Genre: Nonfiction—Politics
Completed: 23 July 2016
Summary & Review:
British-American financial and political writer (and immigrant) Peter Brimelow examines America’s immigration policy. He explores the history of immigration to the United States from before independence up until the present day, which was 1993 when the book was written. Brimelow discusses how the 1965 immigration act, as well as several subsequent bills, has waged demographic war on the historic American nation for little to no economic gain. To solve the problem, Brimelow suggests several measures that could be taken including repealing the 1965 immigration act, enforcing immigration law both at the border and within the country, drastically reducing the number of immigrants allowed annually, and changing our immigrations system to skills-based rather than family reunification-based.
This was a well-written book. Brimelow’s arguments were measured, rational, and thoughtful. If you found Ann Coulter’s excellent Adios! America to be a little too much, then this book is a nice change of pace. While Brimelow’s solutions weren’t exactly groundbreaking, that’s to be expected because this is not a hard problem to solve, technically. The issue is with the level of emotion, misinformation, shady kickbacks, ethnic lobbies, white-guilt and more wrapped up in the issue of immigration. I wish more people would read books like Brimelow’s, or Coulter’s.
One of my favorite points in this book was this: “The onus should not be on critics of current immigration policy to explain their motives. Instead, supporters of current policy must explain why they wish to transform the American nation as it had evolved by 1965.” (106) Exactly. Unless there is an actual, demonstrable benefit to immigration, why do it at all? The default should be none, with special exceptions receiving permission. We have no need for continued mass immigration, especially with the continued automation taking place in modern economies.
Rating: 8.5
No comments:
Post a Comment