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Monday, Feb. 4, 2013 | 2:02 a.m.
Over here in the department of punditry, we deal with a lot of hard issues, ones on which the evidence is mixed and the options are all bad. But the immigration issue is a blessed relief. On immigration, the evidence is overwhelming; the best way forward is clear. The forlorn pundit doesn’t even have to make the humanitarian case that immigration reform would be a great victory for human dignity. The cold economic case by itself is so strong. Increased immigration would boost the U.S. economy. Immigrants are 30 percent more likely to start new businesses than native-born Americans, according ...
David Brooks is a columnist for The New York Times.
Bah bah bah
Think 23 million underemployed
Good article with excellent points. Recall the 2005-2007 Immigration Reform bill was killed in the Senate. Thanks to one vote which Senator Obama cast in favor of scrubbing/watering down the Guest Worker Program. With this provision gone, the rest of the Senators refused to proceed. Why did Senator Obama vote against the Guest Worker Program? Trumka [AFL-CIO, big labor] had Obama in their pocket [many say still do] and he convinced Obama to kill it for obvious reasons. It would dilute the rank and file of the union members. Note President Obama made no mention of the Guest Worker Program in his immigration speech in Las Vegas or in his written White House principles on immigration reform.
CarmineD
Obama is against the guest worker program today and this is his poision pill to defeat reform
We're overdue for solution to a problem where the country wins and neither political party does. Immigration may just be that problem.
Illegal immigration is so out of control, that calling this problem easy is subject to interpretation. It's EASY to see it is a major problem, not only in the USA, but in other countries throughout the world. ILLEGAL immigrants have adversely affected infrastructure of every nation they invade. Cite all the statistically numbers you want, when my Facebook friends around the world complain to me about their country's ILLEGAL immigrant problems, that is the only number that is real and counts to me and them. It is EASY to get such testimony.
When the writer includes, "Immigrants are doing a reasonable job of assimilating. Almost all of the children of immigrants from Africa and Asia speak English, and more than 90 percent of the children of Latin American immigrants do. New immigrants may start out disproportionately in construction and food-service jobs, but, by the second and third generation, their occupation profiles are little different from the native-born." What about those in the USA??? Those children enter American schools barely speaking the English language and it takes 5 years to master it. So we suffer through "second and third generations"? Really? That is positive?
Blessings and Peace,
Star
Mr. Brooks is usually coherent. However, he is not personally aware of illegal immigration or the impact on the Western economy. Perhaps he could consider the economic suicide of California by providing services to illegals. Mr. Brooks has at least once mentioned the impact of "overwhelming" the schools out west. We need REFORM: temporary agriculture work permits that preclude citizenship to children born here. Restrictions on Birthing Centers and the resulting kids of illegals here to give birth. Tracking of VISAs, entry /exit of foreigners, tracking of work permits. That's THE REFORM WE WANT.
Future 5:46. Yes. And, we need CONGRESS to explicitly legislate that if your mother is in the country illegally and gives birth you are NOT a citizen. We need to end this invasion sooner, not later. We can and should follow the illegal-birth-not-citizen retroactively. Maybe we should repeal 1986 amnesty.
Roslenda:
The US will not change the natural law. If you are born in this country, you ARE an American citizen. It has always, always, been the man made law and it is based on natural law. No one has a divine right to this land and its borders that supercedes any other. If you are born here, you are an American.
CarmineD