The Go-to Book about American immigration policy
A few months ago, I finished reading one of the best books on immigration policy: Alien Nation. Written in 1995, Alien Nation truly opened my eyes has to how dire the situation is in the United States. American society is falling apart at the seams, and one of the major causes of America’s disintegration is immigration.
Additionally, the book’s author is Peter Brimelow. Brimelow is a long-time journalist, bestselling paleoconservative author, and editor of the political blog VDare. Personally, Brimelow has convinced me as to why immigration is the biggest political issue in America.
What’s really cool about this book is that Brimelow was ringing the proverbial “alarm bell” about America’s immigration crisis almost 30 years ago. Very few people were saying the things that Brimelow was saying in the early 1990s, so I highly respect him for his courage and for shedding light on one of the biggest issues in modern America–immigration.
Here’s the truth: immigration is a topic that many conservatives are afraid to discuss. Alien Nation is the book that will “red-pill” you on immigration.
In the last fifty years, the United States has undergone the most rapid societal/demographic transformation in world history–primarily due to 50+ years of mass immigration. That fact is undeniable when you examine the situation at hand in America.
With that background, let’s dive right into the book.
The History of American Immigration
Brimelow provides some background as to recent history of American immigration.
The sad reality is that the American people have been lied to about the history of American immigration. The education system and the news media have convinced a vast majority of Americans that the United States is a “nation of immigrants”. That statement is a flat-out falsehood.
The truth is that American immigration has gone through cycles of ups-and-downs. There were periods where the United States had little-to-no immigration, and there were periods where the US allowed more immigrants into the nation. However, nearly all immigrants into the United States in the pre-1965 era were Christians from Europe–primarily from the Anglosphere.
Moreover, we need to point a few dates in recent immigration history: 1965, 1986, & 1990. Undoubtedly, 1965 is the most important date to remember from this book.
In 1965, the US Congress passed the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act (AKA the Hart Cellar Act)–wherefore President Lyndon Johnson signed this legislation into law. This legislation had several major effects on this country, so we’ll hit on a few major points.
First, the 1965 Immigration Act caused massive wave of legal immigration in the following decades–especially from the 1970s to the 1990s (pp. 77). Tens of millions of immigrants came to the US during this time because the 1965 Immigration Act got rid of the old national origins quota system (from the restrictive immigration laws in the 1920s). Getting rid of the old quota system allowed for a huge increase in the amount of immigrants in to America.
Secondly, the 1965 Immigration Act changed what type of immigrants came to America (pp. 77). Immigrants from the pre-1965 era were primarily from Europe. On the other hand, immigrants in the post-1965 era primarily came from the 3rd World–almost entirely from Latin America and Asia (pp. 77). This change in immigration has led to the massive demographic change in the American population between 1965 to now.
Thirdly, the 1965 Immigration Act favored “family reunification” over skill requirements for immigrants (pp.80). Immigration before 1965 was primarily skill-based, but now chain migration
In 1986, President Reagan signed the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) into law. This legislation was also a completely terrible idea. Simply stated, this legislation gave amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants in the United States (pp. 32).
In 1990, President George HW Bush signed the 1990 Immigration Act–which was introduced by the ultra-liberal politician Ted Kennedy–into law. This legislation was about as terrible as the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act … which is saying something. This Immigration Act created the “diversity lottery” and increased the overall cap legal immigrants (pp. 83). The diversity lottery grants tens-of-thousands of visas to people living in “… countries deemed to have been underrepresented” in immigration.
Now, let’s move onto the consequences of Mass immigration to the United States in the post-1965 era.
The Consequences
Simply put, mass immigration–both legal and illegal–to the US (since 1965) has been an unabashed disaster.
What do I mean by that? Well, allowing tens of millions of immigrants in the last 50 years has had severely negative cultural, political, and economic consequences. Thankfully, Brimelow goes in-depth to explain the consequences of mass immigration in the post-1965 era.
So, what are some of the consequences of mass immigration?
1. Cultural & Health Consequences
Mass immigration has led to increased crime, public health emergencies/disease outbreaks, and environmental degradation (pp. 183, 187, 189). Additionally, many of the immigrants do not speak English as their primary language. Those are just some of the issues involved with the mass immigration wave from the post-1965 era.
2. Economic Consequences
You often hear Libertarian economists talk about how Immigration is an economic boon. I’ve heard this sentiment for a long time in politics. But when you look into the facts, our current immigration system does not benefit the American people.
In the post-1965 era, immigrants today are as not skilled and not as well-educated as immigrants were in the pre-1965 era (pp. 142). Basically, the government has flooded our labor market with millions of low-skill workers who use higher levels of welfare compared to native citizens in America (pp. 151). The result: immigrants cost native-born taxpaying Americans tens of billions of dollars (pp. 153).
What’s more: immigration is not shown to lead to robust economic growth (pp. 160). In fact, US economic growth has been lower significantly lower in the post-1965 era–with mass immigration–compared to times with lower immigration–such as the 1920s and the 1950s.
Additionally, immigration has particularly hurt working-class native-born Americans. Immigration has lowered the wages of native-born high school dropouts in the post-1965 era (pp. 174).
3. Political Consequences
This point is pretty simple. A vast majority of post-1965 immigrants and their children do note vote Republican–the current conservative political party in the US (pp.194). Immigrants to America have been overwhelming voting for the Democrat party, so the Republican party’s future prospects are looking dim in future Presidential elections unless something drastic changes. Moreover, the relative voting power of native-born Americans is weakened with mass immigration.
To close this post, we’ll briefly discuss what can be done about America’s immigration disaster.
What Can We Do?
Clearly, the consequences of mass immigration for the last 50 years have been destructive. The situation has been dire and does not look to get any better soon. Since this book’s publishing in 1995, little has been done to stem the massive number of legal immigrants coming to America. However, President Trump did help shed light on the issue of illegal immigration through rhetoric and polices–such as building part of the Southern border wall. Nonetheless, the situation looks pretty dire when it comes to the issue of mass immigration.
There’s both good news and bad news.
The bad news is that a lot of damage has already been done. Several presidential administrations–including both Republican and Democrat presidents–allowed this issue to fester unabated for decades. Decades of damage has already been done, and there’s really nothing we can do about it.
The good news is that there are several simple policies that really fix America’s current immigration issue. Thankfully, these beneficial policies are starting to gain traction due to the popularity of several “America Fist” Congressmen & their support for limiting both illegal and legal immigration.
To close, here are some of the policies that can fix America’s immigration crisis: Build the Southern border wall (pp. 259), increase the size of Border Patrol and ICE (pp.259-260), initiate mass deportations of illegal immigrants (pp. 260), favoring skilled immigrants over family reunification policies (pp. 261), cutting back on “refugees”/”asylees” (pp. 263), and implementing a zero-net immigration moratorium.
Anyways, I just wanted to thank you for reading this post, and I hope you learned something new today. So, thank you and God Bless!