So the new immigration bill would increase visas for high tech jobs. How will this help us again?

[pampango]

20. All immigrants are either children, retired/disabled or working age adults. If they are working age,

the question becomes "What kind of job are they are they doing - farm work, computer programming, etc.

If we only admit immigrants who are children or retired/disabled adults, we will get howls of protest from many (particularly on the right) that we are overburdening our schools and government programs with 'unproductive' immigrants. If we admit working age adults, we will get howls from every group that thinks immigrants are a drag on their prospects in the career or occupation they work.

At the same time we get these howls from all directions over the nature of the immigrants we are proposing to admit to the country, everyone (particularly on the left but even the right feels compelled to support legal immigration) loves immigrants in theory. We cherish our immigrant history and culture and the diversity that it has produced.

But when the conversation shifts to the future of immigration (rather than the past), the story changes. It seems that each immigrant becomes a 'threat' either as a burden to society or as competition for jobs.

Of course, this has always been the American attitude towards immigration - anti-Catholic, anti-Irish, anti-Chinese, anti-Mexican through the ages. There has always been plenty of anti-immigrant sentiment but, fortunately for most of us, immigrants continued to come to the US and it turned out they were not the 'burden' (but rather an 'asset').