Immmigration & cost.

[bullet44]

FAQs about Immigration and US
Population Growth





Growth advocates say that people are needed to keep the economy moving, but what is the main cause of...

Traffic congestion
Overcrowded schools
Energy shortages
Air pollution
Loss of open space
Overburdened infrastructure
Wage depression
Deteriorating quality of life?


... the main cause is RAPID POPULATION GROWTH!



• What are the components of U.S. population growth? Natural increases (birth minus deaths) and immigration are the two contributing factors to U.S. population growth.


• Why should we reduce immigration? According to the Census Bureau figures, more than two-thirds of current and future population growth is the result of immigration. Dr. Steven Camarota, Director of Reseach for the Center for Immigration
Studies, wrote in a January 2001 paper: “Immigration has become the determinate factor in population growth. The 11.2 million immigrants
who indicated they arrived between 1990 and 2000 plus the 6.4 million children born to immigrants in the United States during the 1990s are equal to almost 70 percent of U.S. population growth over the last 10 years.”

Reducing immigration therefore is necessary to curb population growth.



How fast has the immigrant population grown?
The immigrant population in the United States has nearly tripled since 1970, due to legislation passed since 1965 to increase immigration.


What is the impact of population growth on our environment? The California Department of Water Resources has forecast serious water shortages 10 years from now, due to population growth, most of
which comes from immigration. Continued population growth directly threatens biodiversity and causes species extinction, loss of farmland
and open space, and general degradation of environmental quality.


Will building more roads or schools, or improved mass transportation solve many of our problems?
No. There are no long-term growth management plans that can cope with unlimited population growth.


What is the impact of rapid population growth on our public schools? In 1996, the U.S. Department of Education estimated that 2.6 million new students will be added to America's public schools (K-12) for this coming decade. A study by the California Department of Education of the state's public schools revealed that one student in four could not speak English well enough to understand what was going on in the classroom. The school districts of Minneapolis/ St. Paul, Nashville and
North Carolina have student bodies in which respectively 80, 85 and 150 languages are spoken.


• Does immigration only affect the border states?
Large numbers of immigrants from many countries have settled in many Midwestern states. The Detroit Metropolitan area has one of the largest concentrations of Arabs outside the Middle East.


Why is it necessary to reduce immigration in order to achieve welfare and health care reform?
Based on the March 1998 Current Population Survey conducted by the Census Bureau, the poverty rate for immigrants is 50 percent higher than that for the native-born. In 1996, welfare and Medicaid provided to elderly non-citizen legal immigrants alone cost American taxpayers more than $10 billion dollars. The high poverty rate of immigrants will increase the number of residents without health care and needing welfare, making health care and welfare reform much more difficult and expensive to address.


How does high immigration contribute to our Social Security problems? Because of the poverty rate and the large numbers of unskilled and
semi-skilled immigrants entering the U.S. every year, a tremendous burden is placed on government budgets, greatly depleting the Social Security Trust Fund in the long run.


What is immigration's impact on American workers?
THhe National Academy of Science reported in 1997 that from 1980 to 1995, 44 percent of the decline in the real wages of high school dropouts resulted from immigration. The study conducted by UC Davis Professor Norman Matloff also concludes that large numbers of older immigrant and U.S-born computer scientists are displaced by newly arrived foreign-born computer programmers.


What groups are most hurt economically by high levels of immigration? Pro-immigrant Professor Paul Ong of UCLA has said, “In terms of the
adverse impact on wage and employment, the adverse impact will be most pronounced on minorities and established immigrants...”

[longeyes]

Keep the information coming. Some of us are listening. Thanks.

[KSFreeman]

Don't know what this has to do with firearms other than the ant-immigration support for gun control, but . . .

There once was a man named Thomas R. Malthus who theorzied that a population will grow faster than the means of subsistence and unless checked by war or disease that poverty and ruin will result--"Malthusian scissors."

He was wrong. Totally and completedly wrong. Today Malthus has been dusted off in silly gloom and doom scenarios to frighten environmentalists or racists or anyone else against immigration.

Why is reducing population growth a goal? You can have all the "problems" that Bullet lists, in a negative growth society, see e.g. CCCP or almost any nation in Africa. Growth and development are positives to society, not negatives.

