As soon as they discover that I, like most legal immigrants, reject America’s promiscuous immigration policies, open-border enthusiasts invariably tell me to go back whence I came (Canada and before that South-Africa). I’ll save them the effort: I fully agree that Americans have little use for me. I’m a troublesome scribe with a love of the English idiom and an annoying attachment to the American ideas of limited government and self-governance. You wouldn’t want to import too many such subversives, who’ll agitate for a return to the values that made this place great, if only fleetingly. A word of caution, however, before you send the spouse packing. Squeaky clean, screened-to-the-hilt, highly-skilled newcomers like him will become increasingly essential in subsidizing America’s immigration free-for-all.

Speaking of which, America’s immigration policies already select for the following qualities: unacceptable risk-taking, law-breaking, and general low moral character, an undesirable feature that’ll be further refined by the imminent passing of the amnesty bill. Most of our South-African friends, all highly qualified, middle-class, upstanding family men and women, have opted to go to Australia or the UK. Why? Well, legal immigrants don’t “wait their turn,” as the uninformed pointy-heads keep chanting. It is usually their qualifications that, indirectly, get them admitted into the U.S. The H-1B visa, for one, is a temporary work permit—and also a route to acquiring legal permanent resident status. However, if one loses the job with the sponsoring company, the visa holder must leave the U.S. within ten days. What responsible, caring, family man (or woman) would subject his or her dependants to such insecurity and upheaval? As I say, most of the people we know would never contemplate breaking the law by remaining in the country illegally. And not because they’re dull or unimaginative (an “argument” I’ve heard made by a libertarian who praised immigration scofflaws for their entrepreneurial risk-taking, no less). But because they have the wherewithal—intellectual and moral—to weigh opportunity costs and plan for the future, rather than discount it in favor of immediate gratification. Unhip perhaps, but certainly the kind of people America could do with.

America’s immigration policies are, moreover, predicated mainly on family reunification rather than on skills relevant to the American economy. If ever we were to import our family, we’d add two or three, elderly, English-speakers to the nation. Small extended families, however, are not the norm among most immigrant families, because of a multicultural, all-nations-are equal quota system, which effectively has resulted in an emphasis on mass importation of people from the Third World. Birth rates being what they are in the Third World, one qualified legal immigrant from, say, Africa is a ticket for an entire tribe. The initial entrant—the meal ticket—integrates and pays his way; the rest remain, more often than not, unassimilable and welfare dependent.