justice is multijurisdictional, looking to both national and local politics of immigration, and also transnational as it considers the binational approaches to facilitating deportation and its benefits to capital. This research breaks with previous accounts in that it refuses to situate the control of migrant bodies solely in the hands of the U.S. federal government. The anti-migrant bloc is also, Gonzales argues, a product of the Democratic Party and, provocatively, the reformist elements within the immigrant rights movement itself. The book starts and ends with a view from Congress, first with the failed House Bill 4437 in 2005, which sparked the largest migrant protests in U.S. history, and later the attempts at immigration reform via Senate Bill 744 in 2012, which also failed. In between, the author draws on cases of local mobilizations in California, Washington, DC, and New York.

Gonzales begins by providing a nuanced distinction between the reformist and more radical flank of the pro—immigrant rights movement, from the vantage point of the “Latino migrant struggle in Greater Los Angeles” (p. 18). While a critical evaluation of the comprehensive immigration reform agenda is not new, this account details the diverse agendas within the immigrant rights movement, the impact of alliances with corporate funders, and the inability of civil libertarians to challenge the “homeland security state” within the capitalist system.

It is worth noting that many congressional compromises have called only for short timelines for work authorization and modest demands for deportation relief. However, while the “opposition youth faction” of the immigrant rights movement has rejected the good—bad immigrant binary (see also recent accounts by Walter Nicholls), they too have also called for short-term temporary relief through executive action, resulting ultimately in yet another form of temporary status. In that regard, the path to citizenship has perhaps been elusive for both flanks.

Next, Gonzales shows how and why local governments engage in immigration control (even in traditional receiving regions), and the extent to which migrant activists are able to challenge them. Several accounts have examined the devolution of immigration control and the importance of local mechanisms of deportation (see also work by Amada Armenta, Gallya Lahav, Karthick Ramakrishnan, Monica Varsanyi, and colleagues). By focusing on Riverside County, a place demographically and geographically close to Los Angeles, but politically and economically akin to rural new-immigrant destinations, the author rejects generalizing accounts of immigrant strongholds like Southern California.

Gonzales links the maintenance of global capitalism and the need for low-wage pliable Latino labor to both anti-migrant and reformist agendas. But the author may arguably overstate the driving force of these preoccupations and the barriers they pose for building an effective political base in places like Riverside. County proceedings clearly reveal a paranoia about potential gang members and fiscal preoccupations with maintaining public safety. However, it is not clear that a strong base of unionized Latino labor power would and could effectively challenge 287(g) (and later Secure Communities (S-Comm) and now Priority Enforcement Program (PEP-comm)). In other words, is it always the case that strong challenges to capital necessarily foster a progressive pro-migrant agenda (even with strong Latino leaders at the helm)?

Perhaps the most innovative aspect of the book points to transnational mechanisms of deportation to El Salvador (see also recent work by Tanya Golash-Boza). Here, Gonzales highlights how deportation campaigns are facilitated, not only by domestic governments such as the United States, but also by multilateral agreements and the supranational institutions that rubberstamp them, sending countries themselves (like El Salvador), and regional partners who help facilitate migrant control (like Mexico). As in other chapters of the book, intellectuals play a key role in popularizing these policies, and conservative groups have been the key to funding and legitimizing their passage and implementation. U.S. deportation policies today play as integral a role in the repression of civil society as did military intervention during civil wars. Scholars before and since Gonzales have made this connection. (See also work by Leisy Abrego and Miranda Cady Hallett). However, this account masterfully switches among descriptions of elite policy agendas, lay accounts of deportees, and the media spin that ties them all together. Throughout, the author is also clear to declare his positionality as a Chicano scholar from Southern California.

The final empirical chapter is a corrective to the hope that immigrant rights groups placed in the Obama administration, from the perspective of two elite civil-society spaces inside the DC belt and from the global city of New York. In perhaps the richest chapter in terms of providing a timeline to the implosion of comprehensive immigration reform and the divisions this created in the migrant rights movement, these sections provide an accounting of the various actors within the movement and the policies pushed by the resulting compromise agenda. This is not a methodical or comprehensive accounting, but rather a broad overview of the key players and the politics they espoused. It is at times unclear what constituted a local, versus national, campaign strategy. For example, the tactical split between the AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union (SEIU), though not apparent here, would go on to define the 2013 attempts to craft a bipartisan solution. The main contribution Gonzales provides, however, is a contrast between “voices of people on the ground … with the voices of those on stage” (p. 135). Opinions clearly differed on the Reform Immigration for America (RIFA) coalition’s communications strategy, though it is sometimes unclear whose interests and identities the average protestor interviewed by Gonzales are meant to represent. Are these the same that are later represented by the May 1 coalition in 2010? Or is the lack of a polished and cohesive narrative precisely the point, and if so, what are the liabilities of this approach?

No book can do everything, but a glaring omission from this work are the various immigrant rights policies that activists have pushed for beyond calling for immigration reform, and challenging deportation practices and kindred policies of migrant control, such as E-Verify. The push for more inclusive labor protections, language access, and education rights have all been part and parcel of the immigrant rights movement, especially at the local level (see work by Els de Graauw). It is not clear from Gonzales’s account whether these demands are merely assimilationist concessions adopted by reformers or part of a broader oppositional-bloc agenda.

Reform without Justice is a deep dive into contemporary theory, while also providing a multimethod approach for understanding rights mobilization. To this end, the theoretical and methodological appendix, while comprehensive, might have been better placed up front, rather than as an afterthought. Overall, Gonzales provides an excellent text for students of international migration, social movements, and public policy. It is a must-read for anyone concerned with the future trajectory of immigration reform, the origin and consequences of the current era of hyper-nativism, and the prospects for civil and human rights activists to demand a new way forward.