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Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster [Paperback]

Peter Brimelow
3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)


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Book Description

May 30, 1996
The controversial, bestselling book (37,500 hardcover copies sold) that helps define the debate about one of the most important and hotly contested issues facing America: immigration.


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Forbes senior editor Brimelow's alarmist, slashing anti-immigration manifesto is likely to stir debate. He maintains that the 1965 Immigration Act and its recent amplifications choked off immigration from northern and western Europe while selectively reopening U.S. borders to a huge influx of minorities from Third World countries. Many of these latter entrants are unskilled and require welfare support, and those who do work may adversely affect opportunities for poorer Americans, especially blacks, according to Brimelow. Because of multicultural programs, he charges, the new immigrants are not expected to assimilate, and thus they retain their separateness. Illegal immigration?two to three million entries a year?plus one million legal immigrants annually are causing, by his reckoning, an "ethnic revolution," because Asians, Hispanics, Middle Easterners and others shift America's balance away from the white majority, creating a strife-torn, multiracial society. Brimelow calls for an end to all illegal immigration, a drastic cutback in legal immigration, policies favoring skilled immigrants and elimination of all payments and free public education for illegals and their children.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

"Immigration has consequences," Brimelow (a Forbes senior editor and a contributor to the National Review) interjects repeatedly through this scattershot, argumentative tract against current immigration policy and practice. Claiming that the 1965 Immigration Act and later legislation in 1986 and 1990 have worsened a host of economic, political, and social problems in the United States, Brimelow cites supporters and critics alike of American immigration policy and his own interpretation of immigration statistics to disprove commonly held beliefs about immigrants' contributions to America, which he believes have been overemphasized. Brimelow argues that our environment is endangered, our public health threatened, our economy strained, our national unity diluted, and our politics fragmented?all by an immigration policy that is out of control and captive to a ruling "elite," which he associates with the liberal establishment and political correctness. Though Brimelow scores some points in his shrill attack, his highly politicized and provocative language?which often relies on ethnic stereotypes?makes this book a polemic guaranteed to rally the faithful and offend most others.?Jack Forman, Mesa Coll. Lib., San Diego
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 384 pages
  • Publisher: Harper Perennial (May 30, 1996)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0060976918
  • ISBN-13: 978-0060976910
  • Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #808,954 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

3.4 out of 5 stars
(76)
3.4 out of 5 stars
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
43 of 46 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book July 14, 1999
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
People who are labeling this author "racist" are very ignorant. I live in L.A. and see first-hand what the out-of-control immigration is doing to this city. Neighborhoods that were once beautiful and safe are now over-populated & dirty & full of crime. This issue needs to be addressed and quickly before further damage is done to this country because of ignorance, liberalism and "tolerance".
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86 of 97 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Blade Runner America August 27, 2005
Format:Paperback
Who would have thought back in 1965-70, when America's current immigration binge began, that by 2005 many US lawmakers would be championing driver's license rights for US lawbreakers? Or that our nation's borders would be so overrun that ordinary citizens, like retired law officers, assorted concerned grandparents, and a surprising number of Hispanics (all of whom were recently characterized by "New York Times" columnist David Brooks as "beer-swilling good old boys") would feel compelled to travel to the border with binoculars and lawn chairs and politely try to alert our undermanned Border Patrol about specific acts of blatant lawbreaking, all in the desperate hope of getting their own elected government to begin caring about border security for a nation that does not end in "q" or "stan"?

Well, judging by the foresight demonstrated in "Alien Nation," Peter Brimelow is probably one of the Americans least surprised by all this. And, as discussed in his book, illegal immigration is only part of the problem. The US is taking in more legal immigrants than all other nations combined. So when it comes to our grandchildren someday being able to enjoy America's remaining open spaces and wildlands, the government might as well be conducting an Anti-Homeland Environment military campaign utilizing modified B-52 carpet-bomb-paving cement mixers.

Brimelow also has the courage to address the ethnic factor. One US Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner once breathlessly proclaimed that America's rapid immigration-induced demographic shift means that we are all becoming "wonderfully transformed." This is pretty much in keeping with today's in-vogue type of racism: an ever smaller percentage of white people equals an ever more peachy world.
... Read more ›
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158 of 183 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars If we continue on this path... November 29, 2001
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
An excellent exposition on the current state of immigration. What I found interesting of the negative reviews were that more often than not, the reviewer didn't identify themselves.

Anyway, as to the book itself, Brimelow merely shows what immigration has been like for the US historically. Truth be told, the founders never intended for this to be a "multicultural" country. If one reads the Federalist Papers (which I've reviewed here), you discover that the founders were counting on the "common heritage" of the people to help make the new country work. As Brimelow shows, multiculturalism is of recent vintage (1960 and later).

The underpinning of any country is the commonality of its people: race/ethnicity, language, customs, religion, etc. What Brimelow is saying in this book is that underpinning is being eroded, and the consequences don't bode well for the future. Despite what some reviewers here say, Brimelow doesn't speak disparagingly about current immigrants. His point is that these new immigrants are not inclined to be assimilated, as previous waves were. I think he hits the nail on the head when he says that the current view on immigration is that it's a "civil right" (i.e., everyone has a right to come to America). No other country I know of is thought of in this way.

His emphasis on the fact that the US was/is a primarily white nation is not racist; it's merely stating fact. There's no talk about what race is "better", only that commonality is better. I think the charges of xenophobia by some reviewers are entirely specious.

