The Greenbacks

A computer programmer in Hartford, Connecticut was complaining politely to an Indian programmer here on an H-1B visa that all the immigrants were taking American jobs and that it could ruin the American economy.

“That’s all right,” said the Indian programmer, “I will just go back to India.”

Somehow Americans have been convinced over the past few decades that immigration per se is a good thing and that Americans prosper every time an immigrant, legal or illegal, arrives by plane or crawls under the fence. Nothing could be further from the truth. Samuel Gompers, early president of the American Federation of Labor and himself an immigrant, recognized that immigration is a labor issue.

Generally, only the few immigrants fleeing persecution in a foreign country come to the United States seeking its freedom, liberty and justice. They often become citizens and often are more patriotic than native born Americans who take our freedoms granted. Those fleeing tyranny realized that freedom must be valiantly guarded.

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An illegal brought to this country when he was four gave this has his reason for wanting to stay in the United States and receive a low in-state tuition from Connecticut universities, “‘I want to stay in the States. There is (sic) more opportunities here,” said Sebastian, a Colombian native who has attended Stamford Public Schools since fourth grade.’” Nothing in the newspaper article says anything about him wanting to be part of the United States, that he values his life here or appreciates the country. There is nothing to indicate that he ever tried to gain citizenship. For him, as for the overwhelming number of immigrants, it is about money.

These are the Greenbacks. They are here for the money and that is it. If the money were greater in their home country, they would not have come here in the first place, or they would return if the wages were higher.

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