We have unapologetic cringey Boomer love for the idea of America as a creed, not a clan; as a set of ideals and principles open to anyone. Immigrants have been an essential part of this country's cultural dynamism and economic dominance, and closing up our borders seems like it would compromise the magic of America. On the other hand, there's ample evidence that there are real costs of excessive immigration, and those costs are not evenly distributed. Fortune 500 titans get to load up on H-1B engineers and cheap entry-level laborers, while low-skilled American citizens suffer shrinking wages and fewer footholds into the labor market. We just talk about all this with Roy Beck, founder of NumbersUSA and one of the country’s leading advocates for tight immigration restrictions. He has an interesting new book documenting a forgotten fact about the immigration debate: many prominent civil rights leaders opposed immigration, specifically because they feared the flux of low-wage workers would rob black Americans of economic opportunity.