Book Review on Immigration
This article reviews the book, The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers, by Zeke Hernandez, (N.Y. St. Martin’s Press, 2025, $39.00). A committed Christian with five children, Zeke has voted for both Republicans and Democrats but does not belong to either party. His views go along “with different parties on different issues” (p.2).
Born in Uruguay, Zeke moved to Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Argentina as a youngster. He received his B.A. and M.A. at Brigham Young University and received his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. Presently, Zeke has a named Associate Professorship in Wharton’s management department at the University of Pennsylvania since 2013.
Both of my paternal and maternal grandparents on my father’s side came to the US around 1900 from the Austro-Hungarian Empire (today’s Slovak Republic) and in Italy on my maternal grandparents. In those days immigrants came to the US to have a better life than in their native countries. However, by 1924, the National Origins Act created the anti-immigration climate in America. National security and xenophobia caused the US to lose thinkers, entrepreneurs, scientists, and inventors.
After the 1924 quotas, there was a 69 % loss in patented inventions by US-born inventors, plus a 53 percent decline in patents by US companies. Since 1948, the US has educated millions of international students, although today bright students seem to be losing ground. For example, Canada allows skilled migrants to find a way or path to citizenship, whereas foreign students in the US have difficulties getting a work visa, concerns with the sociopolitical environment, and prefer to study in another country (p. 182).
There’s a link between national security and loss of talent. Erdal Arikan, a US trained engineer from Turkey studied information at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and California Institute of Technology in the 1980s. Unable to find neither an academic appointment nor funding in the US, Arikan returned to Turkey. Arikan helped Huawei (China’s telecommunication equipment giant), to make the jump from 4 G to 5 G in 2009. In 2013, Huawei “owned the vast majority of the patents that applied his ideas” (p. 183). Also, more than 50% of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Ph.D.s in the US are immigrants.
The dysfunctional immigration system remains a larger threat than rivalry from other countries. Surprisingly, the real security threat for the US is disallowing immigrants into the US. Unfortunately, fear and xenophobia tend to dominate our security in the US. By missing out on the best and brightest in the world means that we “fall behind in key technologies, products, and entrepreneurial ideas” (p.184).
Manufacturers in the US cannot find and keep workers. The National Association of Manufacturers estimates that two million positions would likely be unfilled by 2030. Many candidates fail to show up for job interviews. Some candidates balk at starting salaries although some of them have no demonstrable skills or any prior work history.
The North Carolina Growers’ Association (NCGA) has great difficulty finding natives to work on farms in North Carolina. The NCGA is one of the largest users of H-2A visas in the US for temporary farmworkers. To hire a migrant worker on an H-2A visa, an employer of the NCGA must prove that it attempted to make a “good faith” effort to hire a native worker.
The NCGA must also verify that it will pay the immigrant worker the same wage as a native worker. The NCGA ensures that it is not hiring immigrants to undercut natives in the labor market. In 2011, The NCGA issued 60,000 H-2A visas nationwide, yet found only seven native workers who would work on a farm. However, in 2021 more than 250,000 H-2A visas were issued, yet many native workers remained “allergic to farmwork” (p. 93).
Recently arrived immigrants are more likely to work in occupations demanding manual skills than native workers. In the US, immigrants represent 18% of the labor force and fill about 25% of the jobs in laundry services, 29% in food production, 32% in hospitality, 33% in agriculture, 36% in the manufacturing of clothes, and 45% of jobs in household services.
About 50% of adults in 2019 feel that immigration has no reflect on crimes in the US, and 7% feel that immigrants help reduce crimes. On the other hand, 42% of US citizens connect immigration with crime (p.162). Most people do not know this, but the Gallup poll does not track opinions concerning undocumented immigrants. The Pew Research Center does ask respondents and 26 % of the population argue that “undocumented immigrants are more likely than native citizens to be criminals, That perception is more common among Republicans (42%) than Democrats (12%).
To my surprise, Texas is the only state in the US to match its crime records to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), concerning the immigration status of individuals. The Texas study undertaken between 2012-2018 notes that relative to undocumented immigrants, US-born citizens are more than two times more likely to be arrested for violent crime, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes and over four times more likely to be rested for property crimes.
Between 1870 and 2020, immigrants have never had a higher rate of imprisonment than natives in the US. Why so? If one lives in the US, immigrants do not want to be kicked out of the US, because they came to America to have a better life than in their native country.
People in many countries desire to come and live in the US. Annually, 2,500 students, visiting scholars and employees come to Auburn University from over 100 countries around the world. This makes Auburn and Opelika cosmopolitan cities. Zeke Hernandez has certainly done his homework in writing this book. Zeke has summarized 449 books and articles. In doing so, he has done the world a service.
by Rich Penaskovic