The Malthusian scissors were smashed long ago by the rock of freedom. Freedom allowed technology to improve to harness the abilities and drive of immigrants to make a better life. Immigrants that come to America are harder working and more patriotic than native-born citizens. Do they start off poorer? Sure, witness the Jews or immigrants from the West Indies. Do they stay that way? No.

Before Socialist Security and a minimum wage, the Malthusians said the Chinese would overcome us and American culture would be lost. They were wrong. Chinese-Americans are among the best educated and most productive Americans.

The Malthusians said the Italian immigration would destroy us and our culture. They would never learn the language and their Papal ties would corrupt us all. They were wrong.

Now this silliness is turned toward the Mexicans. I note that even though public schools were conducted in German in Indiana until 1917, there is no hue and cry about German immigrants (or Swedes or Norwegians living in Minnesota, speaking their different language and clogging our public health system with their butter laced food). Wonder why that is? Eye color perchance?

No water? Loss of farmland? Doom and gloom at every turn? Rubbish. Freedom always provides an answer. Paul Ehrlich was proven a fool years ago. There can be no reason to rehash his disproven theories.

[C.R.Sam]

"Growth and development are positives to society, not negatives. "

To a socialist society, yes. Necessary yet.

[longeyes]

What's funny is that the same people who discredit Malthus for slavishly adhering to "linear trends" that fail to pan out are the people who are sure that technology and the free market and new immigrant blood will solve all of our problems. I mean, haven't they so far? And therefore shouldn't they always? The technology that created the Internet is the technology that can steal identities. The technology that will cure cancer is the technology that will cause deadly pandemics. Every dog has his day, and so does every great idea. That, unfortunately, may include the open society and representative, constitutional government given the way things are going.

By the way, KSF, when did Indiana become a border state?

[KSFreeman]

Using Mr Gore's invention to warn us of the dangers of technology? Anything that can move freely, can move stupidly. A firearm can be used for good or evil. Same rule applies to technology. One can fly a 757 to Thunder Ranch in the sweltering Third World of Kerrville, Tejas or one can fly into an office building. If one is truly frightened of technology then I guess one can live like the Amish up north of me. (Of course, they even use technology, but nothing in the home where it could help the women; move your computer out to the office in the barn).

Malthusians failed to understand the dynamic that freedom brings. Freedom is not linear, it is explosive. Is there viable alternative to freedom? Totalitarianism? A planned economy using only "true citizens" of the Reich may live there? Maybe the Turner Diaries economy of New California? Collective communities where the commissar can watch over everyone and make sure no immigrants sneak in? "Your papers please." No thanks.

Longeyes, the original post does not confine the bleating about those durn immigrants to border states. It mentions Arab-Americans in Detroit Rock City. Immigrants are drawn to my fair city by the manufacturing base--Lilly, Catepillar, Wabash National, etc. Indiana has had immigrant waves before. For example, the German immigrants that flooded my state with their funny clothing, difficult names and their arrogant attitude such as demanding public schooling in their language.

Mexican or German they are welcome and we will take one and all.

[longeyes]

You are not going to have more "freedom" by encouraging wholesale immigration into this country, only more government regulation and control.

[bullet44]

"Why is reducing population growth a goal? You can have all the "problems" that Bullet lists, in
a negative growth society, see e.g. CCCP or almost any nation in Africa. Growth and development are positives to society, not negatives."

Key words are "can have all the problems".

More people=more crime=more laws=less freedom=
poor quality of life....

We are a young country and the problems of open
borders are becoming very apparent perhaps we
need a "time out".

[Skorzeny]

The problem with bullet44's argument, in the first place, is that he equates coincidence with a causal relationship.

Secondly, his premise, to begin with, is wrong. Let's review, shall we?

"Traffic congestion"

Cities that have recently experienced traffic congestion such as Seattle, San Francisco and Atlanta were all boom towns. Meaning, sudden appearance of high number of well-paying, high-tech jobs brought more people to the cities than they could handle short-term (for example, Seattle's population doubled in the past 5 years). It has nothing or very little to do with immigration.

In other areas where net job gain is negative (like many Midwestern cities), population has declined and traffic has been reduced.

Both are cyclical and geographical issues, not immigration.

"Overcrowded schools"

Same story. No doubt some border areas experience increases in student population because of immigrants, but the overall trend is that some areas are gaining children of school age while others are losing them.

"Energy shortages"

This has more to do with flawed government regulation and policies (particularly California) regarding energy development, production and diversification and has NOTHING to do with immigration. If anything, the fact that the society has become high-tech (computers, automated equipment, etc.) has more to do with our society becoming energy intensive than anything else.

