The news has been filled with stories on immigration, legal and illegal, this past week. There have been rallies, rants, and a political divide that is not partisan. The issue is that there are over 10 million "illegal immigrants" in the USA, most of them from Mexico.
There are two points of view on this issues with various shades in between. One view is that the influx of immigrants is harmful to this country; they use up our resources, do not contribute, and pose a risk to our culture. The other view is that many immigrants are very hard working, contribute more than their fair share, and help our economy.
Prohibiting immigrants from coming to a country where they will definitely obtain a job is bad public policy. Any Mexican who comes over here has many opportunities ranging from harvesting fruits and vegetables in California, raising Christmas Trees in North Carolina, and doing other tasks "that not even blacks want to do there in the United States," to quote Mexican President Vincente Fox. Many of these jobs are backbreaking jobs that pay only slightly above the minimum wage. Some have argued that we should have prisoners performing these jobs, but that is not efficient or practical (could you imagine how many extra guards would need to be paid to supervise this).
I have no problems with immigration. My family immigrated to this country, some of them over 300 years ago, some 50 years ago. Everyone reading this blog has ancestors who were immigrants. Should we deny this opportunity to people now? Some say, "well they don't speak English." Well, do you speak Cherokee?
On a larger note, thanks to the Federal Government, we have two major programs, Social Security and Medicare, that have unfunded liabilities of around $10,000,000,000,000 and $40,000,000,000,000, respectively. The US population is aging, with the baby boomers about to screw us over, unless we do that to them first. One benefit of immigrants is that they tend to reproduce in large numbers, potentially helping the worker:retiree ratio become something more manageable.
To those of you who say many illegals bring crime with them, I have a response: Detroit. A city of many criminals, almost all of them native-born US citizens.
Immigration. Good for them, good for us, good for the country.
