Just how many people are you prepared to admit to the US? A huge percentage of the world would love to live here. If you throw open the doors as you suggest, I could see the US population easily doubling or tripling in less than a generation, and it would be predominently the poor and uneducated.
First of all, why did you post anonymously? We can't have a real conversation if I don't know who you are. You obviously know who I am, which puts me at a disadvantage. Well, I guess since I can't talk to you directly, I'll try to answer you here.
Just how many people should we admit into the US? I don't know. And are you sure, Mr. Anonymous, that a huge percentage of the world would like to live here? That's kind of an ethnocentric thing to say. Who's to say they wouldn't rather live in Canada, or Russia, or Brazil? Those are all big countries, with lots of resources and open space. But let's say the world's huddled masses (I think that's written on the Statue of Liberty) all want to move here. Our population doubling or tripling in size wouldn't matter as much if we all learned to live on less. We don't really need three cars and big houses with tons of wasted space, and we don't need rooms full stuff that just gathers dust. Actually, that's the way most of the rest of the world lives anyway, and we've just kind of become used to living in excess. As far as the food supply goes, I figure we can dip into those mountains of corn that end up rotting away each year in warehouses. Also, we could stop processing our food so much, so more of the raw, healthier ingredients can reach consumers. Plus, a larger population of legal denizens equals more jobs and more tax revenue, right? If they are all the poor and uneducated, then, we could stop outsourcing everything overseas and go back to doing all our manufacturing here. Nobody is the loser here.
But to be fair, Mrs Anonymous, it is true that there needs to be some ordered way of nationalizing people who want to live here. We can't just call a free-for all, there's got to be a process. I don't know what that process should be, I just think it should be a little more inclusive.
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Thanks for posting a response to this issue. Can I add a few points? First, did anyone compare the behavior of immigrant teens with resident teens? Is their behavior any different? Probably not, it seems that teenage years are generally difficult as teens begin to understand their relationship with power structures such as educational institutions. Second, people generally see the desire of immigrants to migrant as the only driving force behind illegal moves, with claims that they all just really want to be in the U.S. However, if you do your research about economic and social forces at play behind migration you find a lot of forces beyond the control of individual migrants (devaluation of currency, drought, civil unrest, war, etc). In the case of Mexico (and many other countries) those forces are or were put into motion by U.S. government policy (ex: NAFTA) and IMF/World Bank programs. Many policies have bankrupted Mexican farmers and towns, led to rising costs of food and a loss of jobs. A specific, small example is the case of corn. The U.S. produces it cheaper and has flooded the Mexican market, putting thousands of farmers out of work. Now, if these and other forces were at play in your life, wouldn't you consider moving? Third, it's an old, trite argument for the advantaged to claim that others are disadvantaged because they do not share the values of the wealthy. Mexican immigrants share many American values but oft times do not have the social or economic means to achieve them, so claiming their children are immoral and ungrateful is an uninformed generalization.
Thank, Jenn
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