What has led every great nation/empire to ruin: taking in peoples it can't assimilate or who don't want to be. Our collapse will be unavoidable. Rome lasted 476 years; I doubt we'll reach that....

This is a great, great book. Read it, and then use it by writing your representatives and tell them to turn off the spigot. As Brimelow points out, most Americans are opposed to further foreign immigration and yet it continues. Why? He doesn't answer that question directly -- that's another story. Read more ›

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39 of 43 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Because I don't want to live in Tijuana July 6, 2001
Format:Paperback
The systematic anti-European bias of our current immigration policy is not only a war against the people (whites) who created the very civilization for which third-worlders so desire, but a war against the American worker who has to compete with these thralls who will work to see a cock-fight. Peter Brimelow, himself an immigrant and the book's author, thought he moved to America. If he wanted to live in Tijuana, he would have moved there. Frustrated by his observations, he was compelled to write this anti-immigration treatise, and to his credit, he dogged his quarry with diligence.

Brimelow addresses every conceivable argument formulated by those who wish for our present immigration policy to continue. A popular one is the often repeated neo-conservative mantra that America was "built on immigration," but the kind of immigration our founders who "built" our country had in mind was of the European variety. In fact, the first immigration act written in 1790 by the men who signed the Declaration of Independence limited immigration strictly to European Christians, which stands in direct contrast with current immigration law that would today deny our European forefathers entrance. (And besides, when European immigrants arrived on Ellis Island 90 years ago, they didn't have subsidized housing, SSI, and other welfare benefits waiting for them, unlike the Aztec Indians entering our country illegally today that Linda Chavez would love to culturally and dysgenically destroy our country with.) The country was founded not on immigration but on private property rights, as specified in the Federalist Papers, in which John Jay constantly stresses the common brotherhood we--we whites that is--have with Europeans....

Another argument that Brimelow stabs right through the eyes is the one that says "we need these immigrants because if they weren't here picking lettuce it would cost ten bucks a head." Personally, I would rather pay $20 a head than kiss European civilization goodbye, but this isn't the argument Brimelow adopts. Brimelow claims--correctly--that any benefits massive nonwhite immigration brings is easily outweighed by the urban decay, welfare costs, poor academic performance, and reintroduced diseases (like tuberculosis) they also bring along with them.

Shortly after the publication of "Alien Nation," Michigan Senator Spencer Abraham sabotaged the only hope in the last ten years for immigration reform: Section 110 of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Act Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), which would've required the government to begin matching entry and exit records of all visitors of the United States. Thankfully, Abraham lost his senate seat. But he isn't alone among the overwhelming majority of politicians, most of whom desperately want to preserve our current open-border policy--Republicans for their cheap labor and Democrats for their cheap cause. We are importing, in essence, people who are illiterate in their own native languages; most of them cannot read or write in their own native Spanish (declining academic standards). Their children very often don't want to be a laborer, and they join gangs (urban decay). All of which is going to erode the country for a short-term gain and greed of those who are behind these decisions. Additionally, when these Aztec Indians "bury us," ("us" whites) who's going to pay their welfare benefits? Why would anyone want this?

To anyone concerned with our nation's future, I couldn't think of a more important book than Peter Brimelow's "Alien Nation." Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars The Irrepressible Conflict in American Politics
In 1837, Elijah P. Lovejoy, a New England Yankee transplant to frontier Illinois, was martyred by pro-Slavery forces. He had been editor of an anti-slavery newspaper. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Carl Robinson
4.0 out of 5 stars this author was right on...look at the election today and who voted...
The author was right on back then look at why Obama won the reelection... alien's and who knows how many are illegal.
Published 7 months ago by Brian Eitzenberger
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book
Well-researched, politically incorrect, timely. A must-read for any individual who is aware of and concerned about the effect of mass immigration from the Third World on Western... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Nat
5.0 out of 5 stars Still relevant
Alien Nation is just as relevant today as it was in 1995, when it was first published. The same arguments the author tackles are still being used to justify the Mexification of... Read more
Published on October 4, 2010 by Anti-Hipster
5.0 out of 5 stars Very Informative!
I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants the unvarnished truth about our current immigration system and why it needs to be fixed as soon as possible.
Published on May 31, 2010 by Simon Jester
5.0 out of 5 stars The author has a point
The author has a point.

I my book, Virginia Dare was an illegal alien. The Iroquis should have extradited her parents. And what about Davey Crockett? Read more
Published on May 8, 2010 by Ashtar Command
2.0 out of 5 stars Book filled with many weak and unsupported arguments
The author starts out in his introduction by emphatically stating that "immigration has consequences". Read more
Published on October 28, 2009 by Yoda
5.0 out of 5 stars Devastating Attack on Flooding Our Country with Immigrants
Peter Brimelow brings a rapier like wit and razor sharp mind to bear on the desires of the left and big business regarding immigration. Read more
Published on May 26, 2008 by Pierre
5.0 out of 5 stars WHAT ABOUT THE IRISH A FRIEND ASKED
AND I ANSWERED...BEFORE THE BRITISH KILLED EM OFF THEY WERE MAYBE 4 MILLION...mexicos gone from about 10 million to pushing toward 100 million in a century,,,even after dumping 40? Read more
Published on February 9, 2008 by K. Gleason
4.0 out of 5 stars Mostly good. All food for thought
I find it interesting that those reviling the book pretty much say "he's a racist bigot" and think that is a response to the ideas raised. I find little or no analysis of what Mr. Read more
Published on November 11, 2006 by Colin C. Mckenna
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