The following is a continuation of the conversations from the, “Mexico Doesn’t Send Us Its Best,” series of posts on 6/27/18, 7/18/18 and 7/24/18.

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post I will address the four common arguments that are made against any policy or practice that is not in line with hardline immigration opinions.

Anchor Babies.An illegal immigrant has a child born in the U.S. The child is now a U.S. citizen. The hardline opinion is that this is purposefully done by the illegal immigrant to make it more difficult to deport the parent of the child. I would argue that if we enacted a robust, reasonable and logical guest worker program and logical merit and time-based path to citizenship, this would not be a real issue. In fact, immigrant family members with some U.S. roots would make a person a better citizen candidate.  And for those who violate the worker program and citizen path rules (who have an “Anchor Baby”), we already have procedures that address this.

Illegal Immigrants are Stealing Our Jobs.No, they are not. First, we are currently experiencing near record low unemployment rates. There aren’t enough people for the jobs we have. Second, illegal immigrants aren’t taking the desirable, prestigious jobs. They are taking the jobs that U.S. citizens don’t want or are unwilling to do. If there is an issue, the issue is with the employer taking advantage of the disadvantaged, not the illegal immigrant employee trying to survive.

This is an Attempt to Create a Democratic Voting Bloc.  This is an extremely short-sighted view. Just take a look at the recent Cuban and Asian immigrant populations. Stereotypically, these groups are believers in hard work, small business, education and family. This sounds a lot like a centrist Republican to me, and also a centrist Democrat. Or more broadly, it sounds American.  This Voting Bloc argument also speaks of a person who votes party over country and assumes that everyone else does the same. Call me naïve, but I do everything I can to convince and educate my fellow citizen to consider each candidate individually and vote for the best candidate, regardless of party. Now, if the Republicans choose to pursue policies that alienate recent immigrant citizens, college educated citizens, Rockefeller / Reagan / Bush Republicans, and Centrist Democrats, exactly who is responsible for increasing the number of Democratic voters?

We are Giving Away Our Country.I’m going to use a Texas example to illustrate the fallacy of this argument. Consider Calvert, Texas and College Station, Texas. In the late 1800’s Calvert was one of the largest cities in Texas. It was the front runner to be the home of a new state university. Now this new state university would obviously be staffed with “progressive” thinkers and enroll hundreds of hormone fueled young men that would corrupt the morals of the fine Calvert lady folk. So, the leaders of Calvert, Texas took a pass on the new university to “protect” their city. Fast forward a hundred years and Calvert, Texas is a community on life support and College Station, Texas is a vibrant and growing mid-sized city.

With countries (as it is with towns) you are either moving forward, growing, building and evolving. Or you are dying. Immigrants, legal and illegal (and we can fix the illegal part), represent growth and economic fuel. I have faith in America. We have assimilated every immigrant group that has come to our shores. Yes, immigrants change us a little. But we change the immigrants a lot.

As I wrote previously, those who come to our country are more like us, than different. They are willing to do whatever it takes to survive and succeed. They are our parents, grandparents and great grandparents. The real question is how shall we treat them?

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn…

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