Immigration is good for the economy. I can really see it in Northern Virginia.
The people who immigrate here may not be as well off as the people who are already here, but they work hard and accumulate wealth, buy houses, pay taxes. They like really big houses with tiny yards, so lots of taxes per acre.
Their kids do very well in school. My boys are in the gifted and talented program at school, and a large proportion of the gifted children have parents who immigrated here from other countries - Indians, ethnic Chinese, VietNamese and various places in the Middle East. Children who attend Fairfax public schools come from families which speak over 150 languages at home. My sons have friends from India, Georgia (formerly part of the Soviet Union), the Caribbean, Iran, even Germany. I've had clients from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Viet Nam, Korea, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nigeria, Cuba, Dominican Republic, just can't remember where else but several other countries in Latin America.
At George Mason University, where I go part time, the computer programming classes look like the United Nations. But I'm used to that, it was the same in Baton Rouge, where I grew up. LSU engineering classes looked like the United Nations, probably still do. I was in love with a boy from Argentina, and dated a boy from Iran a couple of times, had two friends from Sri Lanka, one Tamil, one Sinhalese. We used to have curry parties, people from India and Sri Lanka and who knows where else would come and cook curry and we'd sit on the floor and eat it with our hands. Lots of rice, a little bit of curry.
Maybe they do better here because we accept them and welcome them. |
