by Donald Rosenberry

Created on: July 22, 2009   Last Updated: July 23, 2009

If there are such things as hot button topics, this is one of them. It is interesting that the American people struggle so with the issue, considering all but the "native Americans" are themselves immigrants. Pursued far enough into history, even the Native Americans immigrated at one point. Why then the conflict over immigration? It is the economics of immigration that cause the consternation.

The Library of Congress documents the influx of Chinese workers in the late 1800s and their exceptional work ethic led them to jobs helping to build the transcontinental railroad. During the gold rush, their work was eagerly accepted. However, it didn't take long as the gold rush declined for the Americans to begin to worry the Chinese workers represented competition for jobs, and the legislature acted.

San Francisco even passed laws which targeted the Chinese population; one such law prohibited men from wearing their hair in braids, rather pointedly targeting the Chinese. In 1882, the US Federal Law known as the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, the first formal law restricting free immigration to the United States.

This has been repeated throughout our history, and globally for that matter, whenever immigrants arrive, work hard and then appear to be challenging "locals" for employment opportunity. The cycle continues unabated when labor is short, immigrant workers are welcomed, regardless of their status. When labor is plentiful and the job market tightens, the howl to remove the illegal immigrants can be heard loud and long.

While each story is different, by and large the American historical experience with immigrants has been that of poor or oppressed groups leaving their homeland for the promise of better lives in the United States. This isn't new; the potato famine of Ireland which killed millions of Irish caused a mass immigration in the 1940s. Often the immigration begins with government consent and then turns "illegal", as was the case with the Braceros program.

The situation we find ourselves in today is the notion that we have large numbers of immigrants (estimates range from 6 to 12 million) in the United States illegally. Most work hard, are productive, and contribute to the overall economy and fabric of the American society. There are also those who contribute to crime, and they are the focus of most anti-immigrant rhetoric from government officials.

Other government officials are quick to point out that illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from

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