It is common in tough economic times or times of crisis to find a scapegoat. In World War II, innocent Japanese lost all their possessions, their businesses and their dignity and were interned for years in what can only be termed “prison camps”. Likewise, in today’s harsh economic and political climate, the target has shifted to immigrants in general. A common complaint of anti-immigrant ideology is that immigrants are taking jobs away from U.S. workers and that immigrants steal public benefits. Both these claims are lies.

Blame the real culprits: Our leadership that ignored the warning signs of a recession, that allowed our financial institutions and business entities to put us in the difficult position that America is in today, and who squandered away billions of our tax dollars on projects that did nothing to benefit the American people.

There are already many protections in place to protect the U.S. worker. For example:

-> Foreign students at U.S. universities have to obtain legal work authorization before they can even take a simple summer job off-campus.
-> There are strict quotas for H-1b’s, H-2’s and other temporary workers.
-> The Permanent Labor Certification process is designed to protect the U.S. worker by making sure there are no qualified American workers available for a position with a U.S. employer.
-> Finally, the wages of U.S. workers are protected because foreign workers must be paid a minimum salary mandated by the U.S. government.

Therefore, immigrants are not “taking away” American jobs. Rather, immigrants are taking jobs for which there are no skilled ready, willing and able U.S. workers. Neither do immigrants take away more than what they pay into the system. In fact, undocumented aliens pay hundreds of millions of dollars into the Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund without any hope of ever getting it back.

Our nation was built on the skills and hard work of generations of immigrants . To blame immigrants once again for our current economic problems is unfair. America needs immigrants because without immigrants we are not America.