"Air pollution"

Some areas have gained. Others have not. Pittsburgh, which was known for its poor quality of air due to all those steel factories, now boast high air quality. Why? The economy changed from steel production to services (telecomm, bio-tech, etc.).

"Loss of open space"

This is a favorite tree-hugging environmental myth. Yes, some areas have lost "open space." However, others have gained. New England area, for example, has experienced HUGE increases in forested areas. Only that fact is rarely reported because it hurts the "cause." Ever been to middle 50 percent of the country? It's virtually empty. The US actually ranks fairly low in population density (not quite like Canada or Australia).

"Overburdened infrastructure"

Like traffic, it is more of a function of some areas gaining population quickly due to boom industries ("high-tech boom" or "internet boom") than anything else. Many de-populated areas of the Midwest actually have under-usage problem - meaning that tax base has shrunken so much that they cannot afford to pay for their infrastructure anymore. Some towns are losing schools because of lack of population in the Midwest and children are having to commute 1 hour or more to go to a "consolidated" county school.

"Wage depression," "Deteriorating quality of life?"

Ha, ha. My all measure, American quality of life and income have shot up like crazy in the past 50 years, almost continuously, in part BECAUSE of immigration.

Also, immigrants usually take jobs that natives either 1) don't have skills for (like IT, bio-tech, etc.) or 2) don't care to, because it's "dirty."

All this "immigrants take jobs from natives" type argument is propaganda from unions and similarly socialist-oriented ilk.

"'Growth and development are positives to society, not negatives.' To a socialist society, yes. Necessary yet."

Growth and development are positive to any society, period. Stasis and underdevelopment only benefit rulers of corrupt regimes that keep their population under guard.

Without growth and development, a society's population ages, becomes less productive, less creative. Stagnation ensues, followed by higher taxation of the ever decreasing young, working population (to support the ever increasing older, non-working population), resulting in a socialist stagnation like in the Scandinavian countries.

Freedom, by the way, is a way of life and a state of mind. It has very little to do with population size. Afterall, do Australia and Canada with their substantially lower population density than the US have less restrictive laws (like gun control laws)? Heck, no.

They do not have the Constitution like we do. They have liberal-minded "benevolent" governments. They also have less immigration than we do. It's not immigration. It's people (particularly native-born) who expect government hand-outs.

Immigrants generally have no sense of expectation from governments. They usually come with very little money, but work hard to become prosperous. They tend to be more entrepreneurial, precisely because they are the kind of people willing to foresake their traditional comfort spots (langauge, culture, family) and assume risks associated with immigration, in order to make better lives for themselves. It's a weeding process to some extent.

I will grant that some of the border areas do have the illegal hand-out seekers, but that can be fixed by getting rid of government handouts to anybody (citizen, legal and illegal) rather than restricting immigration.

Skorzeny

[longeyes]

Let's repeat the obvious, yet again: These "debates" are not about stopping all immigration, they are about limiting it and ensuring that it is legal. I doubt there are very many among us on this Board who do not recognize that America has benefited mightily from immigration in its history. That said, that was then and this is now and we need to look at today's and tomorrow's issues, not constantly play yesterday's anthems.

I don't know what state you live in but I will bet it's not California, which is where I live. If you lived in California you could not possibly make some of the assertions you do regarding energy, congestion, overcrowded schools, air pollution, overburdened infrastructure, and declining quality of life. On the one hand the immigrant influx is viewed as making a valuable contribution to all we have, yet somehow it doesn't also contribute to problems, it is somehow invisible, with no impact except a positive one. That is indeed strange. I guess all the problems we see around us must emanate from the non-immigrant part of our population then, is that your point?

Immigrants have no sense of expectation from governments? Where in the world have you gleaned this bit of information? Better check the roll of the dole--and check the police dockets while you're at it.

