[speaker001:] [Click] And you say you have some strong feelings about, uh, the issue?
[speaker002:] [TV] Uh, yes I do as far as, uh, as far as, uh, as far as immigration as a whole goes.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] I think that, uh, we simply must start accepting everybody in the world.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] Uh, I, there just is not going to be room for all of us. We don't have jobs now. I, I think, uh, I think when we come to a time of recession that it's particularly important that we shut our doors at that time. Uh, I hope you're one of the employed right now.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] I am one of the unemployed right now.
[speaker001:] [Throat clearing].
[speaker002:] I was a systems analysis and programmer for an oil company and, uh, I applied for one set of jobs with a company here in Dallas that they had two hundred openings but they had two thousand applications.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] And I know that there are a lot of foreigners, uh, here, you know, doing my line of work.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] And, of course, I'm not perfectly happy about not having a job.
[speaker001:] Right.
[speaker002:] So, how do you feel?
[speaker001:] Well, I'm a little bit ambivalent. The problem with, uh, and I think one of the problems with immigration policy is like any other political problem is that people are not willing to discuss it, uh, in, in terms of what, uh, really is driving it. They're not willing to tell the truth. The same way with, uh, issues of, uh, race and things like that [throat clearing]. I mean right now, uh, I believe there are two policies that, uh, that the government uses to modulate immigration. Three actually. One is at the high end, uh, they always want to be able to, uh, do some brain draining. They always like to be able to attract the, uh, Einsteins or the Professor Chou or, you know.
[speaker002:] Right [TV].
[speaker001:] They'd like to be able to get the top people in any field and so they can almost always find room for someone like that. At the bottom end, they, uh,
[speaker002:] [Rustling].
[speaker001:] are always willing to, uh, let in cheap labor [throat clearing] if it lowers the cost of doing business in some particular area and has strong support from the,
[speaker002:] [Clicking].
[speaker001:] powerful people in that area. Those are two things that I think are going on. Although they, I, I don't think the politicians would tell you that.
[speaker002:] Okay and I think you're right in both cases.
[speaker001:] And then the,
[speaker002:] [Clicking].
[speaker001:] third thing is, uh, the political aspect of, uh, uh, letting steam come out from under the lid in Mexico [throat clearing]. They cannot close off the Mexican border. Not because it's physically impossible but because the explosion that would take place in Mexico would be, uh, uh,
[speaker002:] [Noise] [sounds like water running].
[speaker001:] would spill over to this country so they keep allowing, uh, the pressure cooker to let off steam.
[speaker002:] [Noise] And I think probably it's pretty important right there. How do you feel about Haitian immigration?
[speaker001:] Uh, [throat clearing] that's one of the few things I guess [LAUGHTER] I found myself in agreement with Pat Buchanan [throat clearing]. I think they're a very difficult group to integrate into, uh, society. They're very difficult, uh, group to find jobs and, uh, and, uh, places for. And so, uh, uh, I don't deny that we may have been involved in causing the problem that, uh, in that they're pretty miserable where they are. But I'm not to sympathetic about, uh, letting large numbers of Haitians in.
[speaker002:] Actually, actually I feel that if we accepted these people that we would eventually have almost the total population here.
[speaker001:] Yeah.
[speaker002:] And it would have nothing to do with political situations. It would have to do with poverty.
[speaker001:] Right. But if you let them, yeah. If you let them in a million at a time, it wouldn't make that, you know, it wouldn't make that big a bulge in the population. But
[speaker002:] Oh, my gosh.
[speaker001:] po-, politically and economically.
[speaker002:] Have you been, have you been to southern Florida?
[speaker001:] Yeah, well I know about it. Uh, I mean it's, it is now with Haitians the way it was with Cubans, uh, twenty years ago.
[speaker002:] Well, I mean and the two of them together. I mean we can, it's just as well [LAUGHTER] you know, it's hardly America anymore.
[speaker001:] On the other hand, you know, [sigh] the ironic thing about this is that there's nobody more full of the [LAUGHTER] entrepreneurial American spirit than our first generation immigrant [LAUGHTER]. So there's, uh, there's a lot to be said for having a steady stream of people who know how it is someplace else coming in.
[speaker002:] But there's some differences in the immigrants,
[speaker001:] [Noise].
[speaker002:] that, that we're getting now. Well
[speaker001:] Right.
[speaker002:] I particularly have a problem with the illegal immigration.
[speaker001:] Sure.
[speaker002:] I think,
[speaker001:] [Noise].
[speaker002:] probably your, a great deal of what you say is true about the legals.
[speaker001:] Right.
[speaker002:] But, uh,
[speaker001:] [Noise].
[speaker002:] the majority of the illegal immigration we're getting now, they do not come here to blend into America. Uh, they, they don't bother to learn our language and, uh, first of all, th-, they, I'm sorry, this, I really feel strongly about this.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.
[speaker002:] We send a lot of money to Mexico.
[speaker001:] Uh-huh.