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Open Borders: The Real Immigration Solution
| Article
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12343 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1987 |
1,815 Words |
| Author
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Alan W. Bock
Alan Bock is senior columnist for the Orange County Register. |
The immigration problem in the United States - insofar as we accept conventional wisdom by calling immigration a problem - has a simple cause. Immigration is a problem because the American Dream, although tattered around the edges and undermined by an accretion of rules, regulations, and conventions, is still alive. Those of us who have lived in this country all our lives may have complaints about many things, but for those who view us from afar - whether from across the oceans or from across the border - this is still as close to a Promised Land as this troubled world affords.
So long as this country continues to honor the American dream of opportunity and liberty, and as long as other countries provide less a measure of these advantages, people will want to come here. Some call this a problem; others view it as an exhortation both to be true to the principles that have made this country so attractive and to continue to benefit from the inpouring of dynamism, variety, new ideas, and willingness to work that have contributed so much to the uniqueness of America.
All that may have been true when Emma Lazarus wrote that nice sonnet, some may say, but things have changed. This country can no longer afford to absorb all the wretched and tempest-tossed of the earth. Immigrants take jobs from native-born Americans, especially black Americans and those who are already living on the economic margin; they overload an already overburdened welfare system, harm the economy, depress wage levels, and deplete natural and sociological resources. Illegal immigrants become an underclass subject to exploitation. They stretch the limits of tolerance in a society already struggling with racial, ethnic, and cultural divisions unique in the world's
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