THE IMMIGRATION TIME BOMB: The Fragmenting of America

Colorado Governor Lamm, who cemented his reputation as a prophet of socioeconomic doom with Megatraumas (p. 855), here offers a timely and sharply focused alert on the prospectively disastrous consequences of unrestrained immigration. Immigration reform is an emotional issue most US politicians prefer to avoid, but Lamm wades right in. In the absence of precise data, his best estimate is that the net influx of legal and illegal aliens runs around a million annually--the highest level in history. This surge has produced alarming side effects, including creation of a subclass which will prove difficult if not impossible to assimilate, a more competitive employment market (in part because ""illegals tend to take better jobs than we think they do""), and an increased welfare burden. Lamm also whales away at pervasive and protracted bilingual instruction in secondary schools, which, he shows, is mandated by neither the Equal Education Opportunity Act of 1974 nor the Supreme Court's Lau decision. Lamm suggests a wealth of corrective measures for the faults he finds in the current system. Among his top priorities is stricter enforcement of exclusionary laws already on the books. In addition, the author lobbies for a comprehensive Simpson/Mazzoli-like immigration bill that would not only impose sanctions on companies employing illegals but also establish an annual ceiling on the total number of foreigners allowed into the country. Pending development of a ""global foresight policy"" that would yield demographically valid criteria, he recommends a yearly limit ranging from 400,000 to 450.000. In brief, then, an enlightening, credibly documented, tough-minded evaluation of an increasingly urgent problem.