Like the author, I too spend alot of time hanging out with immigrants. My spouse and several in-laws immigrated to the U. S. A. However, I must agree with him on this issue.

http://orlandosentinel.com/automagic/columnists/2000-08-29/OPEDreese29082900.html

Problem with immigration is not the people but the numbers Charley Reese Commentary

Published in The Orlando Sentinel on August 29, 2000

Crowded skies, crowded roads and crowded parks seem to be the big topics these days, but hardly anyone ever points to the obvious cause -- too many people.

The hard truth is that none of those problems can be solved unless some attention is paid to population growth. Most pollution is a product of large numbers.

Most of what people complain about -- traffic jams in the air and on the ground, not to mention pollution -- are all direct results of too many people. The bulk of America's growth in the past decade has been from immigration. In the past 50 years, population has increased by about 120 million folks.

The only quick and decent way to put a dent in America's population growth is to scale back on immigration. The birth rate currently is not high.

Next time you're cooling your heels at an airport or sitting in traffic, just remember that your wonderful elected officials in Washington believe that adding a million legal immigrants and another quarter of a million illegal immigrants each and every year is a very good thing to do.

After all, those officials are enlightened and progressive, and those of us who suggest that the number of immigrants be limited are, of course, nativists, racists, etc. But, hey, if you're going to leave the doors wide open, then don't complain about the crowds.

My only problem with immigration is numbers. As for the immigrants, most of those I've met are better than a lot of natives they will eventually displace. One of the reasons I hang out with immigrants is that they can find much more interesting things to talk about than some stupid television show. Many of them can tell you real survival stories.

But in addition to adding to pollution and creating traffic jams on land and in the air, the Smiley Folk in Congress are also creating potential social explosions. These time bombs consist of the following elements:

1. Continued export of manufacturing jobs under the false flag of free trade. The end result will be an economy in which only those with above-average intelligence quotients will be able to find a job that pays a wage that will support dignity. The rest will have to fight for the low-pay service jobs.

2. The continued open-door policy, however, will force the native born to compete with people who, coming from countries where the alternative to hard work is starvation, can work rings around them and, therefore, will soon have all the service jobs locked up.

3. The continuing political pandering to racial and ethnic groups, which fans resentment, rivalry and hostility.

4. The electronic-communications industry, which can take any small incident and magnify and distort it into national, or global, ersatz crisis. For the first time, the power to create a lynch mob now rests with television moguls and their flunkies.

That's your powder. The ignition can be anything from the inevitable economic recession to some incident of real or imagined injustice.

The reshaping of the American economy is much more important than most politicians seem to think.

There's a big difference in an economy in which a young man, flipping hamburgers, can see that as merely a steppingstone to a better life and an economy in which a middle-age man realizes that there is no steppingstone available, that what he has now is all he will ever have. Hopeless people with nothing to lose can be very dangerous folks.

I would advise people to develop an Oriental philosophy of fatalism, buy a gun and be careful where you live.

The Smiley Folk in Washington are preparing a future in which the lethargic are going to have a hard time enjoying their lethargy.

-- K (infosurf@yahoo.com), August 30, 2000