Reply #49: There are two basic problems with illegal immigration [View All]

[Xithras]

Immigration caps are in place for a reason, just as they are in every single other nation in the world. In fact, the United States ALONE accepts more legal immigrants every year than every single other nation in the world COMBINED.

The first major problem with illegal immigration is that illegal immigrants will work for a pittance and undermine the wage structures long established in the U.S. Fifteen years ago a person could made a good living in a union shop in the construction and landscaping trades. Today? Both of those businesses are being hit HARD by companies that hire illegals and use those cost savings to undercut the bids of the union shops. Attempts by the illegals themselves to organize are quickly met by threats of deportation and never go anywhere. The immigrants are moving beyond the jobs that "Americans don't want" are are now taking jobs in traditionally blue collar sectors. How do you fix that without putting the illegals out of jobs?

The second problem with illegal immigration is that it undermines efforts in the U.S. to control population growth. There was a study posted here in the past couple days that the U.S. is the only first world country that is still experiencing major population growth...all of the other first world countries have population growth in check. The undiscussed factor in this is that birthrates among American citizens are about equal to those of Europeans...American population growth is being driven for the most part by immigration. This induces sprawl, takes a serious toll on the environment, and basically undermines everything the left has been fighting for for the past 30 years.

I'm not anti-immigration. I believe that people who want to come here, SHOULD be able to come here...within limits. The immigration process needs to be streamlined, guest worker permits need to be much easier to get, and people who have the skills to give themselves a better life should be able to do it, but we should NOT simply allow millions of people to walk across the borders and take up residence here without knowing who they are or what their intentions are.

You want to call that bigoted? I call that common sense.