Immigration. If it wasn’t for our economic feels-like depression, this would be issue numero uno for the majority of Americans. It is a very divisive issue, but one that the majority of Americans do agree with on one side of the issue – illegal immigration has got to stop and stop now. However, this book does not strictly target illegal immigration. This book, published in 1995, takes a look at the whole immigration mess that has been created since Lyndon Johnson signed the Immigration Law of 1965. Infamous last words: “This bill that we will sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions,” Johnson said at the signing ceremony. “It will not reshape the structure of our daily lives or add importantly to either our wealth or our power.” This book goes into amazing detail on just how amazingly wrong LBJ’s statements regarding that bill were.

America’s first huge wave of immigration after this country’s founding wasn’t until the Great Wave from 1880-1925. Nearly all of these immigrants originated from European countries. Brimelow goes on to detail the actual net legal immigration after the Great Wave – something that I never really thought of before. He sites a study by 2 demographers from the Urban Institute of Washington on this issue. They concluded: Net Immigration during the 1900-1910 decade was 4.9 million – well below the 8.2 million net figure we estimated for the 1980s.

Brimelow makes the observation that “significantly more” of the immigrants who came after the 1965 law are staying than the immigrants at the turn of the century. Why the huge disparity? Brimelow points out that there was no welfare state in the early 20th century. The later 20th century is quite a different story.

The Heritage Foundation conducted a study on the growth of America’s welfare state last year. An interesting date to note is that America’s “War on Poverty” began one year before LBJ’s Immigration Bill of 1965. Nearly $16 Trillion has been spent on the War on Poverty, and it is easy to see that not much has been accomplished with this wasted money. The Heritage Foundation also points out that 15% of today’s welfare spending “goes to households headed by immigrants with a high school degree or less“. Their conclusion? “The legal immigration system should not encourage the immigration of low-skill immigrants who would increase poverty and impose vast new costs on already overburdened taxpayers.”

Brimelow makes a similar statement – nearly 15 years prior – to what the Heritage Foundation concluded:” The post-1965 immigration is not only much bigger than expected; it is also less skilled. And it is becoming even less so.” Steven Malanga of the Chicago-Sun Times pointed out back in 2006 that since 1965, there have been nearly 30 million legal immigrants and roughly 15 million illegal immigrants that have crossed our borders. When you add 45 million immigrants, who have mostly come from overpopulated 3rd world countries, and then add in their exceptionally high fertility rates, you get yourself into one big problem. Brimelow points to the fact that “disparities in economic performance between some of the Great Wave immigrants have persisted for as many as 4 generations“. This means that many of the low skilled immigrant families continue to be low skilled as the generations add. The problem? America’s economy has not grown at the same rate of the population. The demand for low skilled labor has not increased while the supply is increasing exponentially. “By importing so much unskilled labor, the US is permanently degrading the quality of its workforce.”

Why are so many of these immigrants coming from 3rd world countries? Between 1968 and 1993, 85% of the nearly 20 million legal immigrants came from 3rd world countries according to Brimelow. Our immigration policies seem to be targeting for more and more immigrants of 3rd world countries, along with turning a blind eye to illegal immigration from 3rd world countries to the south of us. But the population explosions are all occurring in 3rd world countries. According to Oracle in 1989, over 3/4 of children being born were born in 3rd world countries. That is an amazing stat to think about. According to the CIA, the top 10 countries with the highest fertility rates are all 3rd world countries and have an average fertility rate of 6.8. The United States fertility rate is 2.1.

Besides the dumbing down of our labor force by mass immigration from 3rd world countries, our health is also at risk from countries who are riddled with infectious diseases. From Western Voices World News: “A Center for Disease Control and Prevention report has shown that diseases being brought by Third World immigrants into America (which the CDC described as “illegal immigrants”) include smallpox, malaria, diphtheria, leprosy, and cholera.” That sounds tasty. What else is there? From the CDC: “Spikes in tuberculosis and typhoid cases in 2006 were in those areas where illegal immigration is the highest, such as in California (counting for more than half of new cases), New York, Texas, Florida and New Jersey.” Hey, but at least we’re becoming a diverse and multicultural society!

There is one glaring difference between the Great Wave of immigration at the turn of the 20th century, and the immigrants America has been collecting since 1965: Immigrants from the Great Wave became Americanized or moved home – at the rate of 37% according to the Federation of American Immigration Reform. It is safe to say that today’s immigrants don’t have as much interest in becoming Americanized. Go back to recent videos or pictures from people protesting Arizona’s immigration law and count the number of pro-Mexican signs and Mexican flags you saw waiving in the masses. Listen to the rhetoric of any politician – they are always singling out different ethnic groups of Americans for different policies. “This legislation will help the Latino community.” “This bill will will benefit the Asian community.” “This bill will be a direct boost to the Black community.” It is maddening to see this country being completely shredded into different sectors based on race or immigration status – all on the basis of “multi-culturalism”, “diversity”, and of course immigration.

While the book I am referencing and this article are not attacking the idea of immigration, we are attacking the way that immigration has been implemented and left unchecked. Think of it this way. Let’s say that you are the leader of a prominent university, but you want to increase your numbers while increasing the quality of education. (Relative to a country, this means you would want more immigrants but an increase in the quality of life, aka stronger economy). What do you do? Do you send out a public service announcement to all high school graduates telling them that the only requirement to admittance is proof that a family relative attended school here in the past? (as is the main requirement in today’s legal immigration) Or, do you create a more student friendly environment on top of your already impressive track record which attracts more good students? This allows you to increase standards of admittance with an increase in the demand and quality. The choice is simple. So as a nation, do we want to continue to allow this mass importation of uneducated, low skilled immigrants from 3rd world countries which continues to lower the overall standards of living and work skills? Or should we raise the standards of immigration to better allow those who are educated and have high skills to fill our needs in the higher-skilled work arena?

Part 2 of this book review will review Brimelow’s discussion on the consequences of this type of immigration. Stay tuned for more.