Pre-1965 immigrants were what made this country what it was for a reason: They were the pre-welfare state immigrants. From around 1630 to 1966, immigrants sank or swam. About a third of them couldn’t make it in America and went home — and those are the ones who weren’t rejected right off the boat for being sick, crippled or idiots.
That’s why corny stories of someone’s ancestors coming here a half-century ago are completely irrelevant. If their ancestors hadn’t succeeded, their great-grandchildren wouldn’t be here to tell the story because no one was given food stamps, free medical care and housing to stay. (And vote Democrat.)
Now we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel by holding ourselves out as the welfare ward of the world and specifically rejecting skilled immigrants.
As Milton Friedman said, you cannot have open borders and a welfare state. The reason a country’s average immigrant matters is that the losers never go home — they go on welfare. (Maybe if they had to work, immigrants wouldn’t have as much time to build bombs.) Airy statements about wanting to end welfare aren’t going to change that implacable fact.
via Coulter: When did we vote to become Mexico? | Human Events.