>>It's the plantation system of today, Skeeter. The American dream does not exist for these people. What does exist for them is simply a lesser nightmare then they used to live.<<
immigrants benefit this nation greatly.
i do believe they have a piece of the american dream - that their kids will have more opportunity than they had growing up. while not ideal, it is something substantial.
Victor is only partly right. The American dream does exist for them, but they are held back from it by the fact that they can only get here illegally. He's right that it is sort of a "plantation system". Since they are here illegally, employers are able to take advantage of them, paying substandard wages and offering no benefits. Who are they going to complain too?
Craig and Patzi think the solution is to kick them all out and shut the doors behind them. Patzi carries it further by expressing fear that "they" will soon outnumber "us", but he likes to appeal to the xenophobes and racists - his "constituents".
That's not the solution, partly for the economic reasons you note.
Nor is it to have "open borders" in the sense that the two of them describe the position of everyone who doesn't want to "seal the borders". That's Patzi the propagandist using the fallacy of false dilemma.
We have other options.
First, we need to provide a means for workers to come here legally, some perhaps as "guest workers" who come for a fixed period of time and then return home (they might apply later for residency, but if the program works well, many will want to return home since they know they can come back again later - legally).
Second, with this program in place to meet our economic need for workers in low-skilled/low-paying jobs, we need to crack down on those employing/exploiting illegal immigrants.
Opposition to this kind of arrangement comes from two sides - the xenophobes and those who benefit from the presence of illegals, e.g. the carpet industry in north Georgia. The latter group benefits from the "look the other way" policies of their unwitting allies of the left.
Bush was on the right track. His only mistake was to start by floating the idea of amnesty for certain current illegals. That's been tried and it just encouraged more illegals. No. The legal immigration (guestworker) option has to be in place and current laws have to be enforced, then you can let current illegals come forward and apply to become legal guestworkers. They would do so knowing they could be deported, but also knowing that if accepted into the program, the American dream would finally be within their grasp.
Bob |
