Jerry Bowyer opens Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor… Arguments with this tip to masochists:
If you want a lot of hate mail, write pro-immigration articles for conservative publications.
A tired argument:
As the argument runs, we all like immigrants just fine, thank you. But what we don’t like is illegality. My grandfather, argues embattled Senator Rick Santorum, came here legally, and so should this generation’s immigrants. The problems here are legion. First, when our grandfathers came over here legally, it was relatively easy to do. During the late 19th and early 20th century, 37 million immigrants came to American shores. Irish, Italian, and Slovak workers flooded into the country, legally. To compare earlier waves of immigrants with current, largely Latino, immigrants is to leave out a tremendous shift in immigration law.Second, the argument is basically circular. The debate is about whether we should change our laws. If we liberalize immigration rules, then a number of immigrants will no longer be in violation of the law. They won’t be “illegals.”