Reihan Salam was the conservative voice at Slate for a while, and I always found his pieces to be insightful and well-reasoned. Melting Pot or Civil War? is about immigration reform, a subject about which I would very much like to hear insightful and well-reasoned proposals; it's the source of wild rhetoric from right and left even though both sides agree we need reform.
Salam comes at the question of immigration from a unique angle. In his view, low-skill immigrants who come to the United States for work are typically better off than they would be in their home countries even if we pay them poverty-level wages. So you could make the moral argument that we should let in as many immigrants as our job market can support. However, our moral commitment is different to the children of those immigrants. They are American citizens who should not be forever stuck in low-wage ghettos. In the current environment, though, children of poor immigrants are exceedingly unlikely to rise very far. We need to limit low-skill immigration not because immigrants are stealing native workers' jobs (they mostly aren't) but because we can't adequately provide their children with the American dream.
I applaud the moral seriousness with which Salam takes the plight of immigrants and his acknowledgement that much of the rhetoric about immigration is not based in fact. His "what about the children?" argument is thoughtful, but ultimately a red herring I think. I would have liked more evidence for the claim that 21st century immigration is qualitatively different from early 20th century immigration.
The book wasn't as tightly presented as Salam's journalistic pieces. Several of its most interesting tidbits are not well integrated into the final argument. Thankfully, though, the tone doesn't fall to the level of its sensationalistic title.
Salam comes at the question of immigration from a unique angle. In his view, low-skill immigrants who come to the United States for work are typically better off than they would be in their home countries even if we pay them poverty-level wages. So you could make the moral argument that we should let in as many immigrants as our job market can support. However, our moral commitment is different to the children of those immigrants. They are American citizens who should not be forever stuck in low-wage ghettos. In the current environment, though, children of poor immigrants are exceedingly unlikely to rise very far. We need to limit low-skill immigration not because immigrants are stealing native workers' jobs (they mostly aren't) but because we can't adequately provide their children with the American dream.
I applaud the moral seriousness with which Salam takes the plight of immigrants and his acknowledgement that much of the rhetoric about immigration is not based in fact. His "what about the children?" argument is thoughtful, but ultimately a red herring I think. I would have liked more evidence for the claim that 21st century immigration is qualitatively different from early 20th century immigration.
The book wasn't as tightly presented as Salam's journalistic pieces. Several of its most interesting tidbits are not well integrated into the final argument. Thankfully, though, the tone doesn't fall to the level of its sensationalistic title.
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