Muddled Masses

Stuart Anderson from the February 2000 issue

(Page 3 of 3)

In 1962, George Borjas' widowed mother, with the help of Catholic priests, came with George to America on one of the last "freedom flights" from Cuba. With little money or education, his mother worked hard to raise George, and he obviously worked hard, too. Borjas writes, "Although my family and I entered the country as refugees, my family would have been unable to `pass the test' implicit" in the policy he now advocates.

Critics of immigration can't explain why, if legal immigration is supposed to be so harmful, America remains a society rich in opportunities. George Borjas can't explain it either. "To this day, I continue to be amazed by the courage and boldness that my mother and millions of others exhibited in picking up the little they had, and starting life again in a foreign country--without knowing the language, the culture, or almost anything about it," he writes. "They all relied on their unshakable belief that the United States was a far better place, and that even if they themselves could not share in those opportunities, their children surely would." This is the same dream that brings so many to America. We benefit and they benefit.

We should admire his mother's courage and all that Borjas has accomplished. And by all means, we should read and ponder his book. But in the end it is George Borjas' life, not his book, that teaches us the most about the right immigration policy for America.