How Many Is Too Many? The Progressive Argument for Reducing Immigration into the United States

Rather than a shibboleth of Tea Partiers and Minutemen, restricting immigration should be a pillar of a left-liberal program to bolster the working class and protect the environment, according to this stimulating manifesto. University of Colorado philosophy professor Cafaro (Thoreau’s Living Ethics) argues that mass immigration undermines important progressive goals: it floods the low-skilled labor market, lowering wages and raising unemployment among the poor (Americans, he contends, both want and take the jobs immigrants also commonly perform but get lower pay because of immigrant competition); it increases the U.S. population, leading to more pollution, carbon emissions, and environmental degradation; it sharpens socioeconomic inequality, fostering a “master/servant economy” in which affluent elites disproportionately benefit from a permanent, highly exploitable immigrant underclass. Cafaro’s lucid, straightforward prose is buttressed by a wealth of statistics and avoids the racial and cultural stereotyping that often intrudes on the immigration debate. His nuanced analysis, incorporating sympathetic interviews with immigrant strivers and beleaguered native-born workers alike, squarely faces the ethical trade-offs that immigration policy entails; he acknowledges immigrants’ contributions and legitimate moral claims, but insists that American democracy put the interests of citizens first. The result is a cogent, eye-opening challenge to received wisdom on this contentious issue. (Feb.)