A lot of time is spent arguing about immigrants and refugees and about the number of undocumented or illegal immigrants who have come here from Mexico in particular, although other countries are involved.
Ultimately as a country descended from immigrants who came here to escape oppression or improve their economic situation it seems a bit odd that so many view immigrants as negatively as they do.
The country has gone through anti-immigration movements before, going back to the early 1800s, but of course we have had great waves of immigrants since then who while keeping some of their unique customs are now as American as anyone else.
Experience tells us that immigrants actually tend to work harder at menial jobs than the average American.
In a large group there will of course be instances of criminal behavior or in some cases terrorist behavior but that is also true for people born here from older immigrant stock.
It would be a Utopia indeed if somehow eliminating future immigrants would also eliminate the threat of terrorism and crime, it won't and it would leave a sever labor shortage.
One of the things that has probably led to the ongoing reaction to immigration is that so many low level jobs get filled with immigrants, either legal or illegal and there seems to be a perception that they are "stealing" these jobs from "real" Americans.
The reason they can get these jobs is that there aren't enough "real" Americans willing to do them, at least not at the wages they pay.
One of the biggest issues facing this country is the fact that "real" Americans are getting older and not creating as many new Americans as we need.
We need immigrants to backfill the jobs that will go unfilled without immigration and to reduce the average age of our workforce.
We are facing a demographic crisis in this country and without immigrants it will get a lot worse before it levels off.
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