However, the number of legal immigrants remains unchanged according to this story in the Washington Post today.
The Pew report found that the number of illegal immigrants entering the United States has declined from an average of 800,000 a year in 2000-04 to 500,000 a year in 2005-08.
By contrast, the flow of immigrants who are legal permanent residents has remained unchanged at 650,000 a year and has exceeded the number of illegal immigrant arrivals since last year.
650,000 is a lot of people looking for work, needing to be educated, fed, housed etc.
Sorry I don’t have time tonight, trying to get out of here for weekend meetings on immigration, to do this story justice. But, for all of you who know that immigration holds a key to most of America’s ills—environment, jobs, home ownership (the bailout!) even terrorism—do you find it as incredible as I do that the ‘I’ word (immigration!) never crosses the lips of any candidate in the debates?
By the way, Numbers USA has a new ad here. It is all about the numbers. I disagree with them in one respect and that culture matters too, some cultures are willing and able to assimilate and some aren’t. There is nothing wrong with us being discriminating about who gets the privilege of living in America.
Also, several groups including FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform), Numbers USA and the Social Contract ran an ad about immigration a couple of days ago in the Washington Post. If anyone has a link for the text, please send it along.