Breaking: Unaccompanied immigrant children being flown to IAH

[JDPriestly]

11. How many bunches of children do you think the US should accept?

I favor granting citizenship to those young people who were raised in the US and are here.

I live in Los Angeles and I love my immigrant neighbors. We have immigrants in our family -- come recent ones although my family goes way back.

But, we are getting immigrants often college-aged from all over the world, from Asian countries like China, from Africa, from Latin America, from Europe (yes, from Europe. You don't see them, but they too come illegally in some cases. I know some.), from the Middle East. We get students who overstay their visas or who come on student visas and then look for some sort of a job and then have a baby and stay.

The numbers of immigrants coming to a country in which we are already suffering from an economic crisis, low wages and too few jobs? Immigration is great in times when the economy is good and jobs plentiful. That is not the case now. It isn't that the immigrants are bad. It is that our economy is in no condition to absorb them or take care of their needs.

And this immigration problem is not just in the US. The recent European election results in which in countries like France bigoted right-wing parties increased their share of the vote show that immigration is an international problem.

The idea of a global economy sounds idealistic. But in reality, it rapidly pushes indigenous people into lifestyles and economic realities that in turn push them out. The idea of the global economy has meant a lower standard of living for most people, lower than the new technologies would suggest it should be.

The heart says to have compassion for these children, and that is good. But the problem is far more challenging than that.

First, countries that are throwing their children out or scaring them out or harassing them out or that are not taking care of their own children need to be held responsible for the futures of their kids. Mexico sends illegal immigrants to the US in large numbers. They are economic immigrants. Remember. The richest man in the world is from Mexico. The disparity of wealth in Mexico means that Mexico has an extremely wealthy class and many very poor people. That is where disparity in incomes if allowed to follow its natural course leads.

Second, we need an international program on family planning. No family or nation has the right to have more children than it can reasonably provide for. Every child deserves at least to have a possibility of survival. At the same time, the earth does not have limitless resources, and our technology is also limited in terms of what it can help us provide.

So we should have compassion but that compassion should reach to resolving problems in the countries that are pushing their children out into our country. The Pope does not demonstrate compassion when he talks about charity for the poor but encourages families and entire countries to have children they cannot possibly provide for.

I do not oppose immigration, but these kids present serious problems. They are not prepared to take care of themselves in our society. What skills do they bring with them? What education? How will they make a living? Who is going to take care of them?

If they are escaping violence and gangs, they have come to the wrong place because we have more than enough of violence and gangs here.

The answer is not simply to give the kids a hug and offer them a hotel room. That would be easy. That is what we have done to some extent since the Reagan era. But it is much more complex than that.

When my ancestors came here, they could work and then buy land of their own. That is no longer possible. When the post-WWII immigrants through the administration of GWB came, there were jobs for them. There was hope. But what can we offer these newcomers when our own children are hard-pressed to repay their student loans on their pay in service jobs. We do not have a manufacturing sector that can hire as much unskilled labor as the world can send to our shores.

We need to have a rational discussion about this, an international discussion. This is not just an American problem.