One refrain on this Board constantly voiced by the pro-open borders/unlimited immigration group is that all we need to do is cut off public aid both direct and indirect. That's been tried in California and overturned by liberal state Courts. Face hard facts: ain't gonna happen. You are not going to see the welfare state rolled back or eliminated because the main beneficiaries of it are a fat, complacent middle class of government aid purveyors--that includes the teaching establishment--that has a vested interest in not only maintaining but expanding the system. Add to that a powerful lobby that is determined to maximize Latino political power in California and doesn't care where the votes come from or how obtained. Meanwhile, it appears that in this state illegal aliens will not only benefit from reduced tuition in the university system formerly available only to legal residents but will qualify for driver's licenses (and hence voting privileges). One by one the distinctions between legal and illegal residency are vanishing. And you and other TFLers wonder why tax-paying "Kalifornians" are leaving this state? It is not all about gun laws, believe me. At some point the tax base of cities like Los Angeles will come crumbling down (and not from The Big One) and the accumulated problems will become all too obvious, but by then the city will be a basket case beyond saving.

[kjm]

OMG! I am in total agreement with Skorzeny!!! Since I was born in ALICE, TEXAS (look it up, it's right down there by Corpus) folks have been trying to convince us that the "Mexican Invasion" was going to destroy the country in five more years. Each 5 years passed, and nobody ever stops to think that they are actually doing pretty good when they are supposed to be starving because the immigrants ate all the food! I just don't see it.

Here's my only check I would place on Immigragration:

1. You must be free of communicable diseases such as TB, AIDS, etc.

2. You must be willing to reject all public (socialist) programs for 5 years.

3. You may bring the rest of your family when you can demonstrate a passable knowlege of English.

4. You may be granted Permanent Residency after 5 years with no CRIMINAL convictions, and after you have passed a basic American History class, and can speak passable English.

I would allow for unlimited immigration. We need immigration, and how is it folks in NY and NJ are more terrified of the immigrants than I am here on the border?

[longeyes]

Your criteria are wishful thinking, not political or social reality. You live not in TX but in the life of What If. I guess in your mind citizenship is about ambulation more than ambition.

[d`leasha]

Living in a border state as I do (although not noticeably near any border except that of Oklahoma, which is a whole nother story!) I’m aware that immigration is a hot topic, perhaps hotter in the border states than elsewhere, I don’t know. Many good points were made in the original post, but it’s mighty easy to lump a lot of problems into one basket and say “This is THE root cause, solving THIS problem will fix THOSE problems.” Things usually aren’t so black-and-white, so us-and-them. I have mixed feelings on the subject of immigration, but can’t resist playing devil’s advocate once in a while J

No references to particular groups of people in the following are intended as insults, or should be taken as such.

Traffic congestion? Lots of Mexicans (nationals and immigrants alike) in this area have bought trucks that most of us wouldn’t have, keep them running with shadetree mechanic skills most of us don’t even remember, pack them with several workers to do manual labor that most of us would have to be starving to do. I see a lot more Lexuses and Beamers and Nissans and Hondas driven by one person clogging our freeways (and I’m sorry to say I’m one of them).

Overcrowded schools? Follow the Asian and Oriental populations, there you will find high-quality education because, generally, they DEMAND it and/or FIND it.

Energy shortages? Could it possibly be that we face energy shortages in large part because our government and industry prefer to take the “easy” way out and spend our time and resources protecting “our” interests in places like the middle east, where oil just spews out of the ground almost at will, rather than focusing our much-vaunted creativity on alternate sources of energy which could at least reduce our dependence on such outside resources? In South Dakota they are putting together wind farms which, with the technology available today, can produce some $100K worth of power from about half an acre (if I remember correctly) of windmills.

Air pollution? Well, yes, the Mexican laborers I mentioned earlier may very well be driving vehicles that would not meet our emissions standards. Let’s send them back! You and I can hire housekeepers and gardeners who drive Nissans and Mustangs – let’s contribute to clean air, we can afford it! Light pollution is a problem too; there’s a big movement afoot in Arizona, for instance, to control light that blots out the stars. Suburban sprawl has a lot to do with that, and it’s not generally your poor or immigrant families lighting up the suburbs of Phoenix.

Loss of open space? Hmmm. Yes, I certainly agree, the immigrants are the problem; they are known to buy 3/2/2 houses where only one person lives rather than crowding extended families into the same space in an effort to maximize their own personal resources. Oops, sorry, that’s ME who lives alone in a 3/2/2 house; taking up space, that’s me. And I don’t grow a single vegetable in my yard, thereby placing more strain on the infrastructure by needing truckloads of produce for my dieting!

Overburdened infrastructure. Definitely due to immigration; has nothing whatsoever to do with short-sighted policies, poor fiscal management on local as well as national levels, corrupt politicians, etc. That same infrastructure in terms of roadways is, of course, MUCH more strained by fertile immigrants than by the bazillions of single-driver cars clogging the highways and trucks hauling DVD players and Gameboys to our put-upon leisure society.

