Peter Brimelow's Speech at the Miller Center of Public Affairs: Question and Answers

[This is the question and answer session following the speech posted            January 6, 2007: "Is Immigration a Problem? Are the Minute Men the Answer?", by Peter Brimelow. We've cleaned up the text a bit.]

[Multimedia Available       Here]

Questioner #1:      You might have a moratorium on immigration, but then how do you control the immigrants'       high birthrate, which will certainly shift the ethnic balance, even if you were to stop immigration entirely?

Brimelow:      It's certainly true that the       higher birthrates will continue to shift the ethnic balance. It's actually a technical question you're asking, what are the numbers, what do the numbers suggest? And we spend a certain amount of time thinking about that question. The       evidence seems to be that, over time, all American ethnic groups get their       birthrates down surprisingly quickly, so these high birthrates may not persist as long as we think.

The other point I guess I'd make: there's       somewhere between       ten and twenty million illegals in this country right now. Maybe they should just            go home. Maybe that would resolve the problem. And, their children, when they're born right here now, are American citizens, because of a perverse, because of the       Birthright Citizenship interpretation of the 14^th amendment. Maybe that       should be solved. Maybe that should be changed one way or another, by       litigation or legislation. And then they could take their children with them.

I have       a dream! [laughter]

Questioner       #2:  I'm delighted that you're here and speaking out on this issue, which, as you said, most Americans are avoiding, for fear of offending people. I don't know if you ever see            Lou Dobbs on CNN, but he's the one news reporter that I'm aware of who deals with this nightly. He's not a ranting raving lunatic, the man has statistics. If I were living in some of the            conditions that these illegals live in Mexico, I would do exactly what they're doing. I'm not angry at them. I'm angry at the people at the top—George Bush,      all through            Congress—who are allowing this to happen. They are doing us wrong. If I were invited to the buffet of the United States and all I had was             corn tortillas, yes, I would do everything to help my family. Directing our anger, if you will, must be at our politicians, not at these immigrants.

      George Gilliam, Director of the Miller Center Forum, moderator:      I would ask that you could put that in the form of a question. [laughter]

Questioner #2: I would like to know what you feel about our congressional people, why they do not see this, what is causing it—is it votes, is it money, I don't know!

Brimelow:       Of course, you're quite right. There are 6 billion people in the world—6 billion people in the world—so there's a limit to the       amount of people who can reasonably expect to have their lives improved by coming here, although they're doing their best to get here.

Why Congress is the way it is? I think there are a number of reasons.

I think immigration is one of these classic political science problems that disadvantages a large number of people a little and benefits a small number of people a lot. That means you get       donors, and that's       very influential.

I genuinely think that a lot of the difficulty is that immigration is a new problem. Most people don't have new ideas after they're 21. The current generation of       politicians and       pundits came to maturity when immigration simply wasn't an issue. It wasn't an issue until about 1968 when the 1965 Act kicked in. I mean, I remember 1968 very clearly! [laughter].

It's like academic life—George, I'm sure you'll confirm this! It isn't true in academic life that one school of thought refutes another school of thought, and convinces it of its position. What happens is the       older guys die off, and they're replaced by younger people.  And so there's a generational effect. And I think we will see a generational effect as politicians come forward who are younger, basically, and are prepared to meet the new generation of problems.

And finally, in             Alien Nation I opened it up by saying there's a sense in which this can be viewed as       Hitler's revenge. The American political class was so traumatized by the fight against Nazism that it simply       cannot handle any discussion of race. And that's why the immigration enthusiasts, as I call them, are so quick to       accuse everybody in sight of racism whenever the issue is raised—because it       works for them, it frightens people away.

Unless of course, you're an       insensitive immigrant like me! Thank you.

Questioner #3:      We used to have a quota system in this country, I believe until the fifties and sixties of last century. Why was it abolished, what happened to it, and couldn't it be reintroduced?

Brimelow:       You mean the       National Origins system.

Questioner #3: Yes. Yes, indeed.

Brimelow:       That was the principle behind the       legislation of the 1920s. They wanted to stop what they saw as the       rapid shift of the American population, and to do it they decided they were going to allow immigration primarily from the traditional founding groups. And that       was undone in the 1960s . The rationale was that it was discriminatory.

Of course, it was discriminatory. Immigration policies are inherently discriminatory. Even if you let everybody in, the ones who are closest to the southern border are going to be getting in faster than the others. You know, you've got to choose in immigration policy.

That was really the rationale—that it was part of the       Civil Rights revolution and "discrimination" was Wrong.

Of course, any law produces individual hardship cases, and there were certainly individual hardship cases under the National Origins system. But they could have been rectified by minor changes.

One of the things that abolishing the National Origins system has done, however, has been to create a great social science experiment. It's shown us that national origins do matter—exactly as the people who put through the legislation in the 1920       argued. Generally speaking, immigrants from Europe go onto welfare at a rate that's about a tenth of immigrants from the Third World. In other words,       welfare participation by Third World immigrants in ten times that of European immigrants.

And there are a bunch of reasons for that. One of which is that functioning in a sophisticated society requires some sophistication, and it may be that people from First World societies understand that better. But there's no doubt, based on the evidence of the last forty years, that national origins do matter. And they matter for a very long time—they matter for the second, third and fourth generation.

