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In 1986, the United States government amended the Immigration and Nationality Act in an effort to reduce the flow of illegal immigration through border enforcement and sanctions against employers hiring illegally-entered workers. The new law granted legal status to 2.6 million illegal immigrants already here. Then when America's businesses needed more high-tech immigrants, the law changed again in the Immigration Act of 1990, which increased the levels of immigration for highly skilled professionals. However, special admission categories for refugees allow political refugees to legally slip around quotas and gain admission.

Immigration in the latter half of the twentieth century does not equal immigration of the turn of the century, when foreign-born population composed 15 percent of the population. By comparison, immigrants in the late 1990s constitute ten percent of the total population. Still, the Christian Science...