Immigration: We can’t afford it

Re: “Tancredo’s immigration policy is wrong for America,” Aug. 22 letter to the editor

Jordan Bruneau cites the businesses who are desperate for low-skilled employees as proof of our need for immigration. What if those businesses instead paid a decent wage?

Immigration is the elephant in the room no one wants to address when we complain about climate change and the environment. Immigration, legal and illegal, has caused 80 percent of our population increase since the 1950s. More people consume more resources.

Economics 101 tells us that too many people chasing too few low-wage jobs will keep wages low. The only way we keep up the illusion of “progress” is to keep immigration levels high and minimum wages low; this is a modern form of slave labor and it makes life vastly better for those of us who earn decent wages.

The American promise of upward mobility is now largely a myth. No matter how hard you work, no matter your ethnicity, if you’re making minimum wage, your chances of ever earning a decent wage are slim to none.

It is the utter lack of hope that fuels the rage that elected Donald Trump. I challenge all of my liberal colleagues to embrace the reality of the slave wages and the cost to our environment created by immigration. We simply can’t afford it. Michael McNeil, Mead