Peter Brimelow writes: The Boston Herald's Don Feder is one of the very few syndicated columnists who dare to tackle immigration. He once kindly attributed his change of heart to my 1992 National Review cover story "Time to rethink Immigration?"  In this powerful piece, he cites one of the more alarming zingers I uncovered in Alien Nation - that 80% of the case loads of some senior probation officials in LA were estimated to be illegals. Of course, that was more than ten years ago. Maybe it's 100% today. Or maybe not. Who's counting?

Answer: nobody's counting. As a leading (neoconservative) education expert said to me once, when I asked what studies have been done on the impact of immigration on the performance of native-born Americans in impacted schools: "None. And none are going to be done. Because no-one wants to know the answer."

Generally, when you think about immigration and crime, you have to remember these factors:

(1) the numbers aren't available because no-

(2) native-born crime rates are inflated because two groups - blacks and hispanics - commit wholly disproportionate amounts of crime. The true comparison should be to the - much lower - crime rates of native-born whites. (The same is true for welfare and poverty rates.)

(3) Shouldn't the immigrants be better than native-born Americans? After all, the U.S. can choose whoever it wants.

Finally, note Feder's conclusion: "Illegal immigration benefits the people of this country the way treason enhances national security."

The T-word in the same sentence as the I-word. That's progress.

The link to Feder on Amnesty Bill

February 14, 2001