If we're willing to accept unlimited immigration in order to keep wages low and corporate profits high, we should just say so and stop paying for all the immigration enforcement window dressing.
If we want to set and enforce a limit on immigration, we have to be willing to say no to would-be immigrants who look a lot like our own ancestors, not because there's anything wrong with them, but simply because admitting them would exceed our legal limit.
Both my parents were immigrants, as were many of their friends, the parents of the children with whom I grew up. Of course I respect and admire immigrants and their undeniable contributions to America, as we all should.
We should favor young immigrants with many years of work ahead of them. We should favor immigrants who have demonstrated an ability to learn and work using English, which makes their future success more likely.
The U.S. immigration system is the most generous in the world, providing each year more green cards for legal permanent residence with a clear path to full citizenship than all the rest of the nations of the world combined.
The goal of immigration policy should be what is in the best interests of the American people as a whole. I would recommend limiting immigration to spouses and minor children of citizens, plus additional immigrants chosen for special skills needed in the U.S.
The DREAM Act was intended to benefit illegal immigrants who were brought here as children, the most sympathetic subset among our large illegal immigrant population.
Besides taking jobs from American workers, illegal immigration creates huge economic burdens on our health care system, our education system, our criminal justice system, our environment, our infrastructure and our public safety.
Libertarian immigration policy would be an experiment in which I don't think we should participate. We should not bet the republic that the results will be good. I suspect the results would be a disaster and the end of the American experiment.
If cheap immigrant labor is made unavailable, employers can hire Americans at a higher wage, or replace low-wage immigrant workers with technology and automation, which will create a smaller number of skilled jobs for Americans.
Protecting national security amounts to looking for needles in a haystack. The work becomes more difficult if the haystack is larger. Restricting immigration generally, and illegal immigration in particular, limits growth in the haystack, and supports protection of national security.
All Americans are either immigrants or descendants of ancestors who came from somewhere else, including Native Americans. We should all respect and admire immigrants.
