TO THE EDITOR:
Irwin M. Stelzer is to be congratulated on a remarkable review of a remarkable book: George J. Borjas's Heaven's Door: Immigration and the American Economy [September]. Borjas's research has led him to astonishing findings: that the immigration wave accidentally unleashed by the 1965 legislation has not benefited Americans in aggregate; that lower skilled workers in particular are being hurt; that the current system's selection process is producing lower-skilled (and overwhelmingly third-world) immigrants; that these immigrants are disproportionately failing and going on welfare; and that Americans are actually paying, through fiscal transfers, for the transformation of their society. Mr. Stelzer's handsome acknowledgment that "many of these findings are now uncontested" is entirely appropriate--but applies only to economists. In public debate, the conventional wisdom still reflects a very different view.
I must gently point out that this unfortunate situation is, in a small way, Mr. Stelzer's fault. In 1995, I published Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster, a book that was in large part an explicit popularization of Borjas's work. But at the time, Mr. Stelzer, in the New York Post, brushed aside as a "narrow-minded statistical compendium" the very evidence that he now finds so compelling.
What Mr. Stelzer still has not reckoned with is my discussion in Alien Nation of the level at which immigration should be set. I pointed out that because Americans of all races are now reproducing just at replacement level, the demographic impact of immigration is much greater than it was during the last great wave from 1890 to 1920, when the native-born population was still growing rapidly. Combined with the system's paradoxical selection process, which has favored the third world and choked off Europe, this means that the racial balance in the U.S. is rapidly shifting. Whites have gone from being about 90 percent of the population in 1960 to 75 percent in 1990, and are projected to go below 50 percent in the middle of the 21st century.
Ethnic identity and partisan affiliation are closely correlated in American politics, changing only slowly if at all. Edwin S. Rubenstein and I have shown that, if this racial shift continues, the Republican party can reasonably hope to win just two more Presidential elections. After 2008, Republicans will go decisively into a minority. After 2025 or so, even a sweep of Reagan esque proportions among whites will not outweigh the effect of imported Democrats.
The inexorable logic of the situation is that, if the present U.S. political
order is to survive, immigration must be made proportionate to the racial groups
already here, or it must be reduced to a low enough level that it will not
disturb the racial balance. I think the latter is more practical. I await
enlightenment from Mr. Stelzer--but he had better not take another four years.
PETER BRIMELOW
Washington, Connecticut
IRWIN M. STELZER writes:
Peter Brimelow fears immigrants. They are different from "us"--different in color ("visible minorities," to use the term Mr. Brimelow prefers in his book, Alien Nation), skills, and political outlook. Indeed, they will (shock, horror), he says in his letter, likely vote for Democrats, sending "Republicans . . . decisively into the minority." So he finds comfort in George J. Borjas's book, Heaven's Door, and in my generally favorable review of it, which he takes to be a recanting of positions I have taken in my columns for the New York Post. Alas, Mr. Brimelow still does not get it.
The virtues of Borjas's book are two: he lays out the facts that should guide the debate about immigration policy; and he suggests a rational framework within which to analyze those facts. He also describes some of the problems created by the newer wave of immigrants, lovingly repeated by Mr. Brimelow in his letter--and, I might add, laid out with care in my several New York Post pieces on the subject.
But social policy is not made merely by tabulating negatives. It is made by weighing advantages against disadvantages: a decision to pay down the national debt has the disadvantage of foreclosing a tax cut but the advantage of stimulating economic growth by lowering interest rates; a decision to open American markets to the products of low-wage countries threatens the jobs of some workers but enriches some consumers. To decide which policy is best for America requires balancing the costs against the benefits.
So too with immigration policy. To close "Heaven's Door"--which, by the way, Borjas does not suggest we should do--would relieve us of some burdens, most notably the welfare costs associated with the newer immigrants. But it would also deny us access to some of the advantages that new immigrants bring with them--no need here to recount the successes of Asian immigrants.
Since Mr. Brimelow repeats some of the costs associated with our new immigrants, by way of balance it is worth pointing out that the National Research Council has found that there appears to be no relationship between immigrant concentrations and local crime rates; that new immigrants are more likely than the average native to be living in family households; and that intermarriage seems likely to blur ethnic and social distinctions, hastening the assimilation of current immigrants from Asia and Latin America.
In his letter, Mr. Brimelow repeats his suggestion in Alien Nation that immigration "be made proportionate to the racial groups already here," an updated version of the argument once used to restrict immigration from Asia and Eastern and Southern Europe. This is either a mere statement of prejudice, or, more likely, a cop-out: a confession of an inability to gain acceptance for policies that maximize the benefits of immigration and minimize its costs.
Before we sign on to the Brimelow program and deny ourselves the injections of yeastiness and spice that have historically forced natives who are comfortable with the status quo to compete with newcomers, we should consider less costly measures. Where would America be if it were now forced to rely only on its old-line Wasp population for the drive and skills needed to compete in a global economy? We would be in the hands of the largely Wasp, perk-laden corpocrats who so mismanaged America's major companies as almost to bring the economy to ruin before being saved by Michael Milken and his gang of sons-of-immigrants corporate raiders.
We would also be facing the inflationary pressure of a much tighter labor market than now exists. Estimates are that some 38 percent of the 12.7 million new jobs created in America in this decade have been filled by immigrants. Nearly one-third of the start-up companies in high-tech Silicon Valley are headed by Chinese or Indian immigrants.
To throw away these advantages in pursuit of some Brimelow-ordained "racial balance" seems to me less desirable than to develop policies that retain the benefits of a generous immigration policy while minimizing the costs of keeping "Heaven's Door" open: welcome those who come here seeking a hand up, not a hand-out; deny citizenship to those who are not fluent in our language and familiar with our history; abandon the ideology of multiculturalism in favor of good old-fashioned assimilation.
I hope this provides Mr. Brimelow with the "enlightenment" he says he seeks from me. But I suspect it will not. I regret that I simply do not possess a torch powerful enough to brighten the darkness in which he finds himself as he contemplates the future of an America peopled by folks different from himself.