Heaven's Door:

Immigration Policy and the American Economy

George J. Borjas, Princeton University Press, 1999

George Borjas has written a comprehensive evaluation of the economic impact of mass migration in his latest book. He has authored several other books on economics, and a large number of articles. Currently he serves as a professor of public policy at Harvard and is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. In this new volume he analyzes current immigrant skill levels, welfare use, national origins, upward mobility, and the effect of the immigrants on the labor market. Many tables and charts are included to document his work.

Borjas' studies reveal that a large proportion of the post-1965 immigrants are unskilled and will not reach economic parity with native workers. There is a large gap in the high school dropout rate, which is 9.0 percent for natives and 33.6 percent for immigrants. There is a growing transfer of wealth from poor workers to employers and other users of the immigrants' services, estimated at $160 billion per year. The wages of native unskilled workers are also affected. The author believes the benefits of immigration are overstated and are a negative impact for the poorest of Americans.

George Borjas discusses the purposes of our immigration policy, the moral issues involved and the foreign policy ramifications. He believes that the country's policy “should strive to maximize the well-being of the native population.” To accomplish this goal, he recommends reducing the total number of immigrants to 500,000 yearly, with the emphasis on skill-based admissions. This conclusion is expected to be controversial. The Wall Street Journal, an advocate of unrestricted immigration, has already panned the book. This book will stimulate more discussion on what should be our nation's immigration policy.

— by Carol Joyal