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You know why, it's because you are living in Pittsburgh, probably the largest metropolitan area that has seen the least of any type of invasion. Why is it always teh "conservative" individuals who live in the midwest or parts of the interior northeast (adding liberals of other regions, of course) who always talk about the values of immigration, and how it is working today. Why is it the people least effected by it who think that nothing has changed?

You can't tell a true conservative in California, the southwest, even increasing amounts of the south, west and the DC-Boston Corridor that things are the same. They simply are not.

"Why is it always teh (sic) "conservative" individuals who live in the midwest or parts of the interior northeast (adding liberals of other regions, of course) who always talk about the values of immigration, and how it is working today."

I disagree with your premise. Free traders from all over the country should recognize the value of legal immigration. I used to live back east, in a city that had one of the highest per capita Hispanic populations in the country. I was amazed that when I moved to Pittsburgh 12 years ago that when they talked about "immigrants" they were talking about Russian or Ethiopian Jews. Better chance of hearing Polish/Italian/Russian or Slovak on the streets of Pittsburgh than you do Spanish. So I know about both extremes. But I digress.

Most people that are opposed to free trade are the labor union types that are worried about their low-skill jobs going to another country. Well, guess what: if the cost of labor in this country were cheaper, all other things being equal, those jobs would stay here. But in the same breath the unions will say they need higher wages. Well - talk about having my cake and eating yours too!

I am opposed to illegal immigration, but for giving amnesty to people that have been in the country for more than 10 years. I mean, if they have been here for that long, might as well get them paying taxes! And face it, most immigrants work jobs that most citizens would not want to do. Do you want to pick strawberries and make 5 bucks an hour for backbreaking labor? I doubt it. Yes, I don't want them coming to this country illegally and taking advantage of social services and such.

I've lived in Tucson since 1975. Things are the same. There's no more brown people here than when I started, there's no more Mexicans in local offices than when I started. it's much-ado about nothing. Maybe CA is going to the dogs, but given the governors the place has had since Reagan that should come as no surprise and has little if anything to do with the immigrant population.