Immigrants

I haven't blogged much about the immigration issue largely because I don't have any particularly notable ideas about it. I do feel strongly that all the anti-foreigner stuff you keep hearing is just racism in (not very good) disguise. The idea of evicting 11 million illegal aliens is both ridiculous and unconscionable. The idea of building a Berlin Wall to keep people out strikes me as insane. Walls have never worked before (e.g., the Great Wall of China, Hadrian's Wall in Britain). This one will cost billions and do next to nothing except promote hatred between the U.S. and Mexico.

Paul Krugman made a fairly convincing case yesterday that further illegal immigration from poor countries may not be in the country's best interests, but I don't see any easy way to prevent it.

In any event, something brought the issue close to home yesterday. I have hired a landscaper to re-do the front of my property. The guy is Hispanic, probably Mexican, possibly illegal -- I have no idea. He and his team work the day shift for another landscaping company and are moonlighting on this job.

Yesterday, they showed up at about 5:15 pm. By 6:15 pm, the four of them had cleared out, roots and all, two huge (20 ft. tall) old rhododendrums and two sizeable (12-15 ft. tall) old mountain laurels, roots and all, and dumped and spread a truckload of fresh topsoil.

Having tried to remove much smaller dead shrubs myself, I can estimate that it would have taken me at least three or four days to remove each of these shrubs. That's about two man-weeks. These guys did it with nothing but picks and shovels in less than an hour (four man-hours). It was truly phenomenal.

Anyone who works their tail off like that after a full day's work deserves to be a citizen of this country if they want to be. I don't care whether they're legal or illegal.