border controls

[djones@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (rakesh bhandari)]

Here is an interesting excerpt from Fukuyama's review of Forbes' editor
Peter Brimelow's new book in which he argues for border controls.

Fukuyama, Francis.Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration
Disaster. [by Peter Brimelow] National Review v47, n8 (May 1, 1995):77 (2
pages).


Brimelow's fundamental mistake, it seems to me, is his assumption
that  non-European immigrants will end up like African-Americans -- hard
to  assimilate and therefore angry, resentful, and demanding of special
entitlements and set-asides. The truth of the matter, however, is that of
America's different racial and ethnic minorities, blacks are the only
group  that has not assimilated successfully. All the others will succeed
much like the Irish and Italians before them, provided they do not follow
the post -  civil-rights pattern of seeking socio-economic advancement
primarily through  political and legal action.

When it comes to concrete policy recommendations, I actually find
myself in  agreement with many of Brimelow's suggestions. It is certainly
possible to  reform and streamline the Immigration and Naturalization
Service; we can do a  much better job of patrolling our borders; the 1965
Immigration Act can be  amended to de-emphasize family reunification and
to emphasize skills; welfare and other benefits to immigrants ought to be
scaled back, not out of  mean-spiritedness, but for the immigrants' own
sake. The most important  battle, however, is not over immigration per se,
but over the preservation of  a common American culture. This means
rolling back multiculturalism,  bilingualism, race-based preferences, and
all the other divisive public-policy  innovations of recent decades. For
none of the problems of cultural incoherence that Brimelow cites would go
away, or even diminish significantly,  if all immigration, legal and
illegal, ended tomorrow.




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