Don't shut that gate!

I heard a great point while listening to a back episode of Free Talk Live today (specifically, the show from 2007-06-30) - "illegal" immigration is a welfare problem, not an immigration problem. If you put out a bowl of milk every night for the stray cats in your neighborhood, don't complain when the strays from other neighborhoods start turning up for the free meal. Of course they're going to come for the handouts - if it's there, and there's a reasonably low chance of getting caught, there's no compelling reason not to. If you take away the free food, the strays will stop showing up and learn to procure their own food (or go somewhere else that offers handouts).

The real problem here, then, is not immigration itself, but our welfare state. For my part, I don't much care who comes to the United States, as long as they're willing to work and contribute. The people who come to this country for a free ride, however, are indeed a problem. I have enough of a problem with my tax dollars going to support lazy American citizens - the idea of lazy people from other countries showing up to take even more of the money stolen from us by the taxman is even worse. As far as people who legitimately can't work, there are private charitable organizations who are able to do a much better job than the government can (which, really, isn't all that hard). These people, however, are relatively very few. With things like the Internet and telecommuting, you'd really have to be bad off for there to be truly no job you could do.

As for the immigrants who do show up here to work and provide better for their families, I say more power to 'em. So many people complain that "They're taking our jobs!" but, really, they're not. They're just willing to work hard for minimum wage (or lower, in some cases), because they understand that a good work ethic is more important than a good flat-screen TV or a good sports car. For these people, the reason they come illegally is because it's so ridiculously hard and expensive to go through all the red tape and fees in our current system.

I apologize for the cliché, but this one happens to be true - this country was built on the backs of immigrants from all over the world. Unfortunately, with every wave there has been discrimination from the bulk of the citizenry. Many of these people forget that they themselves are only 2 or 3 generations removed from immigrants themselves. Since when does being born on one side of an imaginary line make a person better or more worthy than those born on the other side of that imaginary line?

So, taking these points into consideration, what reason could we really have to stop people from coming here from other countries to work? More workers means more production, more production means more wealth to be spread around, more wealth to be spread around is better for everybody. I'd very much like to hear from anybody who can give me a good reason why we really need to limit and regulate immigration, as opposed to just eliminating welfare.