American Voices: Immigration After 1965: Its Defenders and Critics

As we have seen in this chapter, the immigration law passed by Congress in 1965 combined with global developments to shift the flows of people seeking entry to the United States. More and more immigrants came from Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, and Africa. Immigration has always been politically controversial, but in the 1990s a renewed, and often polarized, debate over immigration emerged.

John F. Kennedy

A Nation of Immigrants, 1964

This selection is from a revised, and posthumously published, version of a book Kennedy originally published in 1958.

Immigration policy should be generous; it should be fair; it should be flexible. With such a policy we can turn to the world, and to our own past with clean hands and a clean conscience. Such a policy would be a reaffirmation of old principles. It would be an expression of our agreement with George Washington that “The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.”

Source: Nicholas Capaldi, ed., Immigration: Debating the Issues (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1997), 128.

Roy Beck

“A Nation of (Too Many) Immigrants?” 1996

Boy Beck is a former journalist who became an activist for immigration reduction.

Since 1970, more than 30 million foreign citizens and their descendants have been added to the local communities and labor pools of the United States. It is the numerical equivalent of having relocated within our borders the entire present population of all Central American countries.

Demographic change on such a massive scale — primarily caused by the increased admission of legal immigrants — inevitably has created winners and losers among Americans. Based on opinion polls, it appears that most Americans consider themselves net losers and believe that the United States has become “a nation of too many immigrants.”

What level of immigration is best for America, and of real help to the world? Although we often hear that the United States is a nation of immigrants, we seldom ask just what that means. It can be difficult to ask tough questions about immigration when we see nostalgic images of Ellis Island, recall our own families’ coming to America, or encounter a new immigrant who is striving admirably to achieve the American dream.

But tough questions about immigration can no longer be avoided as we enter a fourth decade of unprecedentedly high immigration and struggle with its impact on our job markets, on the quality of life and social fabric of our communities, and on the state of the environment. …

The task before the nation in setting a fair level of immigration is not about race or some vision of a homogenous white America; it is about protecting and enhancing the United States’ unique experiment in democracy for all Americans, including recent immigrants, regardless of their particular ethnicity. It is time to confront the true costs and benefits of immigration numbers, which have skyrocketed beyond our society’s ability to handle them successfully.

Source: From The Case Against Immigration: The Moral, Economic, Social, and Environmental Reasons for Reducing U.S. Immigration Back to Traditional Levels, by Roy H. Beck (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996). Used by permission of the author.

Vernon M. Briggs Jr. and Stephen Moore

“Still an Open Door?” 1994

Two academic policy analysts weigh in on the immigration debate.

Immigrants are certainly not an unmixed blessing. When the newcomers first arrive, they impose short-term costs on the citizenry. Because immigration means more people, they cause more congestion of our highways, a more crowded housing market, and longer waiting lines in stores and hospitals. In states such as California, immigrants’ children are heavy users of an already overburdened public school system, and so on. Some immigrants abuse the welfare system, which means that tax dollars from Americans are transferred to immigrant populations. Los Angeles County officials estimate that immigrants’ use of county services costs the local government hundreds of millions of dollars each year. …

The benefits of immigration, however, are manifold. Perhaps the most important benefit is that immigrants come to the United States with critically needed talents, energies, and ambitions that serve as an engine for economic progress and help the United States retain economic and geopolitical leadership. Because for most of the world’s immigrants, America is their first choice, the United States is in a unique position to select the most brilliant and inventive minds from the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Korea, India, Ireland, Mexico, Philippines, Russia, Taiwan, and other nations. Because most immigrants are not poor, tired, huddled masses, but rather are above the average of their compatriots in skill and education levels, the immigration process has a highly beneficial self-selection component, a skimming of the cream of the best workers and top brainpower from the rest of the world.

Source: Vernon M. Briggs Jr. and Stephen Moore, Still an Open Door? U.S. Immigration Policy and the American Economy (Washington, DC: The American University Press, 1994).

President Barack Obama

June 15, 2012, Announcement at the White House Rose Garden

In 2012 the president announced a new policy allowing many immigrants to avoid deportation and apply for work authorization.

This morning, Secretary Napolitano [Secretary of Department of Homeland Security] announced new actions my administration will take to mend our nation’s immigration policy, to make it more fair, more efficient and more just, specifically for certain young people sometimes called DREAMers.

Now, these are young people who study in our schools, they play in our neighborhoods, they’re friends with our kids, they pledge allegiance to our flag. They are Americans in their heart, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper. They were brought to this country by their parents, sometimes even as infants, and often have no idea that they’re undocumented until they apply for a job or a driver’s license or a college scholarship.

Put yourself in their shoes. Imagine you’ve done everything right your entire life, studied hard, worked hard, maybe even graduated at the top of your class, only to suddenly face the threat of deportation to a country that you know nothing about, with a language that you may not even speak.

That’s what gave rise to the Dream Act. It says that if your parents brought you here as a child, you’ve been here for five years and you’re willing to go to college or serve in our military, you can one day earn your citizenship. And I’ve said time and time and time again to Congress that — send me the Dream Act, put it on my desk, and I will sign it right away. …

Source: New York Times, June 15, 2012.

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