At the symbolic heart of the U.S. immigration wars are undocumented immigrants brought to the country as minors. Despite commanding strong public support, these “Dreamers” have for decades experienced legal insecurity and high barriers to advancement. In Perchance to DREAM, Michael A. Olivas examines two efforts to integrate these undocumented Americans into national life: the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act and DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). Tending to overlaps in the two initiatives, the book focuses on undocumented people’s access to higher education and the professions.

Olivas grounds his study in the question of residency. He eruditely explains the many tools that states have used to frustrate undocumented people’s claims to residency, and thus in-state college tuition. After lawsuits widened access to higher education, Congress struck back in 1996, requiring states to pass new laws explicitly affirming undocumented students’ eligibility should they wish to grant them in-state tuition. In Olivas’s view, the conservative movement remained unreconciled to Plyler v. Doe, the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision that held that undocumented children had the right to a public education.

Introduced in 2001, the federal DREAM Act would hav