of universal extension of Columbia University’s InternationalnHouse on Morningside Heights in New York City.nOne reason to distrust these arguments is that they arenusually formulated and delivered by a variety of specialinterestngroups — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, truckngardeners and fruit growers in California and Florida,nrefugee welfare associations, ethnic organizations, humannrights activists, and every sodality of professional ideologuen— that have no interest in the larger reality lying behindntheir own narrow and parochial concerns. The morenimportant reason, though, is that even if correct they arenincidental to the much larger and more critical concernsnraised by our existing immigration policies. Having read atnleast a portion of the pertinent material, I am, for example,npersuaded by my opinion (as St. Paul said) that immigrantsndo take jobs from native-born Americans; that a great manynof them do not pay taxes or anyway their fair share of them;nand that—particularly in cities like Los Angeles — they arena tremendous tax burden on the already oversubscribednnatives. The work of Donald Huddle, professor of economicsnat Rice University, seems to me to substantiate conclusivelynthese statements.nNevertheless, if Professor Huddle’s findings were discreditedntomorrow, and the writings of Julian Simonnbathed simultaneously in a bright transforming light, Inwould, while conceding a point, remain opposed to a liberalnAmerican immigration policy on the grounds that allneconomic arguments are extraneous to the larger questions.nYou could “prove” to me that, without the immediatentransference of the entire population of Hong Kong to thenstate of California, the United States would be in a majorneconomic depression by the middle of next year, and Inwould still be against transferring it there. Or you couldn”prove” to me that yes, the United States can supportncomfortably all of the earth’s five-billion-plus people, andnmy response would be a) what does “comfortably” mean?nand b) who wants to live with five billion people wherenformerly there were a quarter billion? If we really do requirenall these immigrants from many lands to goose our economynand to strengthen our anemic blood with their robust redncorpuscles, their breeding habits that are better suited tonlaboratory mice than to human beings, and their rejuvenatingncultural “diversity,” then indeed it is later than I think.nWhen we arrive at the point where the United States mustnrely upon massive transfusions of human as well as ofnfinancial capital from abroad to restore us to what we were inn1789 — an energetic, canny, thrifty, resourceful, interesting,nbrave, and above all confident civilization — then quitenfrankly there no longer is a United States of America in anynsave the legalistic sense, and I for one don’t give a hang whatnbecomes of the formalist (though alas not empty) shell thatnremains.nWe ought, I propose, to forget about economic considerationsnand the economy (which seems to get along on its ownnanyhow) when we think about immigration, and divert ournattention instead to what Herbert Croly called “the promisenof American life” and that today is known in more generalnterms as “the quality of life,” even if all too few people whonuse the phrase have any fair idea of what it is they are talkingnabout. Although Bill McKibben assures us that mankind hasnarrived at the point where it must choose the “humble” pathnover the “defiant” one in making its future way through thennatural world, contemporary environmental argument is fornthe most part restricted to gaudy and generalized crises likenthe greenhouse effect and the global population explosion.nThe fragmentization of contemporary “thought” causesnsuch mega-subjects to be detached from more restrictive andnsubordinate topics and problems, set apart from them andnelevated into towering abstractions that become the objectsnof a peculiar sort of counter-idolatry. As a result, a variety ofn”opinion-makers” in the United States today are runningnaround yelling their heads off^ that the sky is going to fallntomorrow because the population of China reached onenbillion yesterday, while hardly one of them (with a few bravenexceptions like Georgie Anne Geyer) dares — or perhapsneven thinks — to say that the American land is going to benoverrun and despoiled in fifty or a hundred years because ofnthe folly, greed, and dishonesty with which Congress hasnresponded to the immigrant invasion during the pastntwenty-five years.nIt is considered “humanitarian” to fret about populationngrowth and its effects on the natural environment at thenglobal (which is to say, at the abstract) level; but “racist,”n”xenophobic,” “uncompassionate,” and “un-American” tonworry about the population crisis as it immediately affectsnthe United States, the only place in the world where we arenin a position to be able to do anything about it. A few yearsnago, the late Edward Abbey agreed to write an article on thensubject of immigration, legal and otherwise, for the NewnYork Times’ op-ed page, at the invitation of its editor. Theneditor held the piece for two months before requesting thatnthe author, who had written to specification, reduce it bynabout 50 percent. This Abbey proceeded to do. Anothernmonth passed before a different editor wrote to say that thenarticle could not be printed owing to a lack of space. ThenTimes never paid Abbey a kill fee or even bothered to returnnthe manuscript to him; later he published it as “Immigrationnand Liberal Taboos” in a collection of his essays. One of itsnsentences asks: “How many of us, truthfully, would prefer tonbe submerged in the Caribbean-Latin version of civilization?”nThe Times editors weren’t telling, but stories aboutnthe hazards of nuclear-waste disposal, the horrors of airnpollution and strip-mined hills, and the destruction of thenBrazilian rain forests continued to make it into the Sundayneditions of the paper, as did reports of famine in Chad andnEthiopia and almost monthly head counts of the populationnof China.nThe few “conservative” writers (I suppose we arenconservatives; it’s getting hard to distinguish betweennthe players these days) who outspokenly oppose substantialnimmigration into the United States have long known betternthan to play the environmental card when making their bidnto their fellow “conservatives,” all too many of whom equatenconservatism with unrestrained capitalism, although five ornsix centuries of industrial capitalism have probably donenmore to destroy traditional and humane ways of life than ancentury and a half of militant Marxist-Leninism. On thisnsubject, however, the time has arrived for plain speaking: thenenvironmentalist argument, plus the cultural one, providesnthe essential overriding case against the waves of immigrantsnnnJULY 1991/21n