Totem wrote:
I can get onboard with an expansion of our immigration numbers. However, I'd like to see an emphasis on educated immigrants who either have a "good" job (ie., one that does not involve picking vegetables or fruit, but rather in the white collar industries) or have an extended family who have the means to support them if their job prospects peter out.
This is one of those ideas that looks good on paper, but doesn't really work. The problem is that the vast majority of those who are coming across the southern border illegal are unskilled laborers. They are the poor in Mexico who are willing to risk everything in order to make 8-10 times more money picking fruit or digging trenches in the US than they can doing those jobs in Mexico.
This is why we need what was proposed a few years ago: A real guest worker visa specifically for Mexican workers. One which allows for low paid unskilled labor to come here and work legally and at numbers far far greater than what we currently legally allow. It has to have different rules than the standard work visas precisely because it has to fulfill the same economic needs which are causing the movement of illegals across the border today. Place too many restrictions on qualifications, labor types, and wages, and it wont work.
Unfortunately, the idea got attacked by both sides of our political landscape. So yeah. We're pretty much screwed until perceptions can change about this.