Wage depression. Ummmmm. We’ve heard of supply and demand, right? Back in the dot.com boom there was, as I understand it, a shortage of geeks; we imported them, just like we do our oil. So now that we don’t need so many and are graduating more of our “own” we should blame the falling salaries on the immigrants? Hey, I like that plan! The fact that some yahoo got the word out that “paralegal is the coming career” and the paralegal schools started cranking out green baby-paralegals by the bushel is no reason why I should have to work harder to maintain my standing or knock myself out a bit more to prove I’m worth the salary I make. It’s not my fault – it’s “them”!

Deteriorating quality of life? A bit subjective, that, isn’t it? I’ve seen studies saying that we have less “free” time than our parents, and their parents, and their parents did, even with all our modern conveniences. Could that have more to do with our present focus on “success” or whatever than on spending time with loved ones? Speaking for myself, my biggest quality-of-life problems right now are controlling fire ants in a nontoxic manner and figuring out why two strings of lights on my Christmas tree are partially out!

Before you flame me and pick holes in the arguments I’ve made, rest assured that I know there are PLENTY of holes there. My point is that we can’t afford to lump all our problems in one big basket and say “THIS is the root cause of all our problems.” Yes, we do need to something about the way immigration is controlled (or not controlled). But by laying too many problems at the feet of immigrants who, after all, are here because they want to share in the bounty of our prosperous and free lifestyle, we run the risk of blinkering our vision against their contributions and against alternate solutions to problems created by improperly controlled immigration.

Australia has an extremely restrictive immigration policy; I’m sure we all know that they have many of the same types of problems we have.

[Oleg Volk]

Rule 1 of TFL debates: address the arguments of the other side, not their personality of perceived mental deficiencies.

[d`leasha]

Well, one lesson learned! in the time it took me to write my post (in between a nice long phone chat with mom and playing with my christmas tree) i see that at least one person (thank you Skorzeny) has made some of my points, and made them better than i did!

[Oleg Volk]

BTW, would anyone be in favor of restricting immigration from Iowa to Seattle or NYC? After all, the cheap Midwesterners are surely depressing the wages in the coastal cities...

[longeyes]

Your points are good ones. I repeat: immigration, per se, is not the issue, not with me anyway. And, yes, this is a complex issue with much to say on all sides. I'd be the last to argue that mainstream America and its political representatives have not brought on or exacerbated many of our problems with ill-chosen, ill-timed policies that appeal to the weaker aspects of our natures and our culture. I think we need to look at things squarely but not scapegoat any one particular group. I have not forgotten my own immigrant roots (grandparents, all four, by boat, turn of the last century, Southern Europe) or the opportunities they came for and which I have enjoyed. My concern is that America remain the crucible of opportunity for all energetic enough to advance our vision of mankind's potential for freedom and imagination. Thanks for your well-considered post.

[ahenry]

Longeyes,
I wonder if you think that due to your perception of the infeasibility of ending the “welfare state” we should enact laws that taken solely on their own merit are poor at best? So I can better explain what I mean let me give you and example, don’t respond to the specifics of the question, just the general concept. Should government massively increase the size and scope of the INS in order to patrol the borders of the US? Should we raise taxes, increase authority, and decrease freedom (all bad things) in order to achieve the worthwhile (according to you) goal of less immigration? I am not asking for your view on the specifics just your view on the generality of the question. In essence does the end goal justify the means of achieving it?

[ninenot]

Skorzeny and KSF are RIGHT

and I'll give you a good reason: Your Social Security payments. Without a large boatload or two of immigrants to pay the SS taxes in the next 25-30 years, it will fall only to our children--and the rates will be about 50% of income.

There should be rules (as posted above,) and I will toss in another advocated by PJBuchanan: only folks with a Judaeo-Christian heritage and outlook. Why? Don't look now, but that happens to be the basis of our entire society's legal and political framework.

[Marko Kloos]

Don't look now, but that happens to be the basis of our entire society's legal and political framework.

No, it's not. The concept of the Republic is of Greece origin, refined in Roman times. (This is where we get terms like "senator" and "legislature", "democracy" and "Republic"). Our code of law is based largely on Julianic concepts, as well as the Magna Carta. Biblical code of law does not know these concepts, being a mixture of Semitic tribal customs and inherited bits and pieces of the Code of Hammurabi.

