Tensions, conflicts, and community instability associated with heightened immigration – especially of nonwhite immigrant groups – threaten to balkanize America. This article highlights the root causes of the growing opposition to both immigrants and U.S. immigration policy — the nativist backlash, presents a typology of the community-level conflicts that have arisen as a consequence of heightened immigration – legal and illegal — to the United States over the last 30 years, and outlines the conditions under which diversity can be brought to the forefront as one of society's strengths.

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