Immigrants Crucial To Innovation 463
gollum123 sends this excerpt from the NY Times:
"Arguing against immigration policies that force foreign-born innovators to leave the United States, a new study (PDF) to be released on Tuesday shows that immigrants played a role in more than three out of four patents at the nation's top research universities. Conducted by the Partnership for a New American Economy, a nonprofit group co-founded by Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, the study notes that nearly all the patents were in science, technology, engineering and math, the so-called STEM fields that are a crucial driver of job growth. ... The Partnership for a New American Economy released a paper in May saying that other nations were aggressively courting highly skilled citizens who had settled in the United States, urging them to return to their home countries. The partnership supports legislation that would make it easier for foreign-born STEM graduates and entrepreneurs to stay in the United States. ... The study notes that nine out of 10 patents at the University of Illinois system in 2011 had at least one foreign-born inventor. Of those, 64 percent had a foreign inventor who was not yet a professor but rather a student, researcher or postdoctoral fellow, a group more likely to face immigration problems."
Re:still... (Score:4, Interesting)
>>>Kill everyone who's already living here
90% of the Indians were killed-off by a bacteria and viruses. The Europeans experienced the Plagues of the 400s and 700s and also the Black Death in the 1400s. The native americans did not have exposure to any of these diseases, until the 1600s and 1700s, and it wiped most of them out.
>>>throw the survivors in reservations
The Supreme Court TRIED to stop that practice by issuing decisions that the Indians did not need to move, but the slave-owning Democrats who were in charge (like Andrew Jackson) decided the Supreme Court can shutup, and moves the Indians anyway.
>>>strip-mine all the resources?
Running-out of resources sounds like a good reason to limit population growth to me (by closing the borders & only allowing legal immigrants). Else come the 2030s we won't be able to feed ourselves or heat our homes, due to scarcity.
Re:My Take (Score:4, Interesting)
When I was a boy in the mid 60s, I sometimes accompanied my dad to Chinatown on business. The place was full of old, old men. No women, no children, almost no men under 60. The reason was that America had needed Chinese labor in the late 19th and earty 20th C., because the ingenuity and work ethic of Chinese workers were valued. But Americans didn't want Chinese people settling here, because they were afraid of being out-competed if those workers settled down here with their families and started businesses and farms. Until 1943 it was illegal to bring Chinese women into the country, and between '43 and '65 only a handful of Chinese immigrants were allowed in each year.
Through the 19th and early 20th C., successful Chinese businesses were frequently attacked, sometimes whole communities driven out of town. Although many Chinese men had agricultural experience, it was impossible to farm because of vandalism by Americans. It was rough making a living. These old men had spent the prime of their lives making money under adverse conditions and sending it back home to support the families they couldn't bring in here, and now they were too old to go back home.
So don't talk to me about the sanctity of American immigration law. It's nothing but a hypocritical crock of shit.
For years Mexicans have been coming here illegally, and we've turned a blind eye to them because we need them. They'll work harder for less money than all but the most industrious Americans. Our comfortable middle-class lives are underwritten by "illegals" providing cheap food and services, but we won't offer them the dignity of legal status because we want to pretend we're not letting in as many brown people as we actually are. We don't really go after the people hiring these immigrants because we want the benefits of more labor than we're willing to let in.
What do people do when faced with a stupid, hypocritical, unjust law? They break it. Speed limit on some stretch of road lower than is reasonable? I bet you go over it and never think of yourself as committing a *real* crime. But what about some poor bastard who just wants to feed his family and comes here *because we need and want him* to work like a dog to support our lifestyle? He's a criminal, right? What about the people setting immigration policies with the clear understanding that they could and should be broken? They have conspired to systematically undermine the rule of law, but we don't call *them* criminals. We re-elect them because they're tough on illegal immigration and pro-business, which means they cater to the needs of people who hire undocumented workers.
American immigration policy is sickening. It's disgraceful, racist, and hypocritical, because we elect politicians who pander to us and undermine the rule of law.