Immigrants, especially the brown skinned ones crossing the southern border, are being vilified by the media, Republicans and some Democrats. It's the same old same old. The press plays up the lines at the border as a dire crisis, egged on by the GOP. Democrats fall into the familiar defensive crouch.
The attacks come in two distinctive directions. In the MAGA worldview, these immigrants are "poisoning the blood" of America and must be stopped. The more orthodox Republican view is the migrants are taking jobs away from honest, hard working (i.e. white) Americans and must be stopped.
It turns out neither view is correct. Many spanish speaking immigrants have political views nearly identical to the MAGA crowd and will probably become reliable conservatives much like the Cubans have over time. Also, as Paul Krugman points out in today's NYT, the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that immigrants wind up doing jobs native born Americans won't do. At the same time, this much younger cohort of foreign workers are contributing to medicare and social security, thereby pushing back the date where benefits will be cut.
For the most part, immigration is a win-win situation for Americans.. But as in previous generations, my Italian and Irish ancestors included, immigrants are targets of opportunity for demagogues.
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