For example, Jacquie Miller in the Ottawa Citizen worried—all too presciently, for what it is worth—that “phrases can be plucked out of Brimelow’s book that, shoved only slightly out of context, provide ammunition[for the inevitable charge of racism] She instanced my references to high black crime and Laotian welfare rates. Miller also felt that the “credibility” of my account of Robert Kennedy's ludicrous underestimate of Asian immigration resulting from the l965 Act (p. 78) somehow suffered from what she described as “a typical slur”: my adding that “tragically, Robert Kennedy himself was to be assassinated by an immigrant counted by the INS as Asian.”

My first reaction to this sort of thing, of course, is incredulity. I believe truth should be an absolute defense, as it is in libel law. Laotians do have disproportionately high welfare rates etc. And I said “tragically.” didn ‘t ?’

Still, I recognize a problem. There is no point in repelling readers, at least those who show Ms. Miller’s symptoms of open-mindedness.

The problem, however, is not easily resolved. The truth, we are told after all, shall set us free. And it is precisely because of the media’s flinching from facts that many Americans are unaware of the immigration dimensions of major contemporary public policy dilemmas. It is because Americans are never reminded of the Jordanian origins of Kennedy’s assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, that they don’t think to put him at the head of a list of infamous immigrants to counter the immigration enthusiasts’ silly ploy of reeling off, in place of argument, the names of distinguished immigrants. In fact, many Americans can’t think of a list of infamous immigrants at all—another example of the one-way nature of the immigration debate.