PrintJune 7, 2007
Immigrants, education and social mobility
Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute points out the basic reason why the illegals present such a gaping hole for the US taxpayer: They have strikingly low levels of education (and therefore low earnings capacity) well into the third generation of illegal immigrant families. It would be nice to think that they would rise over the generations, as traditional (legal) American immigrants have. But MacDonald points out that it hasn't happened yet for the current crop of 12 million folks.
Anybody who thought US immigration law resulted from some rational process of thought has to be mind-boggled by the US Senate bill. We spend half a billion dollars testing a new medical drug before marketing it, with hundreds of scientific studies to test whether it is safe and effective. That's a pretty rational process, and if it fails, the manufacturer is liable for damages. But we can easily poison the body politic by bringing in millions of people who have no intention of assimilating to American culture --- and that decision is made in back-scratching deals between Senators who have absolutely no conception of the law's effects that will ripple through our society and economy for decades to come. They don't even care.
This is a mad and crazy way for a great nation to decide its future. Nobody in medicine, business, law, engineering or science would ever do it this way. And in Europe, the same perverse immigration policies have pushed Britain and France to the brink of demographic destruction.
This is a mad and crazy way for a great nation to decide its future. Nobody in medicine, business, law, engineering or science would ever do it this way. And in Europe, the same perverse immigration policies have pushed Britain and France to the brink of demographic destruction.
President Bush means well, I'm sure. But good intentions are not enough. It's time to stop and think, before we make it all much, much worse.
James Lewis blogs at http://www.dangeroustimes.wordpress.com/
