Originally Posted by
psilvers
You want to be careful NOT to throw out the baby with the bath water! Illegal immigration costs us LOTS of money and we need to crack down on that. Legal immigration is another matter - that is one of the things that has kept this nation strong. I am a scientist and a lot of my colleagues are immigrants. They have come here because there are opportunities here for them that are not available in their own country. I worked as a tech for a few years in a big lab on the East Coast and I became friendly with a guy from abroad; we did a fair bit of fishing together. Steve started off as an Assistant Prof. at the research institute at which we worked. He then went on to a very successful career. In fact, a couple of years ago he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (USA). This is a very elite group of approximately 1500 scientists from the US with a few thrown in from other countries. Needless to say, election to the NAS is a great honor. Steve credits the US - to paraphrase him "The US says "If you can do it, come on over, we will give you a chance." Anyway, he felt there were opportunities here that weren't available in his own country. Oh yeah, where is he from?
GREAT BRITAIN!!
That being said, the head of the lab in which we worked was also a great scientist and also world renowned - he was from Singapore.
These people were legal immigrants, as were my grandparents. Legal immigration keeps us strong! Don't close the door on legal immigrants because of the problems caused by illegal immigration.
Just my $0.02
Pete