Over the last several decades, immigration has become one of the most salient and polarizing policy issues in American politics. While reasonable people can reasonably disagree on how the nation should balance competing moral, economic, and security considerations, the American public and its representatives have become increasingly incapable of having these reasonable discussions. Consequentially, it has been over a decade since Congress engaged in serious consideration of immigration reform and more than 30 years since the last major legislation was signed into law. While recent presidents have responded to this context by exercising unilateral executive authority, they have done so in radically different ways.

Through a review of executive branch actions, relevant case law, and interviews with immigrants, their advocates, and agents tasked with implementing immigration policy, Banned: Immigration Enforcement in the Time of Trump by Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia demonstrates the vital role of prosecutorial discretion in executing immigration policy. Wadhia convincingly argues that such discretion is necessary not only because of the inherently limited capacity for the federal government to carry out enforcement actions against noncitizens,