Our society may have been founded by people who had differing religious affiliations, including Judaeo-Christian ones, but the code of law represented by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights has its roots in ancient Greece and Rome. The Bill of Rights is what makes this country special: it recognizes certain inalienable rights to all humans by virtue of their birth, which is a concept which was not recognized by any form of codified law before it.

[Arma Virumque Cano]

Good idea, too bad the net transfers for illegals are negative, not positive. And it's illegals who are in question here.

[Arma Virumque Cano]

Will you settle for Anglo-Greco-Christian? Certainly the emphasis on the intrinsic value of the individual owes much to Christian thought, and our basic documents and laws are couched in English.

[Don Gwinn]

Oleg is right, folks, and he's trying to do some of you a favor. Be polite to each other, please.

As for restricting immigration to Christians and Jews, doesn't that equate to the establishment of a state religion? After all, if you can't enter the country without coming from a "heritage" in that religion, it must be the official religion of that country.

I don't want to live in a country with an official religion, and thanks to the First Amendment to the Constitution, I don't have to worry about it much. Frankly, although I have lots of Christian friends and they all seem like perfectly nice people, some of them purely because of the fact that they found Christianity, I fail to see what is so wonderful about Christianity that only Christians are worthy to enter here. I wonder what, specifically, is so terrible about Buddhists, Atheists, agnostics, Rastafarians and Bokononists that they are unworthy even to enter the single most inclusive, welcoming, freedom-loving nation on Earth.

[kjm]

d`leasha
A highly successful way to rid your yard of the red imported fireant is to use a bait sold in garden stores under the name of Logic. If the cost is too high, look for the active ingredient, and go to Walmart and get a "generic" form. It is a long-acting bait that really does kill the queen. Switch baits from time to time so that the ants don't build a resistance to it. It is AFAIK, an environmentally friendly bait, targeting the Red Fireant but doing little damage to our own, relatively harmless, native fireant, and the big red ones. Off topic? I'm just mearly trying to help a fellow Texan bash and even to kill an unwanted immigrant here in Texas (The fireant).

I've noticed that whenever somebody wants to distract the nation for a while so Congress can completely hose us again, they either bring up the immigration flag, or they beat us about the head with a "flag burning amendment." It always works for the most part.

I work with immigrants. I live with immigrants. I used to not be so liberal until I spent time to provide a home for a "legal" Polish Immigrant who stayed with us for the summer while she worked crappy jobs, and fell totally in love with the United States, her people, her opportunities, and I came away with the feeling of WOW! This country really is the greatest thing in the world. I'll step out on a limb here and even say we posess the greatest society or nation that has ever existed in human history.

I thank God that we still have a country that is the embodiment of the hopes of the rest of the world. My best-friend (whose father immigrated here from India) has lived here almost all his life. He continually told me how great this country was. He continually told me that "if you can't make it here, you can't make it anywhere." Maybe we could all use that kind of reminder from time to time.

It was the immigrant that made this country a haven for immigrants. It was my Immigrant great, great, grandfather who brought his family here from Zauchtel, Austria and endured the mosquitos, the deaths of his first and second wives, and the loss of children so that some would survive and become Americans. The first generation of immigrants always eats S--T here. It is the same with the Irish, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc... each succeeding generations do better and better until after about 4 generations, they are finally able to bash immigrants themselves because "I got mine."

AFAIK, Immigrants pay sales taxes, property taxes (they got to live somewhere, and my guess is the landlord probably figures in property taxes into the rent), and in reality they take very little in return. I suppose that when I see you jumping to pick onions in the "valley" for $3.00 an hour (optimistic), Or bail hay, or strip and process grain sorghum, you will have made your point well.

As for me, I'm going to continue to welcome immigrants, teach them what I know about their RIGHTS, and encourage each and every one to own, use, and stockpile as many firearms as they wish.

(Mods: Nice tie-in to firearms huh?)

[longeyes]

That was certainly an eloquent speech in praise of immigrants. But immigration is one thing and open borders and illegal immigration quite another. This, to me, is not about insisting on specific national heritages for potential citizenship, it is about enforcing our laws and protecting our sovereignty and ensuring that the values which make what we all believe is most sacred are preserved.

That said, I agree that there are many native-born Americans who can learn much about the values of freedom and industry from immigrants, both legal and illegal.