I agreed with you right up until the point where you advocated an expansion of legal immigration, a point which I don’t think really logically follows from the rest of your argument. With regards to our current immigration system, keep in mind that:

A) We already admit by far the largest number of immigrants of any nation in the world, over 1 million per year;

B) Nearly 70 percent of legal immigrants do not come here as skilled, unattached singles easily assimilated into American life, but as people sponsored by their immigrant relatives already in the United States - i.e. the system of so-called chain migration, which ensures an endless supply of legal immigrants, few of them skilled or well-educated;

C) Given this system, any increase in legal immigration levels will only result in a further deluge of relatives of current immigrants entering, NOT skilled workers or people from countries that haven’t had the chance to send many immigrants.

In light of all this, I can think of little good that would come from expanding the number of residency permits we issue. If anything, I’d have to agree with an earlier commenter who suggested that a complete pause might be a better idea, then perhaps a resumption some time down the road at much lower levels and with the elimination of the family reunification provision. Fundamentally, we need to start choosing who we want to allow into this country: as it stands, with both legal and illegal immigration, we have completely lost control over that crucial question.

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Many can document how the mass of illegal aliens are low educated and low skilled and due to their status use false documents or under the table jobs to survive here and send back by many estimates 20 billion dollars a year earned in this country and not reinvested in our economy.

I submit for consideration, that if they are legalized in such large numbers and thus compete for jobs in the open economy and come out of the shadows all sorts of unforseen impacts will occur.

If it wouldn’t cause such a backlash, I bet GM for example would love to throw the UAW out the front door to allow the newly authorized to perform such rocket science tasks as mounting tires on your next car.

Also the argument for illegals doing jobs americans wont do, if you look for example at a farmer who has a crop of lettuce that needs to be harvested by those illegals. Well part of the reason citizens wont do the job is that it does not pay enough to legally support your family. I don’t have the analysis I read on this recently but an article I read somewhere supported the fact that even if farmers had to triple their wages to attract american workers to perform their harvest work the impact on the end cost of lettuce would be negligible, since labor costs are such a small percentage of their overall production costs.

http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_localcosts

Also they have advanced a seven step plan that could result in effect to having the illegals deport themselves

http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=research_backgrounder_may102006

Just curious, why do you think legal immigration would facilitate assimilation?

I live in a high immigration area and I tend to think there are too many factors working against assimilation in general. Multi-culturalism is of course one, but also the very high numbers of legal immigrants do as well.

I have to wonder if we’re not ready for another 1924-1965 style pause in immigration.

Or perhaps to put it another way, why exactly do we require high numbers of immigrants again?

I may have missed the memo.

But, given the choice of destruction of America by the GOP leadership or by Hillary and crew, I dont see much difference. Court appointments, taxes, foreigh policy, the fight against terror, the rule of law in America. All will surely fall as fast from GOP leadership on immigration and the demise of America through a socialist one party state as a result of GOP leadership policy as they will fall from Hillary and the DEMS.

Shoot me (Hillary) and it may take a few seconds to die.

Stab me (GOP Leadership) and it may take a few minutes to die.

The result is the same, I die.

If President bush and the GOP leadership succeed in their immigration/amnesty/citizenship/open borders policies and they will stab America.

Bush->Immigration Disaster->Hillary->fall of America
or
Hillary-> Untold disasters-> fall of America.

Take your pick, stabbed or shot?