Illegal immigration by the numbers
The Star Tribune printed an article on a report that was released this week that went largely unnoticed. This article talks about what illegal immigration "costs" the state and on what. It cites such things as education and health care costs. Hopefully this means that a policy change is in the works. This is the good news. Now for the puzzling....
"Many communities across Minnesota and the country have concerns regarding illegal immigration," the Republican governor said in a news release. "
Now we all know that Governor Pawlenty is a Republican so what could the author have been getting at? Simple, the writer of the article wants to remind us that this "racist" report came out of a Republican, because we all know how much Republicans hate minorities, right????
Well, arguments have been made that the work that illegal immigrants do is a hedge against inflation. They take jobs that most Americans "don't want", the backbreaking labor of picking vegatbles for companies like Green Giant (in LeSeur MN) for example. Others, like todays follow up article in the Star Tribune, will tell you that most illegal immigrants are hard workers that just want to make a better life for themselves in "the promised land" of America. There is some truth to those statements however, there are also stories out the border states of people afraid to leave their homes along the border for fear of running into armed bands of immigrants. Others tell of livestock slaughtered in the fields for food and fences cut to facilitate crossings. What is the answer? I'm not sure. Completely closing the border is just as bad, if not worse, than completely opening the border. While the President's guest worker program is not perfect, it is a start. We do, for the safety of the country, need to know who is crossing our borders and who is here now. The guest worker program would get a good start on the who is here. If we can control who is coming in going forward, it will help make us safer while still allowing for people like Ramon Leon and my great-great-great grandfather to come here and make a better life for themselves.
posted by The Lady Logician at 9:52 PM permalink
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