Living in a country - any country - is a privilege, not a right (unless you were born there, and even then this "right" has been denied to many people over the centuries). (Even more broadly, living is a privilege - one usually has to fight for it). It is natural for people having a privilege to want to deny it to others, so I am not surprised at the grass-roots anti-immigration movement. I doubt that illegal immigrants pay as much in taxes as is claimed by the pro-immigrant groups (especially given their low wages and things like earned income credit), but I agree that people who live in the US illegally but _pay_ taxes (as opposed to collecting EIC) for several years (5? 10?), and have a clean criminal record, should be automatically granted a green card. Any immigration reform (including guest worker programs) should emphasize education and skills, and unskilled immigration should be discouraged: those people do take the jobs we don't, but by doing so they discourage investment in robotics. Japan does not import unskilled labor and they are way ahead of us in robotics.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-05-04 02:23 pm (UTC)(Even more broadly, living is a privilege - one usually has to fight for it).
It is natural for people having a privilege to want to deny it to others, so I am not surprised at the grass-roots anti-immigration movement.
I doubt that illegal immigrants pay as much in taxes as is claimed by the pro-immigrant groups (especially given their low wages and things like earned income credit), but I agree that people who live in the US illegally but _pay_ taxes (as opposed to collecting EIC) for several years (5? 10?), and have a clean criminal record, should be automatically granted a green card.
Any immigration reform (including guest worker programs) should emphasize education and skills, and unskilled immigration should be discouraged: those people do take the jobs we don't, but by doing so they discourage investment in robotics. Japan does not import unskilled labor and they are way ahead of us in robotics.