Unfortuantely, I'd have liked to comment on this journal entry made by one of my friends/fans, but they didn't enable comments.
So, I'll leave my take on the issue here, and enable comments so we can stir up some healthy discussion on the topic.
Basically, I disagree. In my opinion, the reason for the current downfall of the US economy is due to a lack of immigration. No new skills are being imported, and the types of skills that American culture can generate have run dry. The US needs fresh blood to jumpstart its economy.
When a country allows immigration, even in the form of a temporary visa which can later be turned into permanent citizenship (perhaps my idea of the H-1B is off, I'm not American, sorry) one imports the skills of an individual who understands they need to work hard to get a footing in a new country. The country from which that person emmigrated already made the investment in getting that worker the skills they need. The country they will immigrate to gets a serious gift -- the $100,000 (or so) that educating that person would have normally cost is now effectively cost free.
So, to start with, the new country gets $100,000 worth of tax investment free of charge.
Next benefit is the fact that the worker has chosen to come to their new country. I think it's easy to argue that when someone makes their own life choices rather than having them impressed, or forced upon them, they are much more apt to stick with them.
Another benefit is that they're starting from square one. Everything they want in the new country will need to be purchased, causing a much needed influx in the housing economy (not to mention other sectors that benefit from this, like the Automobile industry, for example).
Increased immigration causes increased social diversity. While some countries unfortunately frown upon such activity, a country is much stronger when it has a high social and ethnic diversity. This is difficult to explain apart from the old axiom that a monoculture won't survive very long. I suppose, in simple terms, people start to understand each other's cultures, and gain an increased respect for others in this understanding, when it's difficult to form your own racially based cliques (wether the clique be in the form of everyone being of the same culture or not doesn't matter).
Also, one cannot forget that in virtually all industrialized 1st-world countries population is on the decline. In a country with as much usable land mass as the US, this is a shame and immigration would help to boost population, which, in turn, will help boost the economy.
And, last but not least, the most important benefit is that these workers will often have skills non-immigrans don't have, and don't want. For example, finding people willing to work in the trades, especially the tool and die industry, is extremely difficult, even in the worst of economies, in my country. However, many, many, many, immigrants have filled this need in our country. They never really took any jobs from anyone else -- nobody was interested.
What all this adds up to is a healthier economy that stimulates job growth and solves its own employment problems while retaining the less tangible benefits of a more diverse society and increased education level.
Of course, I am biased, as I'm Canadian by birth. This means, like the majority of children born in this country (or so it would seem), my parents were immigrants. And despite the fact that when they moved here their life was economically hard enough that they depended on charities to keep eating, our family is now envied by many born Canadians who have never endured any such hardships, but have simply chosen a life devoid of self-improvement.
Just my 2 cents. :-) Take 'em or leave 'em.
