We certainly need immigrants. The question is what type and how many.

Massive illegal immigration reduces productivity, letting employers through serf labor at problems rather than having to invent new machines to do the job.

Bush’s amnesty rewards illegal behavior. It will encourage even more illegal immigration, and that will lead to yet another amnesty down the line. That (second) amnesty will be called the “one final amnesty” just like all the preceding amnesties were, and it will be followed by a third, fourth, etc. etc.

And, according to administration representative Margaret Spellings:

“We do envision that this would be open to any type of employee and any type of employer, such as nurses, teachers, high-tech workers, low-skilled workers. This is a concept that can apply broadly”

In other words, nearly all jobs – even those that currently pay a high wage – are at risk from Bush’s proposal. Those jobs will be offered to Americans first. But, with bidding on those jobs open to millions in India and China, at what wage rate?

That settles it, I’m taking my own food with me when I travel abroad.

Philip,
You are right that U.S. needs immigrants, so that the country has better presidential candidates than George Bush.
But U.S. might now have to live with the likes of George Bush, since the brighter immigrants are now going to Canada, and not to U.S.

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Immigrants will also considerably show down the ageing of your population. An estimate from a recent article in the Economist says that by 2050 the average age in the U.S will be 30+ (I forgot the exact number) while the average age in the Europe will be 50+.

Funny, just the other day I was thinking that academic and business visa delays ( http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=10931 ), making foreign students pay to be spied on ( http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=13437 ), fingerprinting people at their airport and charging $100 for a visa application were excellent ways to squander America’s lead in attracting skilled immigrants to Europe, whose shrinking population now realizes it needs immigrants to maintain its pensions ( link deleted to pass spam filter ).

The only hope is that xenophobes in Europe ( link deleted to pass spam filter ) will continue to try and make the immigrants there feel less welcome. Maybe then Bush will have turned around some of the security delays and more draconian tactics.

Funny, just the other day I was thinking that academic and business visa delays ( http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=10931 ), making foreign students pay to be spied on ( http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=13437 ), fingerprinting people at their airport and charging $100 for a visa application were excellent ways to squander America’s lead in attracting skilled immigrants to Europe, whose shrinking population now realizes it needs immigrants to maintain its pensions ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2053581.stm ).

The only hope is that xenophobes in Europe (link deleted to pass spam filter) will continue to try and make the immigrants there feel less welcome. Maybe then Bush will have turned around some of the security delays and more draconian tactics.

Funny, just the other day I was thinking that academic and business visa delays ( http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=10931 ), making foreign students pay to be spied on ( http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=13437 ), fingerprinting people at their airport and charging $100 for a visa application were excellent ways to squander America’s lead in attracting skilled immigrants to Europe, whose shrinking population now realizes it needs immigrants to maintain its pensions ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2053581.stm ).

The only hope is that xenophobes in Europe ( http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901031222-561442,00.html ) will continue to try and make the immigrants there feel less welcome. Maybe then Bush will have turned around some of the security delays and more draconian tactics.

Gee, I was just thinking that Homeland Security-related Visa delays (see http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=10931 ), charging foreign students a fee to be spied on (see http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=13437 ), fingerprinting people at the aiport are all excellent ways to squander our lead on immigrant-friendliness now that shrinking European countires have begun to realize they need immigrant workers to fund their pensions (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2053581.stm ) and are starting to compete with us for the world’s best and brightest.

Our only hope is the xenophobes in Europe will continue to flex their political muscle ( http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901031222-561442,00.html ).

At the moment, there are 3 workers for every retiree. In 10-20 years, there will be 1.5 workers/retiree.

Unless we want to tax workers at a very high level, or watch retirees starve, we’ll need more workers. Immigration is the best way to deal with coming demographic issues.