Immigration is the Solution

Everywhere we go we see signs, “please excuse us, we are short staffed,” Restaurants, the dry cleaners, the grocery. Unemployment is very low. Businesses can’t handle all the work they could have without more people. We can’t wait for Americans to birth more babies to fill these jobs, there aren’t enough nurses and health care aids to do that. There is one simple solution, the same solution America has turned to through out our history, immigrants.

When we built the railroad across the lower 48 we did it with Chinese workers, when we needed men to dig coal in Pennsylvania we did it with Germans immigrants, when wealthy people in the 1800’s needed house servants we did it with Irish girls. Of course when southern plantations needed workers they did it with slaves, immigrants against their will. But the history of this country is full of American growth on the labor of immigrants.

Those who say they don’t want immigrants now are not seeing the big picture. Who is going to cut lawns, re-shingle your roof, sort packages at UPS?

Florida, the state with the governor who spends state money to fly asylum seeks from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, could probably use a raft-load of strong men to help clean up and rebuild hurricane damage. People who were able to walk all the from Venezuela to America can probably carry lumber to frame houses.

It’s not just Florida, it’s the whole country that is short staffed with a big generation of workers retiring. We need workers and we need workers willing to work at less desirable jobs and that means immigrants. Any American who wants to work can get a job. They might not get the job they want, but there is a job for them. If Americans can’t or won’t fill all the low level jobs I can bet there are immigrants who will. They pay taxes and social security with no guarantee or benefiting from it in retirement.

Stop electing people who say that immigrants are the problem, they are the solution.