Speech #1010171246

Irish. Italians. and others were streaming into our country. the flow as a percentage of our population was almost 10 times as large as today. Indeed. back in 1907. when immigration peaked. about 1.3 million individuals entered our Nation as immigrants. Unfortunately. some in our country harbor resentment toward immigrants. They feel we are already being too generous in our admissions and that America will reach some mythical saturation point. They seem to forget that if there parents were not immigrants. then their grandparents or greatgrandparents most likely were. Some claim that immigrants take jobs and put other Americans out of work. When the grandparents and greatgrandparents of most Americans arrived here. people said the same thing. However. our ancestorslike the immigrants of todaycreated more jobs than they took. An article printed in Inc. last October-"Open the Gates. Immigration Just Might Be the Most Effective Way We Have To Give Our Economy a Boost"-makes the same point. The author of this article indicates that a report done by the National Bureau of Economic Research Inc. found no evidence that immigrants take jobs from nativeborn Americans. In a recent column in the Washington Times. Warren Brookes reinforces that viewpoint. He says: Both Census Bureau and Labor Department data confirm that legal immigrants quickly earn as much or more than nativeborn workers of the same age. work more and tend to be bettereducated and bettertrained. are more likely to start new businesses and contribute far more in taxes than they collect in social benefits. I am pleased to see the increased attention by the media regarding U.S. immigration policy. Economist Julian Simon was quoted in a recent article in Fortune. Because he is convinced that immigrants are a windfall for our country. he is calling for substantial increases in the number of individuals admitted as immigrants. I have also noted that at least two editorials in the Wall Street Journal have advocated higher admissions of immigrants. On a final note. I must add that I am always amazed that here in the United States we debate how many people to let in. Were we to close our doors to immigrants and refugees we would diminish ourselves and do injustice to our proud history and heritage. Mr. President.