Aren't you aware that the majority of illegal immigrants do not have more than a 6th grade education?? A good portion do not or will not speak English and many have no specific skills. This leaves them in low paying, idiot jobs like maids, burger flippers, taco benders, etc. They are already being paid slave wages which no American will touch and they often do not or will not pay taxes. So how is the solution to our problems more immigrants when the millions we already have are a drain on our country? How about the women who come here pregnant so they can drop an new American without having to pay the hospital bill and then gain 12 years of free public education?? These people are leaches who have no pride or loyalty in being in America. They send their money back to their own countries so that is not helping America's economy either. Immigration needs to take only the best and brightest, not a bunch of uneducated, welching, non-English speaking losers.

Mr. Hancock, it may be stunning to you that many people want to turn off the mechanism that created this country because you look back at our history through the rose colored glasses of American romanticism of our immigrant past. Whilst perusing those history books you were reading did you also notice that by the 1840’s improved transportation presented the United States for the first time with the possibility of people immigrating to the U.S. faster than jobs could be created? Jobs can only be created as fast as Capital is created, whereas people can arrive on our shores many times faster.

The first time this became a reality was with the German and Irish migration prior to the Civil War. The resulting wave of Immigrants provided so much unskilled labor to the U.S. economy that unemployment was rampant. And the oversupply of Labor gave rise to the Know-Nothing Movement and discrimination against the Irish and Germans.

In the 1870’s it happened again as Immigrants flooded into the U.S. This bad experience eventually led to the opening of Ellis Island in 1890 as a first attempt to control immigration.

When the Chinese first came to California they were not mistreated. Racism began to really rise against them after unemployment in California exceeded 30% because Immigrants were arriving faster than jobs could be created. As the largest group of immigrants, the Chinese, who by then made up a quarter of the population, were an easy target for the Labor Unions. The result was the dreadful Chinese Exclusion Act. But the underlying cause was excessive immigration causing high unemployment and falling wages.

History repeated itself a fourth time a few decades later when a wave of excessive immigration from eastern and southern Europe and flooded the unskilled labor market. That flood was so bad that the unemployment rate reached 32% for manufacturing, mining, and transportation workers by 1910 (which were the big unskilled labor jobs of that day and age). And in the years leading up to that date the states of Maine, Kansas, and Michigan experienced periods of unemployment exceeding 50%. It took World War I to pull us out of that one.

So today we control immigration. And today we designate those who illegally bypass those controls as either Illegally Present In or Illegally Entering the U.S. and thus subject to deportation. But it has been seventy years since we experienced that kind of unemployment. And the rose colored glasses are firmly in place. And those who insist on claiming the "Immigrants go home" sentiment of those days was only caused by racism make the perfect cause celeb for those have no concept of how bad unemployment used to get before immigration control.

Those who believe re-written history are doomed to repeat what actually happened and be clueless as to why it is happening.

I completely agree that our country's immigration rules need an overhaul so that we focus on bringing in highly skilled workers that fill needs in our economy--doctors, nurses, software programmers, electrical engineers, etc. This is what Jay is advocating. However, I am not sure that immigration is the pancea to our near-term economic woes. Over the long run, yes, making our economy more productive and welcoming new taxpayers will be necessary. But in the short run, there are a vast number of unemployed Americans that, with a little retraining, could fill many economic needs.

Diverse population
Cheap labor or a diversified voteing base. Natural migration or invasion. The old core majority of white english speaking people that founded and evolved American culture and population, recognized around the world for over two hundred years has now reached it's end due to rescent over emphasis on affirmative action, multiculturalism, mass immigration, abortion, globalization for the sake of rich global elitists that are quite often politicions and thier friends. How can America fight on so many fronts yet millions and millions of illegals penitrate thier own borders. It's as if it's being orchistrated from within or the nation is falling apart at the seams. How hard is it to see? It's the same in canada and around the western world. Winston Churchill once said "Change can be good as long as it's in the right direction." Things are always not what they seem. It's alright to question authority. America and indeed all of western civilization is now at a crossroads and now more than ever individuals are questioning the compitance of politicions today to deliver us from evil tommorrow.

Now let me, if I may, add my 2 cents.

I can't say the ILLEGAL ALIENS are completely to blame for the shape of our economy, but they are a BIG part of the problem. The ILLEGAL ALIENS send BILLIONS upon BILLIONS out of this Country every year, money we will NEVER see again. Does this help our economy?

How about the BILLIONS the American taxpayers fork out for the ANCHOR BABIES, the schooling of them, the medical care and the list goes on, and on, and on.

How about the MILLIONS upon MILLIONS paid to jail ILLEGAL ALIENS for the crimes, then the cost to deport them. Does this help our economy?

Then you have these activist groups, the Catholic Church and the ACLU that want AMNESTY for these ILLEGAL ALIENS. It would be absolute suicide for this Country if AMNESTY were granted to the 20 million or so ILLEGAL ALIENS. We have more and more people out of work everyday and they want to add another 20 million to this Country? I say, "NO"!

