http://www.kxmc.com/getARticle.asp?ArticleId=82348

AP Confuses Legal Immigration With Illegal Immigration
Jan 4 2007 5:17AM
http://sayanythingblog.com/index.php

Here’s an interesting AP story by one Rachel Konrad headlined “Immigrants Behind 25 Percent of Startups:”

SAN FRANCISCO - Foreign-born entrepreneurs were behind one in four U.S. technology startups over the past decade, according to a study to be published Thursday.


A team of researchers at Duke University estimated that 25 percent of technology and engineering companies started from 1995 to 2005 had at least one senior executive - a founder, chief executive, president or chief technology officer - born outside the United States.


Immigrant entrepreneurs’ companies employed 450,000 workers and generated $52 billion in sales in 2005, according to the survey.



I read that and thought to myself, “What a testament to America’s free economy that so many people can come here from other nations and flourish, and what a great argument for the idea that legal immigration is a healthy thing for this country.”


Then I read this bit of the article and became a bit irate:

Their contributions to corporate coffers, employment and U.S. competitiveness in the global technology sector offer a counterpoint to the recent political debate over immigration and the economy, which largely centers on unskilled, illegal workers in low-wage jobs.


“It’s one thing if your gardener gets deported,” said the project’s Delhi-born lead researcher, Vivek Wadhwa. “But if these entrepreneurs leave, we’re really denting our intellectual property creation.



What a load of crap.


The rest of the article goes on to quote all sorts of experts claiming that this study “debunks” the idea that immigrants take American jobs. What these people don’t understand is that legal immigrants are Americans, and that illegal immigration hurts us everyone from natural-born Americans to legal American immigrants. It is the non-American, illegal immigrants who are the problem. And this study does nothing, absolutely zero, to address the illegal immigration problem. Not one of these “start ups” mentioned in the article were founded by an illegal immigrant. Every single one of them were founded by a legal immigrant who came to this country, followed our laws and found success.


In fact, most of the immigrants who started these countries were from countries like India, the United Kingdom, China, Taiwan and Japan. Not Mexico, where most of the illegal immigrants come from. Not that Mexicans who come here legally aren’t capable of success. They are. Again, it’s the ones who thumb their noses at our immigration laws and force their way in that are the problem.


This confusion of legal immigrants and illegal immigrants is an obfuscation common in the media and among others sympathetic to illegal immigrants and hostile to those wanting secure borders. These folks start with the idea that people who oppose illegal immigration oppose all sorts of immigration, and then use the success stories of legal immigrants to suggest that illegal immigration is really a positive for this country.


But that’s just plain wrong. Illegal immigration is in now way good for this country, and most people who oppose it have no problem with legal immigrants. We just want to see our laws concerning immigration followed.


Frankly, this staunch illegal immigration opponent would be happy to see part of the solution for illegal immigration include policies to make it easier for more people to legally immigrate.