Immigration

Recently I read an article about birthing centers in San Gabriel, California where affluent Chinese women come to have their babies so that the children are American citizens. The places were shut down but had been operating for several years. There are many more like these centers where people from other countries come here to ensure that their children can later come back and take advantage of free education and other benefits of being an American citizen.

In our area, we have a large population of other immigrants who essentially doing the same thing. However, one major difference is that since they are not wealthy, so they can only afford to come here and stay, rather than have their children here and then go back. The large majority of these immigrants are Mexicans, but there are other countries too but we never hear about those other places.

The government has been arguing about immigration for a very long time and has not done anything about it. Some local municipalities have tried to enforce immigration type of laws, and we sure hear plenty or complaints about why local cities aren’t doing anything. But immigration is a federal issue and as such has to be dealt with by them. No matter what happens, any type of reform is not going to be liked by one side or another.

Immigration has its pluses and minuses, as any issue does. On the plus side, we get a whole new group of people who are suddenly very pro-America and most of them are willing to work and increase the amount of services that can be performed. On the negative side, that group of workers puts a huge strain on the job market for the ones who “were here first” and it drastically increases the job competition. But does it really? When you look at the type of jobs that many immigrants do, American people are generally loathe to do that type of work. These are things like domestics, manual labor, and menial construction jobs. These jobs often pay little and have few chances of advancement. They are good for people who have little education such as immigrants and leave the field wide open for more skilled employment for others. In addition, we are a rapidly aging nation. An influx of young families, even if they are from other countries brings in a younger workforce that can lead to strengthen our economy.

But the bottom line with the immigration issues is the fact that no matter what type of laws we create or enforce the real issue is the reason people from other countries emigrate to the United States. Other countries sometimes have such horrible living conditions that families flee in an effort to increase their standard of living, and that’s a much harder issue to solve. We cannot control how other countries treat their citizens, and therein is the rub. If things in other parts of the world were as great as they are here, no one would risk their lives to get here.