A conservative columnist makes an eye-opening case for why immigration improves the lives of Americans and is important for the future of the country Separating fact from myth in today’s heated immigration debate, a member of The Wall Street Journal editorial board contends that foreign workers play a vital role in keeping America prosperous, that maintaining an open-border policy is consistent with free-market economic principals, and that the arguments put forward by opponents of immigration ultimately don’t hold up to scrutiny. In lucid, jargon-free prose aimed at the general-interest reader, Riley takes on the most common anti-immigrant complaints, including claims that today’s immigrants overpopulate the United States, steal jobs, depress wages, don’t assimilate, and pose an undue threat to homeland security. As the 2008 presidential election approaches with immigration reform on the front burner, Let Them In is essential reading for liberals and conservatives alike who want to bring an informed perspective to the discussion. ?An illuminating look at immigration.? ? "Booklist" aAn illuminating look at immigration.a a "Booklist" aThe immigration debate seems to have been taken over by shrill anti-immigrant voices. Ace editorialist Jason Riley restores some balance with this calm, reasoned, highly compelling presentation of the case for immigration. His fact- laden polemic should make even the most die-hard xenophobe think twice. He shows why immigrants are a net plus, and why illegal immigration isnat the crisis it has been made out to be.a aMax Boot, senior fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, author of "War Made New" and "Savage Wars of Peace" aJason Riley puts today's fierce immigration debate into perspective, and he does so with crisp writing and thoughtful analysis. "Let Them In" is a welcome contribution to a national discussion that is too often dominated by fear-mongering and misinformation. Free-market adherents ought to embrace open- immigration policies, and this tightly drawn book explains why.a aArthur Laffer, Chairman of Laffer Associates aJason Riley makes a very comprehensive argument for an Open Borders policy. People on all sides of this would do well to understand where he is coming from.a aLawrence Lindsey, former chief economic adviser to President George W. Bush Jason L. Riley is a member of the editorialboard at the Wall Street Journal , where he hasworked since 1994. He appears regularly on the Journal Editorial Report on Fox News. He hasalso appeared on The NewsHour with JimLehrer, Hannity and Colmes and ABC’s WorldNews Tonight . He lives in suburban New YorkCity with his wife and daughter. Introduction The magazines and the illustrators are long gone and largely forgotten, but the images endure. Like the 1903 print from Judge , a popular political magazine of the period. It's titled, “The Immigrant: Is he an Acquisition or a Detriment?” and depicts a hulking, exhausted new arrival to America's shores. He wears ragged clothing and lumbers inland with his wife, all their possessions in tow. As human cargo ships sail to and fro in the distance, a small mob greets the man, each individual representing a voice in the raucous turn-of-the-century debate. A contractor says, “He gives me cheap labor.” A workman says, “He cheapens my labor.” A health officer says, “He brings disease.” A citizen calls him “a menace.” A politician says, “He makes votes for me.” Silently determined, the man stares straight ahead, ignoring them all. Sound familiar? The targets have changed in the past century, but the concerns have not. Today, we're still being told that when immigrants aren't busy depressing wages; displacing workers; and overrunning our schools, hospitals, and jails, they're compromising our national security. But attacks that were once directed at Asians and Europeans—along with Catholics and Jews—are now directed primarily at Mexicans and other Latin Americans who in recent decades have comprised the bulk of newcomers. Steve King, a congressman from Iowa, compares Mexican aliens to livestock. Tom Tancredo, a Colorado congressman who sports T-shirts announcing that AMERICA IS FULL, says Hispanic immigrants have turned Miami into “a Third World country.” And Don Goldwater, nephew of conservative icon Barry Goldwater and an unsuccessful candidate for governor of Arizona, has called for interring illegal immigrants in concentration camps and pressed them into forced labor building a wall across the southern U.S. border. Playing on post 9/11 fears, political candidates in California have distributed flyers depicting Mexican immigrants as turbaned Islamic terrorists. Volunteer border patrol groups like the Minuteman Project insist that migrants sneaking across the Sonoran desert aren't just coming here to work and feed their families but also to “reconquer” the Southwest. And despite the fact that, relative to natives, the undocumented are more likely to have jobs a