In this post 9/11 world, many people are justifiably concerned about the security implications of international migration. But do they really understand their fears? Would it help to enact pre-emptive, fear-based policies on immigration? These questions are incisively explored through a careful comparison of immigration attitudes in the Russian Far East, European Union, and the United States which suggests that unilateral restrictions on immigration decrease security for all states. The book recommends new global, national, and local institutions to manage migration.

Mikhail A. Alexseev is an associate professor of political science at San Diego State University. A former Kremlin correspondent of the News from Ukraine weekly, Alexseev was the first Soviet citizen to receive a Reuters' Fellowship at the University of Oxford and the NATO Democratic Institutions Fellowship in 1990. He is the author of Without Warning: Threat Assessment, Intelligence, and Global Struggle (St. Martin's Press, 1997) and is the editor of Center-Periphery Conflict in Post-Soviet Russia: A Federation Imperiled (St. Martin's Press, 1999). His articles have appeared in numerous journals, newspapers, and magazines including Political Science Quarterly, Journal of Peace Research, Political Communication, The New York Times, Newsweek, USA Today, and The Seattle Times.

1. Immigration phobia and its paradoxes; 2. The immigration security dilemma: anarchy, offensiveness, and 'groupness'; 3. The two faces of socioeconomic impact perceptions; 4. In the shadow of the 'Asian Balkans': anti-Chinese alarmism and hostility in the Russian Far East; 5. Who's behind 'Fortress Europe'? Xenophobia and anti-migrant exclusionism from Dublin to the Danube; 6. Los Angeles ablaze: anti-migrant backlashes in the nation of immigrants; 7. Immigration and security: how worst-case scenarios become self-fulfilling and what we can do about it.