Treating Illegal Aliens Like People, For Our Sake

WITHIN RECENT MEMORY America was lily white, with the others living on the fringes, in the shadows, out of sight, as it were. Now, we have become a rainbow coalition, with blacks, Hispanics, and Asians stepping out to take their place among the crackers, and not all the honkies are good to go, down with it, or in the least happy. Many, in fact, seem filled to the brim with xenophobic anti-immigrant hatred, and yearn to "make America great again", the way it was, allegedly, in the good old bygone days of lily whiteness. Hence, Trump. The prevailing narrative is that the fruited plain is being overrun by hordes of illegal brown people, a veritable cascade of criminals whose intent is to take all the jobs in America, live off our welfare system, do drugs, and lord only knows what else. The only problem with this paradigm, other than its basis in hatred, is the simple, unadorned fact that it aint so. Its a lie. For verification, ask professor Doug Mathews of the Princeton sociology department, the world's leading authority on the sociology of human migration. This scholar has all the answers and numbers, "believe me", as the Donald might say. Now, for some facts. Fact number one is that there has been no illegal immigration into the United States from Mexico since 2007, the year it was all shut down. Obama has enforced it stringently, and has actually deported thousands of illegals, with more to go. More people are leaving than entering, either because they wised up and decided to not stay where they are not wanted, or realized finally that there is no more opportunity on one side of the Rio Grande than the other. Fact number two is that by being here, the illegal immigrants take jobs away from nobody, and their very presence, besides contributing to the economy by paying taxes and consuming and spending money, expands the market and creates new jobs, jobs which would otherwise go neglected. All native born Americans, you may recall, are either stock brokers or lawyers, not carpenters and framers. Mexicans work, and work hard, improving the American economy. It is a fact also that neighborhoods with high numbers of illegal residents have lower crime rates than those inhabited exclusively by native born Americans, and, as Casey Stengel used to say, you could look it up. Yes, they do attend American public schools and use the emergency room from time to time. What that does is give more work and tax revenue to American school systems and more demand for medical services, which creates supply. Last but not least, the border crossers tend to be young, healthy, and hard working, just what the doctor ordered for a country getting older by the minute, with a declining birth rate, where everyone wants to retire at fifty five, and where there is more hard work to be done than ever. Exactly who, other than immigrants, is going to pick the fruit, tend the gardens, and roof the houses? A soon as somebody has a bright idea, please, share, and we can start kicking people out. But until then, maybe we'd better ease up a bit, and actually start treating the illegals like people, and let them join the fun, legally.