Although Reihan Salam’s book, Melting Pot or Civil War? A Son of Immigrants Makes the Case Against Open Borders, was published in 2018, the author’s analysis of immigration policy remains relevant. FAIR supporters will likely agree with many of Salam’s arguments, and will undoubtedly disagree with others (for instance, Salam wants mass amnesty, albeit in exchange for E-Verify and more rigorous interior enforcement). Either way, the book is an insightful and outside-the-box critique of our immigration system and a sobering warning about America’s future if the pro-mass-migration, open-borders trends and policies of the past several decades are not recognized and addressed in a realistic fashion.
A son of Bangladeshi immigrants, Salam was born in the
United States and grew up in multi-ethnic New York City. He thus views the
issue of immigration from two different perspectives, and he is undoubtedly
worried about some of the problematic aspects he sees.
Thus, the title of the book is no mere marketing
gimmick, but actually conveys the essence of the author’s argument and the
alternative that America faces. The United States will either have to better
and more fully integrate its large and growing foreign-born population in the
spirit of the “melting pot,” Salam argues, or the resulting socio-economic
inequalities and ethnic tensions will further radicalize and tear the country
apart, possibly even leading to revolution or civil war.
According to Salam, sustained high levels of
immigration – and in particular low-skilled and/or family-based immigration –
exacerbate both socio-economic inequality and ethno-cultural friction. The
reason, he argues, is that low-skilled immigrants may admittedly be better off
in the U.S. than they would be in their homelands, but they nevertheless tend
to languish in relative poverty at the very bottom of the American
socio-economic pyramid without much hope for significant upward mobility. Moreover,
we should “worry about the children they raise on American soil, and what will
happen to our society if impoverished immigrants give rise to an impoverished
second generation that has no memory of life in the old country and who won’t
tolerate being relegated to second-class status.”
Such a second generation – resentful, radicalized, and
cynical about the “American Dream” – would certainly be grist for the mill of revolutionary
demagogues at the intersection of divisive identity politics and equally
divisive class warfare. And, as Salam admits, mass low-skilled immigration
(both legal and illegal) means that the stratum of immigrant children who feel
the American system is rigged against them will only continue to grow.
In addition to increasing the number of low-income
households, and the resulting tensions and inequalities, low-skilled migration
has also “kept large swaths of our economy stuck in a low-wage,
low-productivity rut.” Indeed, the widespread availability of cheap low-skilled
labor, Salam emphasizes, discourages the technological modernization of the
economy. He also mentions the recent example of Sweden, whose “business models
have been designed to make use of high-skilled, high-wage workers augmented by
loads of laborsaving technology.” The sudden arrival of large numbers of
low-skilled migrants and refugees from the Middle East thus posed a particular
challenge. As a result, “some Swedish firms are ‘de-engineering’ their business
models to become more labor-intensive.”
That is why the author has “come to believe that the
United States badly needs a more thoughtful and balanced approach to
immigration, including a greater emphasis on skills and a lesser one on
extended family ties.” Salam argues that “a more selective, skills-based
immigration system would yield a more egalitarian economy, in which machines do
the dirty work and workers enjoy middle-class stability. And a more egalitarian
economy would help heal our country’s ethnic divides.”
To Salam’s credit, he recognizes that high levels of
unending mass immigration discourage assimilation. At the same time the author
claims that America is not doing enough for its immigrants and their children, a
problem that itself can be chalked up to our broken immigration policies. We
are asking vital institutions, like our schools, to do the impossible – teach
millions of non-English-speaking kids the common language of our country,
provide for their nutritional and other needs – and not surprisingly, many are
failing. But regardless of whether we agree with all of Salam’s arguments and
theories, Melting Pot or Civil War? is a book that should be read by
people on both sides of the immigration debate.
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