Immigration Reform
Does anyone have an opinion on Immigration reform?
This is one of those issues that I kind of waffle on depending on the argument I'm hearing.
I do firmly believe that immigrants are needed in this country to do the jobs that Americans don't want to do like working in Chicken Houses and on Hawg farms.
posted by squashpaw @ 7:37 AM
2 Comments:
I am like you SP in that I can see both sides of the argument and am sypathetic with the one I am hearing (this must be the gemini in us). However there is one aspect to this situation that makes me angry. When I worked at the Governor's Office I got so many calls from people pissed off about the fact that Mexicans are not learning english. OK, first of all I am so sypathetic about this b/c learning languages comes very hard for me (this explains why sign language was my foreign language in college) and english is very hard to learn. As the years pass the generations will speak english and we are currently in a transitional period. I wanted to yell at these callers, "Can you imagine going to a new country to provide for your family and the residents of that country want you to assimulate the second you get here!" I admire the Mexicans and what they are creating. It is also neat that Mexicans are going in to run down areas of town and building them back in to something.
I kinda thought everything was just fine. When did it all become an issue? I mean, it seems there's always been a path towards citizenship. I thought at least. I mean, I know two Mexicans who came across the border illegally and who became citizens. Not to mention all the illegal immigrants who end up with green cards.
How much have the Mexicans caused wages to stay low? If we didn't have the mexicans then the menial jobs would pay more. But, then we enjoy the fact that menial jobs are cheap... I'm fine with the mexicans. I think they're a boon to our economy really. On the whole I wish wages would have risen since 1970, for Mexicans and honkies and Black Folk alike. In constant dollars it's now taking two people to earn what one person used to earn. I can't blame that on the Mexicans. They just allow us to get a little more for our money, just like the Chinese and Nicaraguans.
Anyway, It seems like status quo is what congress is going to legislate, only with a few more directives. But they have to legislate something... at least the republicans have too.
Either Bush has a lot of courage to bring on an issue that has laid dormant for obvious reasons, or he was stupid to awaken such an issue unknowingly. When it comes to stupid and courage, I think I tend to assume Bush is stupid.
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