Wednesday, December 06, 2017

Mickey Kaus: Don’t buy all the PR-style hooey about ‘dreamers’

Mickey Kaus wrote this one for the Washington:
Compared with the general population, dreamers are not especially highly skilled. A recent survey for several pro-dreamer groups, with participants recruited by those groups, found that while most dreamers are not in school, the vast majority work. But their median hourly wage is only $15.34, meaning that many are competing with hard-pressed lower-skilled Americans.

The dreamers you read about have typically been carefully selected for their appeal. They’re valedictorians. They’re first responders. They’re curing diseases. They root for the Yankees. They want to serve in the Army. If dreamers are the poster children for the much larger undocumented population, these are the poster children for the poster children.

Still, taking the dreamers as a whole, not just the dreamiest of them, they represent an appealing group of would-be citizens. So why not show compassion and legalize them? Because, as is often the case, the pursuit of pure compassion comes with harmful side effects.
An article well worth your time.