Bruce Bialosky – townhall.com – January 28, 2018

The world was different when Emma Lazarus wrote the poem that is now part of the Statue of Liberty and my relatives came here from Lithuania in the 19th century.

As our elected officials in Washington (notice I did not say leaders) bicker over any changes to our immigration system, they repeat quite often silly statements that have either no relevance to the discussion and/or are major distractions. Let’s address those ideas so that we might bring them into the modern era.

It is high time that politicians from both sides of the aisle stop telling us of the “huddled masses” which their families were a part of more than a century ago when they came to this country. The statements are quaint, but have little or no relevance to the world of today. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) reminding us of his Irish forbearers from times gone by really adds nothing to a sophisticated discussion of our 2018 immigration policy in a high-tech economy.
Meld these two thoughts together. First, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” Second, the fact that we are developing driverless cars and trucks that could put over one million truck drivers and other service people out of jobs. Or just think of your local parking lot where the ticket taker is no longer needed at the kiosk and you self-pay with your credit card.

The world was different when Emma Lazarus wrote the poem that is now part of the Statue of Liberty and my relatives came here from Lithuania in the 19th century. We were in transition from an agrarian society to an industrial society. We are now a high-tech society. Yes, we need people to work in our restaurants, clean our hotel rooms and pick our strawberries, but how many of those people do we need and how many are just taking jobs from Americans of lower work skills entering the job market? That is why we need a thoughtful, comprehensive immigration policy for this country that looks towards the future and not the past.
Another reason this is so important is because of the difference between how our government functions today and how it did over a century ago. Defenders of illegal immigrants always want to tell us of how these people add to our economy. Yes, the vast majority of these people are hardworking individuals who want to advance their lives beyond the opportunities available in the largely dysfunctional countries they came here from. That is why they are willing to risk their lives and travel long distances to enter the land of opportunity – America.

On the other hand, the fact that large numbers of these people draw government services paid for by natural-born Americans is undeniable despite the illegal immigrant advocates’ attempts to deny or downplay that. Coming to America and getting your children an American education, using our medical system, living in our advanced housing and being provided food benefits to feed your family is a tremendous draw over living in a despotic or dysfunctional country. These free governmental services were not provided to legal or illegal immigrants a century ago; thus, the comparison to those times has little or no validity. Just think how many Venezuelans would love to be teleported to the United States today. That is not the question. The question is how many people and of what personal background (not religious or ethnic) should enter this country?

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Source: Stop the Silly Statements About Immigration If You Want to Reach an Agreement – Bruce Bialosky