Jul. 28, 2003 - 20:19 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Thinkin' About

Froma Harrop an editorial writer and columnist for the Providence (Rhode Island) Journal-Bulletin had a very interesting column in our Denver Post, Sunday July 27. Titled The real costs of immigration

Its hard to do this without a complete quote of her entire article. But, she starts out, "Not enforcing the nation's immigration laws has become a public policy, and a highly unfair one. In turning a blind eye to illegal immigration, Congress and the president subsidize high-income lawbreakers by providing cheap labor. The costs of illegal immigration meanwhile are broadly shared, with the heaviest loads borne by our poorest people."

Then she mentions the old bit, "Promoters of open borders often argue that illegal immigrants pay taxes and take very little in the way of public services." She says further "That's simply untrue. An estimated half to a third of illegal aliens work off the books and pay no income tax. In her next paragraph she has this to say, "Illegal immigrants do use expensive public services. Federal law requires hospitals to treat anyone who shows up. And a 1982 Supreme Court ruling says that the children of illegal immigrants are entitled to public education."

She shows that the media is in the act "News stories involving immigrants no longer distinguish between people who are here legally and those who are not. They're all newcomers in the chirpy parlance of American journalism." WAY TO GO FROMA !

Her next paragraph is a funny thing, I disagree with the first part, "The ruling that American municipalities must educate the children of illegal immigrants does make some sense. We don't want a populaltion of totally uneducated people in our midst."

That part is the part I don't agree with. To be frank, I think the illegal immigrants should be immediately shipped back to their own country along with their children and should not be allowed to stay here long enough to have children in the United States.

The next part I do agree with, "But we don't have to accept a situation in which their undocumented parents can openly hold jobs and school districts can't inquire into their immigration status."

She finishes in this manner, "And they (Congress and the president) should honestly admit who wins and who loses in an economy that tolerates illegal immigration. The double losers are poor people, both the native-born and legal immigrants. They receive lower wages because of the unfair competition, and they support the illegal population through taxes or degraded public services. The winners by and large, are the well-to-do citizens who tend to want everyone's labor -- except for their own -- to be cheap.

Heh, is that the reason that many low paying places have people working there who cannot speak English when the job they work needs them to be able to communicate with customers ? How many times have I read about illegal immigrants working for peanuts under the threat of being turned into immigration services if they complain ? I lost count. What happened to the old bit about each country having a quota of people allowed to immigrate to the United States every year ? If I remember correctly that quota was adjusted by our government according to conditions here, back then. Of course refugees and displaced persons from World War Two were invited in and also political refugees too. But I think a person now classifying themself a political refugee because they are in poverty in their own country is pushing the envelope for sure.

Here we are, a country with a swinging door now letting untold numbers of people in, while big businesses are in the process of shipping jobs to foreign countries. Jobs of all kinds now, clerical, technical, manufacturing, you name it - is on the way over there. You and I know why wages are so low over there, those people for the most part are in abject poverty and will accept most any kind of work at any price. Educated, smart people there who just can't keep above poverty and are hard pushed to survive will work for smidgens of money. And of course, in those countries prices are low too, so on low wages from a foreign job their standard of living goes up -- at the expense of people here who are looking for work. And then, there is an effort to more or less gloss over the status of the illegal immigrants by the use of the "matricula consular" issued by the government of country of origin. Euphemistic ID's one might say. The whole darn situation is worth Thinkin' About . . . . . . . . .

Blog