[klokkeblomst]

1. More immigrants means more opportunity for terrorists, drug dealers, and other criminals to enter the country.

2. Immigrants, especially the poorer ones, consume a high amount of government resources (health care, education, welfare, etc.) without paying a corresponding high rate of taxes.

3. The national identity and language is disappearing. The great "melting pot" is being replaced by divisive multi-culturism.

4. The emigration to the United States hurts the home country, as much of the male population, workers, and top intellectuals often leave their country.

5. Less-skilled American citizens earn less money and have fewer job opportunities because they must compete with immigrants in the job market.

[Maxim Litvinov]

1. More immigrants means more opportunity for Albert Einstein, Cary Grant, Charlie Chaplin, Irving Berlin and other wonderful people to enter the country.

2. Immigrants actually generate demand and spur on the economy. If you hadn't allowed immigration, the US simply wouldn't have that great mass of people it has today which allowed it to become a superpower.

3. Language and identity are constantly in flux and never die or disappear. If they didn't you would be speaking like Shakespeare and owning slaves or being a slave. Aren't you glad people develop?

4. Immigrants actually give the home country a choice - you can't choose whether you allow Lee Harvey Oswald to become a US citizen at birth or not, but you can choose to whom you grant visas. This makes immigration a great boon - would that you had more 30-year-old highly skilled professionals in key areas where you lack Americans (nursing? teaching?), rather than 5 year old US-born idiots who will cost hundreds of thousands to educate before living off social security or 70 year olds who will be a burden on the state and the community for the rest of their life. Immigration is the only real way of solving the demographic problem of an ageing population.

5. Intellectuals leaving the country is a case of not enticing them to stay. Aside from the small percentage of xenophobe intellectuals, I can't see how having immigration is promoting a brain drain though.

6. Competition is at the back-bone of the economy. It might be great to pay less-skilled Americans much more money and give them free jobs in your book, but that just makes your country an economic basketcase. With the choice between exporting jobs or importing talent though, any rational person can do the sums.

[Jeff in Kentucky]

1. We can accept the best and brightest from other countries, or fail to maintain our southern border and continue to get the worst and dumbest.

2. Legal Immigrants pay taxes like everyone else. Illegal immigrants work hard for less than minimum wage, and cannot collect welfare, unless they have a child born in the US (an American citizen). In most states, including Kentucky, the majority of people cheating the system were born in the US and are white.

3. Any smart immigrant learns English and our customs as soon as possible, to get more job interviews and to have more of a chance of being offered jobs.

4. People that really love the US do not permanently leave. The buttheads that leave because McCain did not win and will get taxed more for making more than $250,000 a year are good riddance.

5. Every enjoyable job is very competitive, mostly from other American citizens, especially during a recession. The illegal immigrants mostly do back breaking farm and construction work, that most Americans choose not to apply for. Only the scummiest bosses hire illegals that they can abuse easier, with no recourse to the law for the workers.

[Average Voter]

1. Freedom has the cost of increasing the risk of everything you morally disagree with. Your morals, though, don't necessarily reflect the people.
2. That is a resource allocation problem, not an immigration problem.
3. See 1.
4. That is good. If people are free to travel, government unsuited for them should theoretically crumble, allowing a peoples government to replace it.
5. Immigrants can bring high production with low consumption. Jobs lost in labor are gained in management, which is what the natives would be hired for.