There is much to admire in This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto, especially a longer-term view of how immigration shaped not only the United States, but indeed the entire earth. The author also reminds us that many of the reasons why migrants decide to leave their countries were manufactured by the many countries that now wish to keep them away, through colonialist and other exploitative actions–and that much anti-immigrant sentiment is manufactured by plain racism.
That said, the book is written as a pamphlet that fails to present rational, let alone balanced views. For instance, the author takes great pains to show that immigrants into the US come with much more education than native-borns, so more immigrants would ensure a better-educated populace. Really? Isn’t the difference at least partly caused by but the (overly tight, to be sure) immigration policy? And he proposes utterly impractical solutions, such as requiring incoming immigrants to settle into depressed areas of the country, where housing is abundant (but, presumably, jobs are not!) So it’s a rant more than a constructive discussion.
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