Why Talk about Immigration

So, why start a blog to talk about immigration?

Perhaps, because I grew up among immigrants, including many friends and all my grandparents; or, because I find myself bewildered by the different attitudes prevalent about "immigrants" today.

Actually,I never felt the need to engage until I sat in a  Williston (FL) Town Meeting with our Congressional Representative,Ted Yoho, this May.

Like most Town Meetings, there were many views presented. But, the audience demonstrated a very strong concern that current Administration immigration policy is damaging the American worker and small businessman. One older man told how he had been out-bid by a competitor using low wage workers (in his view - illegal immigrants) resulting in the loss of 30 jobs to him and his employees. I can not verify his specific claim - but that process and outcome is very credible. And the audience reaction showed that people believed it to be credible, prevalent, and outrageous.

It is hard , if not impossible, to find a single universal panacea to the immigration problem -  especially in border States like FL and AZ, many good people (undocumented) have lived and contributed to the economy for years or decades with silent consent from many citizens.

I do feel and agree with the strong outrage expressed at that Town Meeting against this Administration's efforts to bring in large numbers of low skill workers across our Southern border - in direct violation of Federal Court rulings. This outrage is compounded by the Administration's flagrant refusal to charge or deport obvious "immigrant"criminals and their refusal to enforce the border laws - even in the face of serious indicators of terrorist as well as criminal infiltration.

There are many problems and issues involved in establishing Immigration Policy in a nation of Immigrants, The issues include the differences between  long-time immigrants and recent immigrants - especially those induced and aided by current Administration policy to cross the border illegally; the continuation of a preference policy favoring family chain-immigration over specified skill-based immigration; the fairness of allowing southern border "jumpers" to gain substantial residence/work advantage over those who wait in line; and the "birth-right citizenship" policy that grants citizenship to to babies born in this country to parents that are not citizens and have no allegiance to the USA.

These issues were not issues when I was a child - or even when I first visited the Arizona border country after college. Then, I believed open borders made sense - let people come and join in the great American common venture.

But that was a Half-Century ago - before Vietnam; before the war on drugs; before Welfare politics dominated the national economy; before La Raza and other political groups were agitating against the idea of a America as a single united nation;before the Republican and Democrat parties were so polarized that voter demographics and issue divisions  became more important than striving towards a common sense of national unity and purpose; before ISIS and other enemies viewed our borders as easy pathways to harm us.

The last fifty years have seen great progress in technologies and improvements in living conditions, and have introduced new problems, among which immigration policy is now a major challenge.

In future posts, I will explore some aspects of the immigration challenge and, with luck, find some useful ideas for understanding the issues and policy options.