Immigration

Our country's immigration policy is being widely debated lately by news "analysts". Allow me to chime in with my opinion about a few points being made.

"They take jobs away from Americans." I grew up in one of the prime agricultural areas of the world and have watched the farm workers for decades. Whole families-- grandparents, kids-- out picking on a Sunday morning, in muddy fields, in the dead of winter. I have even worked alongside them hoeing beans, picking strawberries, moving sprinkler pipes, as a youngster on my summer breaks, and there is an overriding pattern to the work...it's hard. I seriously doubt that they are taking any jobs that 99% of Americans would even consider doing.

"They come here to get on our welfare system" Please. When I see the greedy bastards that run our banking system get bailed out with billions of dollars, only to give themselves millions in bonuses, when I see huge farming corporations paid NOT to grow crops, when I see multi-billion dollar companies banking offshore to avoid U.S. taxes, I think we can afford to hand out some food stamps. And no one ever mentions the millions of immigrants, even the undocumented ones, that are contributing greatly to our society through the work they do and the taxes they pay.

"Children of immigrants born here should not be automatic citizens" This is a new cry from the right and Fox news, and I find it quite entertaining. Except for the few remaining Native Americans that managed to survive the genocide perpetrated against them, we are a nation of immigrants. How many children were born here ages ago that became automatic citizens? I guess that would mean that their children, and their children's children, and so on, are not citizens either. The only good that could come out of this is, if it is found that Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh need to be deported.