Eventually, it enacted the epochal Immigration Act . . . of 1965. This poorly written book contains many errors. The first mistake occurs early, on p. xii, when he states that the last legal restrictions on Asians acquiring United States citizenship were dropped in the 1940s. The correct date is, of course, 1952. There are many more mistakes in the text.
Errors are bothersome and so are exaggerations.
Brimelow believes that two to three million illegal immigrants arrive annually, of whom three hundred thousand to five hundred thousand remain in the country. These estimates are high, and the INS recently has suggested that only two hundred seventy-five thousand undocumented persons settle yearly in the United States. The use of unreliable numbers to support a case is characteristic of Brimelow and of many others in the immigration debate. But more important is Brimelow's belief that immigration harms both American workers and the environment. It is simply common sense that Americans have a legitimate interest in their country's racial balance.