Monday, May 15, 2006
The First Step
The White House has announced plans to activate the National Guard to secure the Mexican border. No matter what you think should happen to the illegals that are here, this is the first step to confronting the problem. Securing the border will help stem the drug trade and make the country safer from possible terrorists crossing over from Mexico.
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Exactly. No matter what kind of legislation passes about how to treat the people we do have over here, the problem won't stop until we have control of our own borders.
I am far from sure that the 'problem' is that much of a problem.
I want more immigration, for a whole host of reasons. While I certainly would prefer to have records of who is immigrating, I would personally rather have more immigration, even if it is illegal, than strictly controlled borders.
I am convinced that illegal immigrants contribute more to our nation than they cost us. Of course, if they were legal immigrants they would contribute even more.
"I am convinced that illegal immigrants contribute more to our nation than they cost us"
I am not so sure about that for several reasons.
One) many times illeagal immigrants income is not fully reported
two) if you are poor in this country you probably use more resouces than you pay for. Education being the biggest i can think of.
secondly, i though i had read that it was a forgone conculsion that immigrants cost more than they produced (or at least what we recouped from taxes), though i admit the only reference to what i thought i read was this.
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2006/03/paul_krugman_on.html
for another part of the puzzle in the tulsa world the other day i read that there are cases of people leaving mexico who are considered middle class and have usable skills to come to america.
When there is such a poverty divide between two countires that in one you can pick fruit and make more money than if you are fixing refrigerators in the other, there is a problem that will not be solved by locking down the border.
I am not opposed to immigration, but I am opposed to people crossing into our country at will. I think we should gain control of the border, but then increase the number of legal immigrants that we accept.
It is tough to get good numbers on the costs and benefits of immigration, legal or otherwise.
I remain convinced that they are a net benefit however.
As for education costs, we should want to educate illegal immigrant kids for the same reason we want to educate native kids, it is an investment in the future. The education doesn't pay for itself now, it pays for itself in the future.
And if immigration stretches many of our social programs to the breaking point, well, I am not totally oppossed to seeing them break anyway.
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