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Written by Simon
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Tuesday, 12 February 2008 |
A Wall Street Journal opinion article on February 12, 2008 reported that in 2007 a record eight million people relocated from one state to another. This is sixteen times the reported half million who moved here from another country without a visa and five time the total immigrants from outside the USA. Why do the eight million state to state movers hardly cause a ripple in our economy or in the news? Yet the half million undocumented country to country movers are a cause of great consternation and are supposedly a great cost to the nation.
Are the economics of the half million dramatically worse than the eight million? Think about this: When people move from Michigan (the biggest losing state) to Nevada (the biggest gainer) we think that Nevada is thriving and Michigan has to “do something.” But when people move from Mexico to the USA we want to stop it from happening. It is not economics.
Xenophobia? We are about to nominate a black man to run for President. The people of the USA are less racists and xenophobic than most other places on the planet.
Or is this fear of Mexicans a misunderstanding? We forget that all prior immigrant groups have been different. We forget that it takes a few generations for new immigrants to adapt. We hear people say “which part of illegal don’t you understand?” and we stop thinking about what is best for us and the world and get defensive about a bad law that helps no one.
The place that should be worried about immigration from Mexico to the USA is Mexico. The best and the brightest from Mexico are moving to the USA and are adapting our culture and norms. Some people feel threatened by the Mexican migration and feel that our culture will be over run. But the opposite is true. Mexicans are voting with their feet to get to the USA and are adopting our culture because it works better than the one they leave at home.
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