The Case Against Immigration: The Moral, Economic, Social, and Environmental Reasons for Reducing U.S. Immigration Back to Traditional Levels

Among recent anti-immigration tracts, this slashing, sure-to-be controversial manifesto by Beck, Washington, D.C., editor of Social Contract, advances a number of new arguments. His main thrust is that current high levels of immigration serve the interest of a small elite, principally corporations and other employers that benefit from low-wage labor. The losers, in Beck's analysis, are not only America's poor and working class, forced to compete against immigrants, but also the broad middle class, because the labor glut, by reducing pressure on employers to share with employees the results of increased productivity, leads to depressed wages, reduced employee benefits and mounting economic insecurity. Hit particularly hard, Beck shows, are African Americans, because many employers meet minority hiring targets by employing immigrants instead of them. He also blames environmental damage on overpopulation caused partly by immigrants' high birthrates. Contrary to the widespread view that the U.S. has a shortage of native-born professionals, Beck cites a 1995 survey that found America producing a huge surplus of Ph.D.s in science and engineering fields. He calls for a revamped system reducing immigration to the levels of the ""great wave"" between 1924 and 1965. (Apr.)