Melting Pot or Civil War?: A Son of Immigrants Makes the Case Against Open…

Some relatively well supported arguments for reforming immigration policy — specifically, amnesty combined with effective future enforcement, a points based system instead of primarily family unification, and some other reasonable modifications. Unfortunately none of this is at all likely to happen, and thus the negative consequences he identifies (that a long term underclass of relatively-excluded immigrants and their descendants will seize power and be resisted to the detriment of all) is more likely to come to pass. ( )

Salam is a so-called "reform conservative" who, in this book takes a look at immigration. By saying that he is the son of immigrants, he seems to feel particularly entitled to propose limits on immigrants to the USA. That said, he manages to lay out a conservative proposal on immigration reform that should be an acceptable start for a bipartisan discussion.

Having just finished Paul Collier's book on immigration ("Exodus"), I found the Salam book to be rather shallow. In contrast to Collier who takes an even-handed approach to the subject citing in detail studies from all sides of the issue, Salam's quotes seem to be mostly quotes from opinion articles in conservative journals. He also seems to have selected the studies he looked at based upon which ones agreed best with his own opinion. In the end, much of the book felt like a collection of opinions more suitable to a short essay in one of his favorite journals. For that reason, I found the book disappointing. It was redeemed by its sincere appeal for finding a bipartisan solution to the problem. ( )