The size and characteristics of immigration to the United States have been historically contentious issues. Nevertheless, there is probably a greater partisan division on this subject than ever before. While there are several pro-immigration stakeholders, one of the most vocal has been the higher education lobby, both on and off-campus.
Immigration policy is complex, yet the higher education establishment has often promoted one side of the debate. This near uniformity of opinion on immigration policy among professors and higher education bureaucrats trickles down to students ensuring that debate on the topic is almost nonexistent on campus.
The National Association of Scholars’ report Rebalancing the Narrative: Higher Education, Border Security, and Immigration, discusses some of the various dimensions of immigration policy and suggests topics for debate. Professor George R. La Noue, the report’s author, intends for this report to give students and professors the tools to have informed discussions about immigration policy on campus separate from the pro-immigration line preached by their institutions.
What consequences does this one-sided understanding of the debate have on research produced by our institutions of higher learning? Moreover, what effect does this campus orthodoxy have on the policy debate among our nation’s citizens? How do we rebalance the narrative so that our colleges and universities take seriously the threat posed by our nation’s advisories abroad?
