"A policy of open immigration will advance the economic well-being of all Americans. All major recent studies of immigrants indicate that they have a high labor force participation, are entrepreneurial, and tend to have specialized skills that allow them to enter under-served markets."
I cannot believe that you would say that considering what the illegal alien population of this country is costing the American taxpayer. Just in education and medical expenses alone we are in the red because of these illegals - not to mention incarceration and the damage done to the people who are the victims of the criminals.
ENFORCE THE LAWS and close the borders. Then, just maybe, things might turn around. I want every illegal in this country - no matter WHERE they came from - gone!
Who made these studies? Who were the subjects of the studies the folks who followed the rules or the illegal border crossers? If the former they are correct if the latter were the subject the test is full of BS ! And before you go thinking that I am a racist be advised I know both legal immigrants & illegal border crossers & I live in a city with a Republic of Mexico embassy that cranks out Marticula phoney baloney I.D's all day.
http://www.cis.org/topics/costs.html The cost of illegals. They are not playing anything. This country was founded by civilian militia.
Yet, from such, we are to expect the greatest number of emigrants. They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty. These principles, with their language, they will transmit to their children. In proportion to their numbers, they will share with us the legislation. They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass. I may appeal to experience, during the present contest, for a verification of these conjectures.
Jefferson was perhaps above all other things a man who believed in the rule of law and rule by the people. The present lawlessness and disregard for popular will likely would not have pleased him.
In any case, things have changed a lot in the 200 years since Jefferson completed the Louisiana Purchase. We no longer have tens of millions of acres of unpopulated frontier.
>>A policy of open immigration will advance the economic well-being of all Americans. All major recent studies of immigrants indicate that they have a high labor force participation, are entrepreneurial, and tend to have specialized skills that allow them to enter under-served markets.<<
Would you mind expanding on this? Be sure to include more on "specialized skills".
100 million Chinese would board ships and come over tomorrow. Should we extend your policy of open immigration to them?
Another 100 million would come next year and for years to come, from all over the 3rd world.
Please explain to me how this would "advance the economic well-being of all Americans."
Or are you just for extending this open border policy to Mexicans, and you are predjudiced against the rest of the 3rd world, who would come to America if they could?
Which is it?
You really don't have a dang clue what's going on. Does it really make you feel good about your self to parrot such libertarian nostrums?
Thomas Jefferson also emphasized that the American people have the right to change the U.S. Constitution whenever they see it necessary. This is perhaps the most important clause in the document. "Open immigration" was perhaps permissable throughout the 19th and early 20th century, but it is obviously getting out of control as the United States is not big enough for everyone in the world to come live if they want. You said the Minutemen were just "playing grown-up cowboys and Indians." I think you would join too if you lived in a border state (or anywhere for that matter) and your house was broken into or worse, someone in your family hurt, and the culprits just came across the border with no regard for American laws or Americans themselves, looking to take advantage of us anyway possible.
Most of us know a little bit about Ellis Island and how health and character criteria were applied to our immigrant families. I know that they were applied to the immigrants that I sponsored twenty years ago
Not so with ILLEGAL immigrants. Are you not aware of such things as TB, gangs like MS-13, drug smuggling?
At least respect our views enough to acknowledge that we make a difference between ILLEGAL immigration and the traditional immigration that made us a proud nation of immigrants.
RE: Most studies show that immigrants actually lead to an increase in the number of jobs available.
I'd be interested to see recent studies. I can cite a Northeastern University labor study from last year that shows just the opposite. The Pew Hispanic Center also released a study last year that showed just the opposite.
http://www.nupr.neu.edu/7-04/immigration_july04.shtml
"The number of new immigrants who joined the labor force between 2000 and the first four months of 2004 was between 2.260 and 2.35 million representing 60 to 62 percent of labor force growth.
"Between 2000 and April 2004, the total number of new foreign-born workers who were employed was 2.1 million. During that same period, employment of native-born workers and established foreign immigrants declined by 1.3 million, due to higher unemployment and reduced labor force participation."
[End excerpt]
RE: It appears to me the boys in the Minuteman Project are simply playing grown-up cowboys and Indians.
Playing? Oh well, you did not call them racists and bigots. Opus seems to have removed most of the taunters who use that kind of stupid liberal tricks.
If you cannot distinguish between "immigrants" and an uncontrolled influx of illegal aliens bringing in who knows what (diseases, drugs, nukes, etc.) then don't be quoting Jefferson. Jefferson recognized the role of government in managing the borders and security of the nation.
Nobel sounding quotes about "immigrants" do not apply in any way to the massive, uncontrolled, lawless, influx of illegal aliens.
There is a difference between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants. Most studies show illegal immigrants are a net drain on the economy and the Nation overall.
A policy of open immigration will advance the economic well-being of all Americans.
I'm willing to learn, show me in history where open immigration has worked.
Slaves brought to America were cheap labor and we still are working through that mess. Aren't the Palestinians "workers" in Israel?
I know I've read in history about disastrous consequences to more than one nation who brought in cheap labor.
You haven't been to California lately.