Why control the borders? An immigration debate - views by five leading experts on the subject with commentary on Peter Brimelow's June 22, 1993 National Review article; includes Brimelow's response

National Review, Feb 1, 1993 by Julian L. Simon, George J. Borjas, Ben J. Wattenberg, Dan Stein, Robert L. Bartley

The first difficulty in the immigration debate is to decide just what is being debated: Is it all a matter of economics? Or is it a nation's racial composition, or perhaps its cultural direction? Five leading writers on the subject comment on Peter Brimelow's article, and Mr. Brimelow responds.

IN HIS anti-immigration broadside [June 22, 1992], Peter Brimelow makes two general arguments against current immigration: a) that it is economically hurtful, and b) that it alters the nature of American life.

For many people, both of these arguments are nothing but a facade for anti-foreigner and racist feelings. Mr. Brimelow disclaims that his message is based on his own racial preferences. I will take him at his word.

Brimelow's main theme is part of a very old tradition. Thomas Jefferson worried that immigrants would not "harmonize" with natives "in matters which they must of necessity transact together." He believed that the immigrants "bring with them the principles of the governments they leave . . . or if they throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness . . . These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children."

The nightmare vision is of "us" being overwhelmed by "them," and it has taken on new life in the last few years. Pat Buchanan has written that aliens alter "the ethnic character of California and the United States." He quotes with approval the magazine Chronicles: "High rates of non-European immigration ... will swamp us all."

When Margaret Thatcher closed the door to the people of Hong Kong--British subjects--who wanted to leave before the Communist takeover in 1997, she used the same wording as Buchanan: the British fear "being swamped by people of a different culture."

People across the political spectrum think that immigrants change our country. The "liberal" Arthur Schlesinger writes: "In the twenty-first century, if present trends hold, non-whites in the U.S. will begin to outnumber whites. This will bring inevitable changes in the national ethos."

Anti-immigration advocates such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) lean heavily on the idea that the country should restrict immigration in order to maintain our customs and institutions. Immigrants, they say, will not "make an irrevocable commitment to the language and political system of America." And the American Immigration Control Foundation distributes scary pamphlets warning about "whites becoming a minority group in America."

People like Us

SUCH NATIVISM is psychologically understandable. It is like wanting our own children to resemble us. But the supposed facts used to justify it are quite disproven by the history of immigration--into the United States, at least. Immigration does not substantially alter American institutions and culture. Rather, the immigrants absorb American ways and are absorbed into them.

For starters, ask yourself: Which state is more quintessentially "American" now--Hawaii, with its majority of non-European stock of fairly recent immigration, or Louisiana, with little recent immigration?

Let's consider our distinctive central institutions one by one. We'll see that our ways are little different from what they would be if no immigrant had arrived in the past half a century, though of course immigrants have contributed many American-type innovations.

Law. U.S. law clearly is an organic growth from its Anglo-Saxon beginnings. The only state whose law is noticeably different is Louisiana. a result of its origins two centuries ago.

Language. Every child born here now (though not in the nineteenth century) speaks English as a first language, no matter what his parents speak. The only exception is Puerto Rico. Its original Spanish continues to dominate despite immigration of English-speakers from the mainland. Words like chutzpah and Mafia creep into the national language, but they are at most a light spice on our native tongue.

Customs. We all shake hands, and we don't embrace much, just the way Americans have always done. Yes, we high-five on the basketball court in imitation of Magic Johnson. But no black or white yuppie high-fives at a business lunch, except perhaps with a basketball buddy. And we continue to play American football ne matter how many people come from soccer-playing lands or are better fitted by physique for European football than for American football or basketball.

Politics. We still have the same old two-party political system, even after Ross Perot. We have not descended into an anarchic national system imported by foreigners, despite the hysteria that contributed to the convictions of Sacco and Vanzetti and the expulsion of Emma Goldman. Nor have immigrants imposed an "alien" mode of government onto any of our states.

Holidays. Lots ef our forebears came here without a Christian tradition from Moslem and Jewish religions, and from African and Asian ways. But are the department stores of any city in doubt about whether Christmas is our national holiday? Yes, there is some variation in religious holidays celebrated in various states--Good Friday, for example. But the relative insignificance of this variation in our national life emphasizes how little effect immigration has.