A Little Sanity, Please
And what is the point of our training the brightest foreign-born talent and then not letting that talent stay? It makes no sense to send these skilled professionals back to India or China to start businesses and develop new technologies for companies that will compete with the United States. Nor does it help us when American companies, denied their skill, create foreign subsidiaries and thus compound the problem of outsourced American jobs. One measure would be to stop counting family dependents against the cap.
Pervasive in all the debate is the deep fear that America is being divided into two cultures, with two languages, because of what many see as the unwillingness of Latinos, especially Mexican immigrants, to assimilate into American culture. Whereas European immigrants crossed an ocean with no thought of returning, Mexican and other Latino immigrants, with cellphones and no dividing ocean, retain ties to the homelands where their language and customs are rooted. Yet the fact is Hispanics are doing what American immigrants have always done: learning English, finishing school, opening their own businesses, and intermarrying with Americans--if anything, at a faster rate than previous ethnics.
The legislation advanced by Sen. John McCain would give them the traditional American second chance to play by the rules and become legal--a chance traditionally given to previous immigrants. This bill deserves support, for America has always come out ahead when it responds to the better angels of our being.
advertisement