Thomas Friedman’s been writing about the value on entrepreneurship to buoy our economy.  He wrote today about how a start-up company founded by immigrants from Cuba and India are working on a cutting edge medical devise with the help of Israeli engineers. They are America’s future. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/opinion/18friedman.html?hp

Then I read on the USA Today website about a group of Neo-Nazis marching in LA against Jews and immigrants.  They say that the immigrents are taking jobs and committing crimes, as if white people don’t commit crimes. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-04-17-nazi-los-angeles-rally_N.htm?csp=hf
Makes me realize that uneducated, ignorant people fear change. They also hate the fact that there are harder-working smarter people they they are.

What are your thoughts on the immigration debate?

We are a xenophobic country, with a broken immigration system, and most people do not understand the draconian immigration laws.
Immigrants built this country and continue to build us as a nation. They work in our nursing homes, doing jobs that are going begging. Every month I get calls from an employer who needs a child care worker or CNA or want to help sponsor a nanny amd I have to tell them the process will take ten to fifteen years.  Foreign nationals graduate from our universities, and then we send them home, sending thier skills to other countries, because we do not have enough visa numbers to allow them to apply for work authorization or permanent residence. Every day employers tell me that they want to hire or continue to hire a new grad and when I tell them it will take up to forty years for an Indian national to get a green card, they think I am making it up. I am an immigration attorney and I see this every day. These are people who have been doing everything properly, entered the US on valid visas and can not get green cards.

On the other side, our best and brightest students who were brought here as young children, but whose visas expired have no way to legalize. The DREAM Act which would help these students fails in Congress year after year.
How do you tell a 17 year old who has been here since age two that even though he is the high school valedictorian, he can not go to college or get a social security number and work? How do you tell the US citizen who marries someone who entered the US improperly twenty years ago that that spouse must leave the US and leave their US children behind? How do you tell a US born child that their foeeign born siblings are being deported but that the US children can stay? 
It is easier to lump people towether as “illegals” than to listen to their stories and realize the vast majority of them entered lawfully. They want a better life for their children or seek asylum or have something to contribute to the US, just like our own ancestors fleeing Nazis or pograms or devastating conditions.

No human is illegal. Tikkun Olam