Au contraire. The 1965 immigration act resulted in the importation of Third World poverty. For every Jindal and Yang there were millions more who lacked any skills or education. 53% of immigrant headed households are on welfare. We have a kinship system of immigration not a merit based system.
The 1965 Immigration Act: Anatomy of a Disaster
The latest data show 22.1 million immigrants holding jobs in the U.S. with an estimated 8 million being illegal aliens. By increasing the supply of labor between 1980 and 2000, immigration reduced the average annual earnings of native-born men by an estimated $1,700 or roughly 4 percent. Among natives without a high school education, who roughly correspond to the poorest tenth of the workforce, the estimated impact was even larger, reducing their wages by 7.4 percent. The reduction in earnings occurs regardless of whether the immigrants are legal or illegal, permanent or temporary. It is the presence of additional workers that reduces wages, not their legal status.
34 percent of immigrants lack health insurance, compared to 13 percent of natives. Immigrants and their U.S.-born children account for 71 percent of the increase in the uninsured since 1989. Our Emergency Rooms have been turned into free health care clinics for immigrants, legal and illegal, affecting the quality and timeliness of services and increasing medical costs subsidized by the insured and the taxpayers.
The poverty rate for immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) is 17 percent, nearly 50 percent higher than the rate for natives and their children. Massive low-skill immigration works to counteract government anti-poverty efforts. While government works to reduce the number of poor persons, low-skill immigration pushes the poverty numbers up. In addition, low-skill immigration siphons off government anti-poverty funding and makes government efforts to shrink poverty less effective. Milton Friedman said, “You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state
The illegal immigrant problem is a law and order problem that neither the Republicans nor the Democrats nor their big business sponsors have been willing to address. Nobody really wants to close the Mexico border.
It is not only a border problem. 40% of the illegal alien population came here legally and overstayed their visas. Securing the border is only part of the solution. We must also cut off the job magnet thru such programs as E-verify and enlisting state and local enforcement in enforcing our immigration laws thru the 287g and Secure Communities programs. We also need to stop federal and state funding to sanctuary cities that openly defy our laws.