Crowded land of liberty : solving America's immigration crisis / by Dirk Chase Eldredge.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Eldredge, Dirk Chase, 1932-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States--Emigration and immigration--Government policy.

United States.

Emigration and immigration.

Government policy.

Physical Description:

xii, 170 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

First North American edition.

Place of Publication:

Bridgehampton, N.Y. : Bridge Works Pub. ; [Place of publication not identified] : Distributed by National Book Network, [2001]

Summary:

The past decade's explosive growth in immigration, both legal and illegal, and the changing composition of this immigrant influx, have had an extensive impact on U.S. society. The repercussions promise to multiply in the years ahead. New proposals to grant amnesty to Mexican and other illegal immigrants promise to magnify the problems and the controversy.

The number of legal immigrants alone accelerated in the 1990s to an average of more than a million a year. That's up from just over 300,000 a year in the 1960s and 600,000 a year by the 1980s. When illegal immigrants are added, the total inflow during the decade of the 1990s was approximately 12 million. Compare that with the total in the 1930s decade of just over 500,000.

Crowded Land of Liberty examines both the dimensions and the characteristics of this unprecedented growth in immigration, and how it developed into a crisis contributing to overcrowded schools, soaring demand for social services, new burdens on taxpayers, increased urban congestion and environmental harm, and heightened job competition. This has been magnified as the proportion of immigrants increased from Latin America, with their generally lower economic and educational levels.

Author Dirk Chase Eldredge makes an important contribution to understanding and coping with this growing crisis by exploring new public-policy alternatives. He draws on the experience of Canada and other societies in discussing policy options that range from a moratorium to permit assimilation to favoring immigrants whose youth, education and skills promise the U.S. the greatest benefits.

Crowded Land of Liberty examines the differences between today's waves of immigration and those of earlier eras, and U.S. society's ability to absorb and assimilate them at different periods of the nation's history. It shows how immigration laws that governed America's historic open-door policy have been changed and thwarted by repeated past amnesties for illegal immigrants and by encouraging each new arrival to bring in members of his or her extended family and each member of the latter group then to do the same. As these new immigrants became an ever-larger voting bloc, politicians have vied to further ease immigration rules, relax social-welfare qualifications, increase bilingual education and sponsor similar measures with profound implications.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Why a Crisis? 1

Chapter 2 Good Intentions Gone Awry 21

Chapter 3 The H-1B and Its Discontents 32

Chapter 4 Down on the Farm 45

Chapter 5 Chain Immigration Perils 55

Chapter 6 The Futility of Sponsorship 64

Chapter 7 Asylum and Amnesty 73

Chapter 8 Open Borders? They're Porous Already 87

Chapter 9 Assimilation Is Not Working 108

Chapter 10 A New Beginning 132.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 151-163) and index.

ISBN:

1882593413

OCLC:

47216117