"Handcuffs and Chain Link enters the immigration debate by addressing one of its most controversial aspects: the criminalization both of extralegal immigration to the United States and of immigrants themselves in popular and political discourse. Looking at the factors that led up to criminalization, Benjamin Gonzalez O'Brien points to the alternative approach of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 and how its ultimate demise served to negatively reinforce the fictitious association of extralegal immigrants with criminality"--Publisher's website