Conservatives rightly point out that America is a nation of laws. No one should be exempt. That's why many oppose amnesty and other paths to citizenship for illegal immigrants who are here now. Posted on 09/17/2014 5:21:14 AM PDT by Kaslin
Conservatives rightly point out that America is a nation of laws. No one should be exempt. That's why many oppose amnesty and other paths to citizenship for illegal immigrants who are here now.
"If they want to be in America," the argument goes, "they ought to return to their own countries and apply for a visa legally. America should not reward law breaking."
That sounds sensible -- but what happens when the immigrant does that, goes to the U.S. embassy and says, I'd like to work in America legally?
He gets paperwork to fill out and is told to go home to wait. And wait. A Forbes investigation found that a computer programmer from India must wait, on average, 35 years. A high school graduate from Mexico must wait an average 130 years!
We tell eager workers, "Do it legally; just wait 130 years"? This makes no sense. We should make legal immigration easier, relax the rules, issue work permits. Conservatives usually understand that complex regulations make life hard for people. Immigration bureaucracy makes life harder not just for the immigrants but for the rest of us.
America needs immigrants. Immigrants co-founded most of Silicon Valley's start-ups. The Patent Office says immigrants invent things at twice the rate of native-born Americans.
Immigrants are special people, people with the ambition and guts to leave their home to pursue an American dream. We ought to let more of them in. And not just PhD's. Half of America's agricultural workers are here illegally, according to the Department of Agriculture. But without them, the government says food would cost much more. Milk would cost 61 percent more.
Some people say, well, maybe immigrants in the past were a boon to America, but now there are just too many. They make up 12 percent of the population! True. But in 1915, it was 15 percent.
Others complain that immigrants once worked hard and tried to assimilate, but today's immigrants are different: less educated, more likely to collect welfare, less likely to adopt the American work ethic.
Maybe. But I doubt it. Every new immigrant group has been derided as backward, unclean or criminal.
Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge (R, Mass.) called Slovaks "illiterate and ignorant in the extreme." He called Italians "the lowest type as to character and intelligence." Irish immigrants had such a bad reputation that in job advertisements businesses posted job notices: "No Irish need apply."
Fears about newcomers weren't totally unfounded. It took them time to assimilate and accumulate wealth. But they did. The Irish, Italians and other once-vilified groups are now leaders in America.
People say that immigrants steal "our" jobs. And yes, they do take some. But they create new jobs, too, lots. When people move to another country and encounter a different culture, they see things in new ways. Some pick the best from each culture and create useful things.
Imagine your life without Google searches, cheap Ikea furniture, YouTube, bicycles, blenders, ATM's. All came from immigrants. New Americans also gave us blow dryers, basketball, football, the first shopping mall, comfortable jeans, even the American hot dog (that came from Germany's frankfurter).
Immigration enriches our language. Jewish immigrants gave us the word "glitch." "Gee whiz" came from the Irish. The song "God Bless America" was written by an immigrant -- the prolific Irving Berlin, born in Russia.
The TV network on which my weekly show is broadcast exists only because an immigrant from Australia saw the need for Fox News. And I'm only here because my parents left Germany in 1930, a year when immigration rules were still pretty lax (if you weren't Chinese, since there were racist quotas).
Today, we'd solve many problems if work permits were available and legal immigration easier. If people can come here legally, fewer sneak in. It will be easier to secure the border because police can focus on actual criminals and terrorists. As Lao-tzu said, "the greater the number of laws and enactments, the more thieves and robbers there will be."
America should say yes to immigration.
Today, we’d solve many problems if work permits were available and legal immigration easier…. . . for terrorists?
what a load of crap about the wait list.
I had to go back to England a couple of times to get my visa extended , and then a green card.
If illegals want to come here, and stay then the Govt should tell them that anyone here illegally will be arrested and sent back, and yes you can never come here again.
On the other hand if they go back and do this the proper way they have a chance of coming here and being here with family.
That is how you solve the immigration process and illegal problem
Yes, and in 1965 it was 4%. In 1915 there was no welfare state, no chain migration, no diversity visas, no multicultural movement.
We had an immigration time out from the early 1900s until 1965. Thats American too.
We need another time out, badly.
Amen.
when you have mass immigration then you don’t get assimilation , instead we get enclaves , and then demands.
i favor reciprocity - as you treat us, so shall we treat you
Why don't we meet in the middle? Let's start by giving a green card to every highly productive worker a green card in return for deporting every gang member and criminal. When that is done, then let's do the same for the net taxpayers (call them the marginally productive workers) in return for the deportation of every one on public assistance. Continue working like that until you've issued green cards to all of those who are a net benefit to America while deporting all of those who are not.
You know what I hear whenever I make said suggestions? If it isn't name calling (racist! xenophobe!), then it is crickets.
For the most part, it isn't our side who is insisting on an "all or none" comprehensive approach. It is theirs.
Especially concerning Mexicans
Well, I don’t really see much difference between unlimited legal immigration and essentially unlimited illegal immigration. None of these pro-immigration folks seem to consider the cultural impact of allowing so many people from other cultures into the country. It’s not like we’re importing millions who believe in the original American ideals of liberty, independence, and morality.
Just because some of the arguments against past immigration were proven wrong, it doesn’t mean those same arguments are still wrong considering the changes in the world over the last 100 years or so. That’s faulty logic on the face of it. Things change, and America is NOT what it once was. Does anyone seriously believe the Democrats would be bending over backwards to let these folks in if the new imports believed in small government?
What’s really funny is that John Stossel seems to truly oppose big government, but on this issue, he’s actually advocating for even bigger government. The socialist clock in America isn’t going to be turned back by the importation of millions of socialists from Mexico and other points south.
SO many have their heads buried in the sand. If John would follow 100 illegals here in Texas for a month, he’d see that their first contact is with folks like LaRaza and anti-American interests who tell them not to worry. They direct them to cash jobs, living like they did in poor countries or countries who suppressed them...two or three families to a house. They tell them to have free babies who become American citizens and then the benefits come rolling in. Hey John, why don’t you go to grocery stores and do a series of articles on food stamp, WIC, etc. programs and see how much is charged on those, living the American dream, credit cards? Go to Goodwill and such charities and work undercover and see the vehicles they drive and the cash they have in their wallets!!! We are talking ROLLS of %50’s and $100’s!! No wonder they are robbed and killed by their own!! No Bankos to trace their illegal cash jobs!!! Face it, John and so many more, you are turning your eyes against laws and God and that only leads to fire and Satan’s grip on your life and those who you say you love-—your family!!
I heard Ted Cruz in person. His wisdom and to abide by the laws of this country would shake things up and wake us up to our wrong doings and PC national character which has made us weak across the world.
What we are experiencing now is NOT immigration. It’s an invasion to fundamentally transform America. Immigration my ass.
Stossel continues on his path to libertarian kookiness and irrelevance. Less and less worth the time.
every word I agree with you.
It pisses me off to no end when I see people using their food stamps, sorry credit welfare cards m and then going to their new vehicle.
Then as you said they come here, get info on where to work for cash, then get info on how to get welfare, free education for kids, free dental, etc etc , and then go to stores with their cash in bundles.
people like Stossel only want smaller, or no Govt when it suits what they want to do and have.
it’s why I have no time for him and the likes of him, hell I don’t even think they should use our primaries to advance their liberal social agenda
“Do it legally; just wait 130 years”?
Now Grace you sure about that?.
Like Robin Thicke’s song “Blurred Lines”
The media and Latino advocates want to keep the lines blurred with dis-information and “smoke-n-mirrors” magic.
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