Bigotry is the issue, not immigration

I have long argued the position that so-called illegal immigration is an issue that the United States has had to deal with in the past and will have to continue to deal with in the future. In a series of ionic twists, again reminding me how little Americans really know about what is going on in their own country, much less the rest of the world, I have discovered that not only am I right, but that the memory of many Americans is subjective at best and revisionist at worst.

According to Michele Wucker's book Lockout, it was not until World War II that the United States even began keeping serious track of immigrants in the United States. Up until the early 1900's they were encouraged to vote! It was in the early 1980's that it became a crime to knowingly hire an illegal alien, but (and there is a huge one here) immigration officials could not raid outdoor agricultural operations without a warrant (and one assumes they still cannot). So the party line about "assimilating like my grandparents did" (and according to history - the facts, not what is remembered - this is also not the case, more than 50% of immigrants actually never naturalized, sent money back home [to countries in Europe rather than Central and South America] and eventually returned to their home countries themselves) is little more than romantic hogwash at best and shrouded bigotry at worst.

The current debate in the United States is being lead by a small, vocal group of old white men who are more afraid of the growth of the Latino/Hispanic minority than they are about the so-called costs of "illegal" immigration and their racist attempts to deny services will only result in increases in tax burdens and continued decreases in real revenues.