Book - The Immigrant Superpower Tim Kane

The Immigrant Superpower 

I recently read an interesting book titled 

The Immigrant Superpower: How Brains, Brawn, and Bravery Make America Stronger written by Tim Kane . The author is an   his Ph D from Stanford University in Immigration Studies. 

He has tried to answer the question , ‘Why come to America ‘ ? 

His answer is simple - Global talent tends to flow to where great opportunities exist , and this often occurs side by side with increased involvement of talented natives. 

America haa always been the Land of Opportunity. He argued  why immigrants not only beneficial for the U.S., but necessary, despite a stigma surrounding immigrants in America. 

As an economist, Kane is careful with his words and approaches the topic from an analytical sense rather than a truly polemical one. This allows readers  to form their own opinions about immigrants with a better idea of the footprint these foreigners leave in the American economy. 

The foreign-born also volunteer for military combat and win Medals of Honor proportionally more often than the native-born, says Kane. And in science and business newcomers achieve outsize results: Foreigners account for 40% to 50% of U.S. PhD students in STEM fields and, visas permitting, often stay. Immigrants create 30% of new U.S. companies and are disproportionally represented among U.S. patent holders and Nobel Prize winners. Sergey Brin and Esther Duflo are exemplars, not outliers.

Kane clearly make a strong case for  immigration in America and he presents it in an unbiased manner, sharing statistics about immigrants that help the reader understand why he holds the opinion he does. The primary argument of The Immigrant Superpower is that immigrants work hard for the benefit of America, often more than native-born citizens.

Through his book, Kane outlines three strengths delivered by immigrants to America: brawn, bravery, and brains. Immigrants often fill undesirable jobs, such as construction or garbage collection, and they are willing to work harder for their success than many native-born citizens. Even in desirable fields such as technology, Kane argues that immigrants are not stealing jobs from native-born citizens, despite the fact that many people claim this is happening. They instead create their own jobs, which benefits the American economy as a whole. And when immigrants do take existing jobs, they tend to take them from other immigrants, but not native-born citizens. Furthermore, immigrants serve their adopted country by filling a large share of the military. Kane promotes the pathway to citizenship available for immigrants who are able and willing to serve in the military and argues this program is crucial to national security due to the high performance foreigners it attracts. Finally, immigrants often bring ideas and talent to the U.S. to use the resources commonly available such as research grants, computer access, and internet. It is no secret that America offers opportunity and resources to those willing to work hard. Immigrants often come to the U.S. to take advantage of this and ultimately generate a net benefit for the country as a whole. Brawn, bravery, and brains make immigrants beneficial to the U.S. and, as Kane argues, are what make America an international superpower.

Kane writes about the oath immigrants take to the United States when they become citizens. Very few Americans sign their loyalty to this country. Furthermore, Americans rarely understand the meaning of the pledge, or care about the words enough to stand by them with their honor on the line. However, immigrants are required to take the oath of allegiance to the United States of America. They protect adopted   country, sometimes with their lives, and should be viewed as loyal to their adopted nation. Kane acknowledges and criticizes the impression of immigrants as terrorists since 9/11 and how misconstrued it is as an argument. This fear of immigrants, Kane claims, restricts progress, and only damages the country. The fact is that immigrants today bring a net positive to the U.S. and do not endanger national security.

I found the weakest aspect of this book to be Kane’s political interjections and direct criticisms of political figures. Kane is passionate in his opinions on immigrants and immigration and is quite critical of immigration policies set by U.S. political leaders. For example, Kane discusses President Trump’s inappropriate nicknames for the COVID-19 virus. Kane criticizes President Trump and argues comments like these only lead to ungrounded mistrust of Asian immigrants.

Kane is a registered Republican but criticized Trump’s policies. This adds to Kane’s credibility as an author on the topic since he is clearly presenting an argument he believes in and is willing to present the raw facts of the topic. His background in immigration research shines through his words and creates a book enjoyable to read. This approach to analysis of the topic helps strengthen Kane’s argument and fits well into the structure of the book. This approach creates a fluid argument that is easy to understand and builds trust in the credibility of the author.

So what is the take away from  Indian perspective ? 

Create level playing field and be a magnate to pull talent from world over, immigrants are capable to create job opportunities for themselves, will never grab local share in  jobs.