Illegal Immigration

The Miami Herald is running a three-part story on illegal immigration. The series is entitled Illegal Immigration: Changing Course, the initial focus being on the economic downswing in the United States and how that has effected the illegals. One of the articles in today's Part I, Funds at risk for families back home, contains the following information which I found amazing.

INTIPUCA, El Salvador -- For almost two generations, residents of this rural community who emigrated to the United States have sent back tens of millions of dollars to support their families and bring prosperity to their once impoverished town.

Officials of Intipucá, 120 miles east of San Salvador, were so grateful for those remittances that they built a park to honor migrants, with a statue representing the first resident to leave for the United States back in 1967.

In a report on the outlook of remittance flows from 2008 to 2010, the World Bank said that remittances to Latin America will remain flat next year in the best-case scenario, but that in the worst-case scenario, they will decline to $58 billion from $61 billion.

Is it really possible that the cleaning lady who sends $50 a week home and the day laborer who sends $100 can add up to $60 billion?

You guys who like statistics can put a calculator to that one, but I just call it amazing. This is another example of the tremendous impact America has on the rest of the world. I would say with that much power to influence comes a great responsibility. These illegal immigrants aren't animals of a lower species. They're people like you and me who deserve opportunity as well as respect. In my personal order of things I place them one step above the rest of us who have had it easy by comparison.

What's your opinion? Should we close up the borders and keep these people out? Does our own economic survival depend on that? Is there any truth to the claim that illegals take jobs away from American citizens? I never understood it really. Don't they do a lot of low level jobs that more affluent Americans shun? And for middle and upper level jobs wouldn't their numbers only increase the competition? What's wrong with that?

Please leave a comment with your opinion.