Minor Thoughts

Yesterday, Colorado’s legislature and governor reached a deal on what looks like a very good immigration reform package. The legislature passed HB 1023, restricting welfare to citizens and legal immigrants.

Here’s what’s in the bill:

How would an applicant get public assistance?

Applicants for taxpayer-funded benefits would be required to show they …

Jenna [is worried][debatecont] about the effects of immigrants on our social services:

Mexico is a very destitute country, especially when compared to the United States. With completely open, unfettered borders, we would become, as I said before, the bassinet of the world, handing out our social dollars to those who are not citizens of …

The second question Jenna [raised][debatecont] is the question of national borders.

We must have controlled borders in our nation to be a nation. We must have rules and regulations on whom can enter to be an autonomous United States of America. … Is there any nation in this world that has completely open borders? …

Jenna [argues][debatecont] that even if our per-capita resources are higher than they were doing the last wave of immigration, that still doesn’t mean that we can accomodate another large wave of immigrants.

We should not deduce our ability to handle a large flow of legal immigrants in comparison to the past. The two time …

Please don’t tell me that I actually have to explain why this is a bad idea:

Scott Silverman, Chairman of the Board of VeriChip Corporation, has proposed implanting the company’s RFID tracking tags in immigrant and guest workers. He made the statement on national television on May 16.

Silverman was being …

Captain Ed [joins the ranks][ed] of conservatives that sound like socialists, when discussing immigration.

We never argued for shutting out all immigration, but what we wanted was controlled and sensible immigration that would benefit us and the world.

… We still need to know how this nation will assimilate two million …

In my last post, I talked about America’s ability to absorb immigrants. I believe that not only are we capable of absorbing vast numbers of immigrants, but that we need immigrants to keep our economy running. I don’t mean we need immigrants to “do jobs that Americans won’t do”. I mean that we need immigrants to do jobs that Americans will be unable to do.

In conclusion, high levels of immigration cause little to no long-term economic harm for the United States. The United States is much more likely to be harmed by preventing high-levels of immigration than by allowing it. I think I’ve demonstrated that America is more than capable of absorbing and assimilating immigrants. Next I’ll tell you why I think that the U.S. must encourage higher levels of immigration.

Jenna [responded][jr1] to my last essay. At this point, we agree that immigration, when legal, is a good thing. We agree that immigrants should be able to immigrate just because they want to be Americans, whether or not an employer is ”sponsoring” them.

Jenna and I still disagree on one small point. I was planning to …

While I [have issues][imlegal] with the current state of our immigration laws, the Senate’s attempt to fix those laws is looking uglier by the day. Thanks to an [ACU alert][acu] which lead me to a Bob Novak [column][novak], I found a Heritage report detailing [a few of the flaws][heritage] in this immigration bill. Simply put, …