I was responding to something I caught a whiff of on this thread, and you're right, not the actual topic of discussion. The anecdotes do involve individual people, however, and more often then not I think the immigration debate in this country has more to do with race and ethnicity than policy. You never hear complaints about Canadians coming across the border to steal peoples' jobs. Not sure whether I think the H1B program should be expanded or not. I think it should be easier to get a green card. Ultimately, I think people who want to work hard and help others should be more free to move about the world. -Erik On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 10:58 AM, Mike Miller <mbmiller+l at gmail.com> wrote: > On Sun, 10 Feb 2013, Erik Mitchell wrote: > >> In my career, I've had the good fortune of working with people from all >> over the world. India, China, Romania, Hungary, Ukraine, Canada, Latvia, >> Jamaica, as well as other countries I'm sure I'm forgetting. I consider my >> life richer for the friends I've made, and I've always felt bad when my >> friends have to deal with extra hassles to deal with immigration issues, >> just so they can live and work where they'd like to on this planet. I've >> felt ashamed when I see fellow Americans treat them badly, just because they >> were born elsewhere on the planet. >> >> I hope in my lifetime I'll have the chance to travel to other countries to >> live and work, and I hope to find people who are welcoming, rather than the >> type of people to bitch and moan about their lot in life, like I'm seeing on >> this thread. I think it's bigoted and pathetic, and I'm glad I don't work >> with you. > > > > That's a nice sentiment, but the topic here was really about policy, not > about the people. You might be talking about the kinds of hateful > anti-immigrant statements we sometimes hear in this country and in other > countries both now and at earlier times. I don't think I've heard any of > that kind of talk here, but it seems like you are accusing us of it. > > I don't want to see a flood of immigrant workers coming into our country > while unemployent is high. It doesn't make any sense, well, unless the goal > is to create a labor glut, increase competition for jobs and cut worker pay. > The problem isn't the immigrants, it's the policy makers. > > People who are doing well are happy to have immigrants, but people who are > struggling and out of work may feel differently. They are the people who > will fall for anti-immigrant, nationalist rhetoric and start attacking > innocent people. In other words, widespread anti-immigrant bigotry is > caused partly by bad policy. > > Like the liberal NY Times, I oppose the proposed massive increase in H-1B > visas even though my wife is an immigrant (now US citizen) who came here on > an H-1B. It's not an anti-immigrant position. > > Mike > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list -- Erik K. Mitchell erik.mitchell at gmail.com