Timothy Birdnow

I had a disagreement on Facebook about immigration. Here is the thread:

Gail stated:

We're a country of people from many nations, people who all spoke their native languages when they arrived. I had to translate my instructions to my lawn men who spoke very rudimentary English. Before you blow a gasket, they came in on temp visas every year to work for the company and then went back. Until this years when the number of temp visas dropped except for Trump's vineyards, where more were granted.

I replied:

That is true, Gail , but we have so very many people here now. One in five people in this country are first generation immigrants. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/18/5-facts-about-the-u-s-rank-in-worldwide-migration/ now - a staggering number, as high as the very peak of immigration at the dawn of the twentieth century.

America's response then was to stop almost ALL immigration to the U.S. until 1965. And Harry Truman kicked out three million illegal aliens during his Presidency. Eisenhower kicked out two million. Five million illegal aliens were deported back then.

One fifth of the population does not speak English at home. https://cis.org/One-Five-US-Residents-Speaks-Foreign-Language-Home-Record-618-million That is 61.8 MILLION people. We shut down immigration in the twentieth century to assimilate the vast numbers of people we were getting into the country then. But we no longer are doing that. In fact, right now there are 38.4 Million people who speak Spanish as their primary language, and of those 27.2 MILLION WERE BORN in the U.S. That suggests they are not enculturating.

Now , the population of Guatemala is only 17.66 million, so we have more American born people speaking a foreign language than all of Guatemala. Think about that.

This will do us no favors, as it will splinter the country into multiple nations, much like the Balkans, which have been in a state of warfare for a thousand years. And in fact the Hispanic youth group MECha and LaRaza (the Race) both call for the creation of Aztlan, an Hispanic nation independent of the U.S., in what is now the Southwest - New Mexico, Arizona, California, etc. There is a separatist movement. We may well find ourselves in the same position as the Austro-Hungarian Empire at some point.

But even if we don't our culture - which has given us the highest standard of living on Earth - will change immensely. Latin America has a number of problems that we have been fortunate to avoid; political corruption, civil war, rampant organized crime, no middle class, etc. It will all be ours if we continue on this path.

I'm not saying we have to stop all immigration, but I am saying we need to slow it down quite a bit and educate the people who are here. We are not a nation if we do not control our borders, plain and simple. This argument is so often nonsensical; would any person just let someone walk into their home and start eating their food and sleeping in their beds? But we are doing exactly that as a nation.

Bear in mind, too, that we had heavy immigration when we had a large frontier and lots of open spaces - and needed people to do the work. Times change. A motel would long ago have put out the No Vacancy sign. There comes a time when the value of immigration is less than the problems and costs.

BTW, I rather suspect your gardeners are not on H1B visas as they are telling you, but rather are here illegally. It's easier for them that way.

Thanks for a pleasant discussion.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:01 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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