[Mb-civic] Immigrants to Be Proud Of By DAVID BROOKS

[john sullivan]

Everybody knows that immigrants add value to established societies. Refugees may be a different stripe fro the lack of free will in the decision.

But the Irish migration of the 1840's added value to dig the 19th century highways, the canals of the Midwest not to mention the transcontinental railway meeting the Chinese workers from the West at Omaha. 

Then, the Irish were very distrustful of the Italians arrival in the 1920s, and they were joined by the Jews who arrived in the 1890s.  

Frankly the Italians never recovered from the discrimination of the Jews and Irish. 

The Republican WASPs always understood the refreshing economic influx of cheap labour, hard working ethnics and free capital markets. 

Let's get over it; the Spanish are lovely people - even when they arrive from Mexico. 

My parents left Ireland in the 1920s looking for opportunity in Chicago, and As a native born son of ethnic Chicago I  returned to Ireland in the 1990s, looking for opportunity. We both did well. 

The only ones I would seriously question in this whole immigration tempest in a teapot are the illegal Irish who could easily return to Ireland and become millionaires like the rest of us. 

What is in their head to want to stay in New York and Chicago?  

I bet they shacked up with native American girls who do not have a passport, never mind an adventurous vision of Europe as the happy home of the Poles, Lithuanians, Italians, Spanish, Irish, etc x 25 ethnic countries ...

America get over it - immigrants are the lifeblood of growth and innovation- ask your relatives. 

Ireland is doing a national census next month and for the 1st time in the history of Ireland the documents are in 13 languages...to record the stats of the most open labour market in Europe - the migrants produce a level of productivity that is unsurpassed in Europe. 

Airlines have scrambled to connect Central European cities with Dublin. 

The real estate market is buoyant from the rent being paid by the several hundred thousand Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Latvians, not to mention the 50,000 Chinese to whom dozens of private schools teaches English. Ireland  passed a minimum wage per hour law of about 10 dollars an hour to keep people being exploited. 

Do the math in terms of rent for apartments, food stores, transport fares, movie tickets and airlines. The more immigrants the greater the wealth. 
They even go to Church on Sunday - unlike many natives. 

Total regard,

Dublinjack

PS I like the remark that the government politicos should be as virtuous as the immigrants!  So true, so true...
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Michael Butler 
  To: Civic 
  Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 6:11 PM
  Subject: [Mb-civic] Immigrants to Be Proud Of By DAVID BROOKS


  The New York Times
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  March 30, 2006
  Op-Ed Columnist
  Immigrants to Be Proud Of
  By DAVID BROOKS

  Everybody says the Republicans are split on immigration. The law-and-order
  types want to close the border. The free-market types want plentiful labor.
  But today I want to talk to the social conservatives, because it's you folks
  who are really going to swing this debate.

  I'd like to get you to believe what Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas
  believes: that a balanced immigration bill is consistent with conservative
  values. I'd like to try to persuade the evangelical leaders in the tall
  grass to stop hiding on this issue.

  My first argument is that the exclusionists are wrong when they say the
  current wave of immigration is tearing our social fabric. The facts show
  that the recent rise in immigration hasn't been accompanied by social
  breakdown, but by social repair. As immigration has surged, violent crime
  has fallen by 57 percent. Teen pregnancies and abortion rates have declined
  by a third. Teenagers are having fewer sexual partners and losing their
  virginity later. Teen suicide rates have dropped. The divorce rate for young
  people is on the way down.

  Over the past decade we've seen the beginnings of a moral revival, and some
  of the most important work has been done by Catholic and evangelical
  immigrant churches, by faith-based organizations like the Rev. Luis Cortés's
  Nueva Esperanza, by Hispanic mothers and fathers monitoring their kids. The
  anti-immigration crowd says this country is under assault. But if that's so,
  we're under assault by people who love their children.

  My second argument is that the immigrants themselves are like a booster shot
  of traditional morality injected into the body politic. Immigrants work
  hard. They build community groups. They have traditional ideas about family
  structure, and they work heroically to make them a reality.

  This is evident in everything from divorce rates (which are low, given
  immigrants' socioeconomic status) to their fertility rates (which are high)
  and even the way they shop.

  Hispanics and Hispanic immigrants have less money than average Americans,
  but they spend what they have on their families, usually in wholesome ways.
  According to Simmons Research, Hispanics are 57 percent more likely than
  average Americans to have purchased children's furniture in the past year.
  Mexican-Americans spend 93 percent more on children's music.

  According to the government's Consumer Expenditure Survey, Hispanics spend
  more on gifts, on average, than other Americans. They're more likely to
  support their parents financially. They're more likely to have big family
  dinners at home.

  This isn't alien behavior. It's admirable behavior, the antidote to the
  excessive individualism that social conservatives decry.

  My third argument is that good values lead to success, and that immigrants'
  long-term contributions more than compensate for the short-term strains they
  cause. There's no use denying the strains immigration imposes on schools,
  hospitals and wage levels in some markets (but economists are sharply
  divided on this).

  So over the long haul, today's immigrants succeed. By the second generation,
  most immigrant families are middle class and paying taxes that more than
  make up for the costs of the first generation. By the third generation, 90
  percent speak English fluently and 50 percent marry non-Latinos.

  My fourth argument is that government should be at least as virtuous as the
  immigrants themselves. Right now (as under Bill Frist's legislation),
  government pushes immigrants into a chaotic underground world. The Judiciary
  Committee's bill, which Senator Brownback supports, would tighten the
  borders, but it would also reward virtue. Immigrants who worked hard, paid
  fines, paid their taxes, stayed out of trouble and waited their turn would
  have a chance to become citizens. This isn't government enabling vice; it's
  government at its best, encouraging middle-class morality.

  Social conservatives, let me ask you to consider one final thing. Women who
  have recently arrived from Mexico have bigger, healthier babies than more
  affluent non-Hispanic white natives. That's because strong family and social
  networks support these pregnant women, reminding them what to eat and do.
  But the longer they stay, and the more assimilated they become, the more bad
  habits they acquire and the more problems their subsequent babies have.

  Please ask yourself this: As we contemplate America's moral fiber, do the
  real threats come from immigrants, or are some people merely blaming them
  for sins that are already here?

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