Sun, 30 Mar 2008
The immunological argument against immigration
Here in Small Town, Illinois, we don't see much of the illegal-immigration crisis aside from an occasional Spanish name in the newspaper's police column, usually someone arrested for drunken driving or domestic violence. Immigrant crime isn't even a big issue in the large nearby cities.
But while my wife and I were discussing the recent news about vaccines and autism (apparently John McCain linked the two recently) we stumbled across an argument in favor of strict immigration control: these people pouring over the border haven't had their shots and some of them are likely to be carrying God-knows-what infection that's been practically eradicated in America. For us and our children, that's a compelling reason to support closing our southern border. It also seems to be a compelling reason to keep kids away from government programs that service the children of illegal immigrants, such as Head Start.
UPDATE: a measles outbreak in San Diego by way of an unvaccinated 7-year-old child who brought it from Switzerland.
posted by Bill White at 13:49 | permalink | email me | | |
Thu, 01 Nov 2007
Workforce anecdote
This bit from Glenn Reynolds reminded me of something. On our last trip to Indiana it was strange to see Anglo-Saxon-style Hoosiers doing outdoors work. Here in Illinois Mexicans do that sort of work outside the smaller towns. Why the difference?
posted by Bill White at 09:59 | permalink | email me | | |
