On Immigration

Some say that immigrants take away jobs from Americans.

How many American nurses and computer programmers are out of work because of cheaper immigrant labor, and how many American doctors are unemployed because of Indian doctors? And how many American gardeners and laborers are jobless because of Mexicans or Vietnamese?

In most cases the answer is negligible.

Is it better to have immigrants here doing jobs in America, paying taxes, shopping at American stores, building American economy or we should export jobs to keep out immigrants? Is that not like cutting our nose to spite our face?

We have failed to create high demand jobs. Other countries have created affordable career education directly linked to international industry demand patterns, therefore foreign nurses, doctors and computer programmers in America - and that's why more job exports because now the same trained work force is available in cheaper currencies in their native countries.

The answer is not fighting immigration. It is creating a competitive work force right here in America by making education affordable. If the States dealing with millions of unemployment claims got proactive about educating the unemployed ONLY in in-demand careers situation would improve but they are not, that is why we are not seeing a reduction in the unemployed ranks. Which State is going gung-ho on programming, nursing, project management, SAP, Oracle training? None, and those training courses are priced out of reach of most, but in India they are not, so we are pricing education out of reach of most Americans, and blaming Immigrants on our woes. Silly, isn't it?

As far as undocumented workers are concerned they are an easy target. If they went away would Americans take up $7 jobs, or want more because they are worth more? Not taking a cheap job and not being able to get a higher paying one is our problem, and no Immigration bill will fix it. Affordable education, taxes on imports and companies exporting jobs will fix it.