And that's why the current flow is so disturbing. Because these people who are coming in and going on welfare and       going into the underclass—they're not going to get out of that quickly. It takes three or four generations before people assimilate economically—if they ever do.

Questioner #4: There's an estimated 34 million immigrants, approximately 1/3 are illegal. Our national population is 294 million of which Hispanics make up 41 million. That Harvard study that you alluded to—Borjas-Katz–[PDF] put out the word that in the men's labor force, one out of 20 are            Mexican laborers—illegals—and that in 1970 it was less that 1 out of 100. For today's Mexican immigrants, whether legal or illegal, their closest competitors for jobs are tomorrow's Mexican immigrants, either legal or illegal. The more who arrive, the harder it will be for them follow low-skilled Mexican laborers already in the work force. So what do you think about Bush's immigration legislation that he's proposing to resolve this dilemma?

Brimelow:       What do I think about       Bush's immigration proposals? I think they're       nuts. I think they're extraordinary.

For one thing, in effect there's an amnesty for the illegals already here. They       deny this, but it's just       Orwellian use of language, there is       clearly an amnesty.

But the thing that amazes me even more is that       apparently Bush wants to match "willing workers" with "willing employers". That is to say, if an American employer can't find a worker, he can go and get immigrants in, as temporary worker, from overseas. Now, there's no mention of price in this. In other words, employers can say they'll pay 5 cents an hour and when they don't get any Americans, they can find somebody—and they will be able to find people—who are willing to work for five cents an hour. It's a profoundly uneconomic way of looking at immigration, in spite of the free market rhetoric that surrounds the proposal.

Plus, of course, Bush is apparently prepared to allow these "temporary workers" to bring in their families. Well, of course, right there that destroys any macroeconomic benefit—because the transfer costs to their families are substantial.

So you can only view this, frankly, as a way of       benefiting employer groups. The employer groups are in a situation where they get to privatize the profits of immigration—the work of the immigrant—and they socialize the costs. Because       education,       healthcare and so on, and even things like       mortgages, are handled by the       public purse.

So my answer to your question is—it's one of the       wildest      things I've ever seen. I don't think people realize how crazy it is, frankly.

Now,       that doesn't mean it's not going to go through, by the way, because they are very determined on this question, the President is extremely determined. He's beyond the reach of reason. So there's going to be a big fight over it.

Questioner #5: What do you think the Mexican government could do to give incentive to its citizens to stay in Mexico, and, given that, do you think that President Fox or whoever the new President will be, do you think they will actually follow up on those? Do you think they think they have anything to gain by giving incentive for their citizens to stay?

Brimelow:       Well that's actually a great question. And it's particularly a disturbing question because, you know, Fox, when he was elected, was greeted       with great Hosannas by the Republicans because they thought they had a free-market president elected and       that things were going to change.

I'm very much afraid there is no solution in Mexico. It's obviously a       profoundly corrupt society. The unspoken issue there is       drug money, which is very substantial, and       must corrupt the entire political class.

They have       no incentive whatever to change. The Americans are putting no pressure on them to change. No, there's going to be no solution coming from Mexico short of actually invading it and ruling it as a colony, in which case       you probably would get economic growth and the Mexicans would stay there.

Mexico is       going to blow up. It's obvious to everybody that Mexico is unstable. Sooner or later it's going to blow up and we're going to have to bring those troops home from       Iraq and try and restore order in Mexico. Maybe that's would be the ultimate solution.

Questioner #6: Is there any other country in the world that has an immigration policy that's as wide open as ours?

Brimelow:       Well, immigration a problem throughout the First World, and particularly in what we call the       Anglosphere, the English-speaking countries. Actually just in terms of numbers, the       Canadians get more immigrants relative to population than the Americans do. They get about 200,000 legal immigrants a year, and their population is about a tenth of the U.S. population, so if you multiply it by ten you're looking at 2 million legal immigrants a year here. And they are       changing their society very rapidly as a result of that.

The difference is, though, that the Canadians actually have an interesting system which actually does discriminate among immigrants       on the basis of skill level. You get points for a bunch of things if you want to immigrate to Canada: skill levels and whether or not you speak the national languages. It's a very logical thing, actually, when you think about it. I mean wouldn't you prefer to have immigrants who       speak English? Then you wouldn't have       all these problems with bilingualism and so on. And there are a lot of people in the world who speak English. There are forty or fifty million Indians who speak English in their homes. So it's not a racially-based policy. But right now, because American immigration policy is frozen by statute, we can't do it.

So the answer is, immigration is a problem throughout the English-speaking world, and the First World. It's a problem throughout Europe. They're reacting to it more violently because they're less used to it, and that's why you see the       rise of these third parties, like       in Denmark and so on.

But, you know, the Americans matter most. Because this is Rome in the time of the       Twelve Caesars. Everybody in the world looks to the U.S. I can't exaggerate how important the example Americans set is worldwide. It's a unipolar world right now. The whole world is dependent on the U.S. So if the Americans have problems, the world has problems. The U.S. is where it really matters.

Questioner #7: Just a quick background before I get to my question. I was born, raised and went to school in South Texas, and in my lifetime I have seen places change in south Texas so that I wasn't sure which side of the border I was on.