IF SOME PEOPLE HAVE THEIR WAY, YES: Joel Kotkin: Will Race Issues Destroy America?

Kumbaya is not a country

The ugliness of nativist rhetoric has also reinforced the self-righteousness with which the progressive left, and their media allies, address immigration and diversity. Yet like their Trumpian foes they have created their own mythology which skips over reality and ignores basic facts.

This particularly applies to the notion that all immigration is essentially good. Some California secessionists even suggest it’s a good thing to export our native middle class in order to make room for more energetic immigrants.

Many immigration advocates particularly ignore the economic realities of low-skilled immigration. In California nearly three quarters of non-citizen Latinos live in poverty, this in a state determined to welcome more undocumented, often poor, immigrants. Rarely considered is the impact on wages at the lower end of the job spectrum, something that the late Rep. Barbara Jordan, D-Texas, suggested as early as 1997 and has been demonstrated recently in the leftist American Prospect. Many of the progressive policies in the state, notably those exacerbating high energy and housing costs, have made the lives of the immigrant population even worse. A poorly performing school system is not much of a help either.

Lax immigration laws even impact some high end workers. The H-1B visa program essentially replaces American workers with indentured servants, mostly from developing countries. Silicon Valley hires almost half of all these bound workers.

As a great man said, when your heart is full of patriotism, there’s no room for bigotry. But not enough hearts are so filled.