Ali Noorani is the President and Director of National Immigration Forum. He began writing There Goes the Neighborhood: How Communities Overcome Prejudice and Meet the Challenge of American Immigration in 2010, after Congress failed to pass The Dream Act, despite the Democratic Party majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Those advocating human rights for migrants were bitterly disappointed that, despite decades of advocacy and organizing, legislation which would have provided the most meager of relief for some undocumented immigrants failed.
Ali Noorani identifies that cultural advocacy was the missing ingredient: "When Americans were looking for an answer to their questions of cultural identity, we gave them a political answer instead." [p. 30]