THE NEW CASE AGAINST IMMIGRATION

Interesting take on the immigration debate posits that America can no longer absorb any newcomers.

Executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies and longtime National Review contributor Krikorian takes a sober tone in his first book. Instead of blaming new immigrants and their failure to assimilate as quickly as most right-wingers would prefer, he argues that America has reached maturity as a nation and thus simply has no need for immigration, legal or otherwise. Back when the country was being settled, or when its economy was just ramping up, or even when it was expanding out into the suburbs, he argues, America required both the manpower and brain power of recent arrivals. Now that the roads and schools are overcrowded and porous borders threaten national security, it’s time to lock down the gates to all but the most select few. This is an intriguing argument, and Krikorian does some meticulous economic and sociological number-crunching without ever quite making the sale. Most economists would refute his conclusion that immigrants are a net drain on the GDP, and most sociologists would disagree that they are assimilating at a slower rate than their predecessors. The author has an annoying tendency of taking out-of-context quotes from marginal political radicals and asserting that they speak truths for millions of people. He also harps on a shadowy band of conspirators he calls “elites,” consisting of Democrats and Republicans who somehow scheme to keep the existing flawed immigration system intact against the will of the people.

A flawed argument that seems passable only due to the paucity of serious discussion on the subject.