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Steve,

Below is an excerpt from a message I recently wrote to a liberal friend, in partial response to a message she wrote, defending Bush’s illegal immigrants amnesty proposal:

Her excerpt: >>> This country has been dependent on cheap immigrant, slave, child, and/or illegal labor since the first Europeans set foot here. <<<

I agree with you regarding ‘cheap immigrant’ labor, but not regarding ‘illegal’ labor. First of all, immigration laws were nowhere to be found when this country enjoyed its biggest growth spurt. Secondly, during more modern times, the employment of illegal immigrants has had a largely negative effect.

The large supply of low-wage illegals has encouraged American farmers (where many of them work) to lag behind those in other countries. Just one of countless examples: In California, raisin production requires that the raisins be picked by hand, and turned in the drying tray by hand – whereas, in other countries, more modern ‘on the vine’ drying is far less costly and time consuming. In this (and many other similar ways) illegal immigration has artificially depressed wages and artificially increased the profits of the firms that employ them.

New research indicates that a ten percent increase in the number of low-paid workers reduces a worker’s wages by approximately four percent. Over the past two decades, immigration (a good deal of it illegal) has increased the number of workers without a high school diploma by sixteen percent, resulting in a six percent decline in the wage of low-skilled workers. Millions more ‘legal’ Americans looking for low-scale work are affected by this competition from illegals.

The strain on the healthcare/education system is enormous. Past immigrants had to make it on their own – and most did. Not so today. The welfare state/entitlement ‘safety nets’ now in place in this country (that were not here in our heyday) do not ignore illegals. They get sick. They have children. They require financial assistance. Research indicates that illegal immigrants create a net social/fiscal burden on the taxpayers of California alone of more than three billion dollars a year.

I live just a stone’s throw from Reading, PA. Reading has enjoyed the distinction of being designated the ‘per capita murder capital of the country’ (i.e., for its size, more people are murdered there than in any other city in America – Washington DC, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, don’t even measure up, on a per capita basis).

The Reading area also has a proportionately large illegal population, many of whom work in area mushroom plants. It is almost impossible to pick up a weekly Reading newspaper and not read about murders, rapes, robberies, etc., certainly not all -- but a disproportionate number of which -- are committed by illegals. There are periodic ‘roundups’, and then the status quo continues ....

Also, in the bygone eras to which you refer, immigrants wanted to assimilate. They learned our native language (many times on their own). Not so today.

Poll after poll also exhibits that legal immigrants don’t want illegals here, and don’t want amnesty for them. What message are we sending to those who abided by our immigration laws, when we allow those who don’t to enjoy the same benefits, without punishment?

The huge influx of illegals has also affected the makeup of Congress. Ilegals are counted in the census, but they are not franchised. So those ten million (or however many are represented in the census) affect the distribution, and number, of congressional seats – changing the fabric of congressional representation, even though they are not citizens, and do not vote.

Her excerpt: >>> Consider that most of the west originally belonged to Mexico (well, even that was conquered by military force, just earlier.) The U.S. just came out west and TOOK all that land, displacing Spanish-speaking people and taking the best for themselves. "Manifest Destiny" and all that, better known as a land-grab. If many of those people, a lot of them with some Native American blood (their ancestors were here for thousands of years before we were), still wander up and down between Mexico and the U.S. and still speak Spanish, I say, why are we getting our noses in a snit about it? This is their historic way of life. <<<

More than two centuries ago, when we embraced the Manifest Destiny philosophy to which you refer, we were not the same country we are today, on so many levels. Sadly, colonialism, without respect to prior ‘ownership,’ was common. Western Europe (indeed, all of the world which was capable of colonizing beyond their borders) behaved just as America did. Not rightly, but of the same mind. ‘Social Darwinism’ (the survival – and expansion -- of the fittest, and most powerful) was the norm.

We cannot use today’s standards to judge what was acceptable then. If we could, that would be akin to judging today’s Christianity by Christianity’s behavior during the Middle Ages, when the selling of indulgences was a common practice. Norms changes (thank God).

While we do most definitely owe a debt of gratitude (vast understatement) to ‘immigrants’ in general – which all of us were at one point or another – the illegals of today do not fall into the same vast category – because of their illegality, and because of their effect on our society as a whole (whose blame can be laid ultimately at the feet of our modern legal/judicial system …. or, more precisely, the lack of a coherent one).
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Lots more I could add, but no time at the moment (drat!). Thanks for the opportunity to vent. :)

~ joanie