Jose Vera's post about immigration is an interesting one for me as it is something I've been learning more about lately, and of course always a controversial issue. I believe his points are true; immigrants contribute so much to our country (as well as many others) that we would not be what we are today, nor would we do so well without them. Obviously, unless you are a Native American, you are here because of immigration. All of our families were immigrants at one point (willfully or not). We are a nation of immigrants. Why do so many now say "keep immigrants out" or "go back to where you came from"?

Unfortunately I believe a lot of this attitude has to do with (sometimes) unadmitted racism. People are moving in that don't look just like me? I don't trust em! This started in 1882 with the Chinese Exclusion Act which banned all Chinese immigrants, mostly just because they were suspicious of their different appearance and language. Not long after, in 1894, we have the founding of the Immigration Restriction League which used the not-so-scientific belief in eugenics (later used by Nazis) to classify other Europeans into different "races", label anyone not of northern European descent inferior, and try to prevent any unsavories from entering the country. Sadly today, many of the anti-immigrant arguments I hear seem like thinly veiled and poorly justified versions of the same ones being touted over 100 years ago.

A current example would be the obvious, Donald Trump. He wants to deport all 11 million illegal immigrants and has a hostile attitude toward immigrants in general, despite the fact that his current wife was a Slovenian immigrant. This Bloomberg article gives many good examples of the negative consequences the deportation of immigrants would have on our economy, including the fact that they have contributed $13 billion to the Social Security Fund.