If AMNESTY were ever granted to these 20 million ILLEGAL ALIENS, you can bet big money that 3 years from now, there would be ANOTHER 3-5 million ILLEGAL ALIENS demonstrating on our soil for AMNESTY.

An end MUST come to this illegal immigration. The perfect tool we have so far is E-Verify. It MUST be used by ALL businesses and Government Social Services. EVERY employee must be checked! If they are illegal, they are to be dismissed!

I believe it is time for all 50 States to pass a State law, like Arizona, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina and a few others. It is time for these ILLEGAL ALIENS to go back to their home Country and get out of this Country. The problems they are causing will not go away until the ILLEGAL ALIENS are out of this Country.

ILLEGAL ALIEN HAVE NO RIGHT TO BE IN THIS COUNTRY FOR ANY REASON! Maybe it's time for them to pick up their ANCHORS and ship out!

I have a question for all those who say that illegal immigrants are ruining the country- Illegal immigrants do not run the county per se; they simply accept and execute jobs that are given to them. How can people who are merely tools to achieve a specific job, be responsible for mismanagement and decline of a country they do not even govern. The problem it seems is not with immigrants, jobs, racial relations or immigration policies but the moral and ethical fiber of the country and with governance and management of the nation and across all sectors of the industry. It also seems that the problem is with basic principles of thrift and industriousness which are eroding in favor of a laidback and hedonistic way of living that has resulted from too much prosperity. Let me add a question that should lead to a hypothesis, if all Americans (and American corporations) lived well within their means, would it be possible to stop exporting jobs and keep them within the country given that worker productivity and skills still remain better in the US.

I have a question for all those who say that illegal immigrants are ruining the country- Illegal immigrants do not run the county per se; they simply accept and execute jobs that are given to them. How can people who are merely tools to achieve a specific job, be responsible for mismanagement and decline of a country they do not even govern. The problem it seems is not with immigrants, jobs, racial relations or immigration policies but the moral and ethical fiber of the country and with governance and management of the nation and across all sectors of the industry. It also seems that the problem is with basic principles of thrift and industriousness which are eroding in favor of a laidback and hedonistic way of living that has resulted from too much prosperity. Let me add a question that should lead to a hypothesis, if all Americans (and American corporations) lived well within their means, would it be possible to stop exporting jobs and keep them within the country given that worker productivity and skills still remain better in the US.

See the comment of Economist Ed Rubenstein which suggests stopping low skill immigration would actually assist:

"One reason for our predicament: immigration is swelling the U.S. labor force beyond the ability of fiscal policy to generate jobs.

During the decade of the 1990s, 47 percent of U.S. civilian labor force growth was due to immigration. This represented the largest influx of foreign workers ever to enter the U.S. in a given decade—substantially exceeding the number who came here during the Great Wave of 1890 to 1910. [Andrew Sum, et al., Foreign Immigration and the Labor Force of the U.S., [PDF] Center for Labor Market Studies, Northeastern University, July 2004.]

But records are made to be broken, and nowhere more so than in immigration. Over the period 2000 to 2007 foreign-born individuals accounted for:

38 percent of U.S. population growth
51 percent of U.S. labor force growth
56 percent of U.S. employment growth. (In other words, immigrants displaced Americans).
(Please see Chart 1 for the underlying numbers.)

All of which raises an obvious question: Why not impose a moratorium on immigration? By cutting labor force growth in half, this would allow our weakened economy to absorb a greater fraction of new—native-born American—entrants.

The unemployment rate would fall. And, equally important, average incomes would rise as jobs currently going to low wage immigrants would be filled by U.S.-born workers.

What would an immediate moratorium do? I have run the numbers for 2008.

You will recall that the unemployment rate was 7.2 percent in December 2008, up from 4.9 percent in December of 2007. Over that period unemployment rose by 3.6 million, swelled by job losers as well as new labor force entrants.

The civilian labor force grew by 611,000 last year, from 153.836 million in December 2007 to 154.447 million December 2008. Had a moratorium been in effect, about 305,000 fewer people would be looking for jobs.

That may not sound like a lot at a time when jobs are disappearing by more than 500,000 per month. But 305,000 fewer job seekers is equal to about 9 percent of last year’s stunning unemployment increase, the biggest for 22 years.

Implication: a one-year moratorium would reduce by at least 9 percent the stimulus spending required to restore the economy to its pre-meltdown state. That translates to $90 billion of federal savings.

Of course, if the moratorium were extended for several years, its effects would compound.

Plus, when (and if) the economy bounces back, employment of native-born Americans would increase that much faster.

You might consider a more sweeping change in immigration policy: enforcing the immigration laws. Neglecting them has permitted from 8 to 10 million illegal aliens to work in the United States. (That’s the official estimate. Private estimates are as high as double that)."

http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/090127_nd.htm

The other thing is the importance of intelligence in terms of migrants. As the economy becomes more complex this becomes increasingly important.

No doubt someone will say, oh but that was an excuse used for the 1924 Immigration Act. Not true, see Snyderman & Herrnsteins 1983 article in American Psychologist. Also, the widely spread claim that Eastern European Jews as a group did poorly on early psychometric tests is a cannard. See Dan Seligman's 'A Question of Intelligence'.