In both Japan and the United States, migration, refugee, and citizenship policies have become highly contentious political issues. Japan, traditionally a closed society with the lowest proportion of foreigners of any major industrial country, has struggled to utilize the recent influx of illegal migrants without incorporating them into Japanese society and citizenship. The United States, a country built by immigrants, today grapples with the impact of legal and illegal migrants on employment and social services.

Myron Weiner and Tadashi Hanami have assembled a distinguished group of American and Japanese demographers, economists, historians, lawyers, political scientists, and sociologists to examine Japan's and America's very different approaches to employer demands for labor, control over illegal migration, the incorporation of migrants, the legal rights and social benefits of foreign residents and illegal migrants, the claims of refugees and asylum seekers, and the issues of citizenship and nationality.

"Temporary Workers or Future Citizens" places the economic issues of migration in a cultural context, by revealing how the collective identities of Americans and Japanese shape the way each society regards immigrants and refugees.

Japan and the United States are under global and domestic pressures to simultaneously expand and to restrict immigration. In both countries migration, refugee and citizenship policies have become highly contentious political issues. Myron Weiner and Tadashi Hanami have brought together a distinguished group of American and Japanese experts to examine the very different approaches of these two societies in dealing with employer demand for labour, control over illegal migration, the challenge of incorporating immigrants, the legal rights and social benefits of foreign residents and illegal migrants, and the claims of refugees and asylum seekers.