Since I've said in my previous post that immigration is a killer for me I feel that I should explain my experience on the matter...

    In 1973 after being released from the Army in Washington I moved to California and started working for a very good company that did a lot of defense work.  I worked in the tool crib and eventually finished an apprenticeship in the machine shop as a Journeyman Machinist, all the while taking college classes at "Valley" College in Van Nuys.
    My best friend at the time Oscar, was from Columbia and also worked in his field of Chemical treatment of metals.  It was one of the best times of my life and I loved Oscar dearly and respected him and his heritage.
    To this day I can;t tell you why the topic came up but we were talking about illegal immigration and it;s affect of jobs.  I know it;s hard to believe but this was in the early 70's.  His stance was that they did jobs that americans won't do and mine was that they start there but move up like everyone else does.  So, they eventually take jobs that americans want, and/or they drive down the wages of those jobs because employers hire them for less and they take the jobs because it's a lot more than they can make anywhere else.
    I knew I was right then because it just makes sense although I did not have any real evidence for my assertion.
    So, to the point, I did what most machinists do and moved around from job to job to gain all the experience I could to become as well rounded as I could.  I worked for Boeing in Seattle, for the Department of the Airforce as a civilian and many more jobs doing all kinds of work.  When I left California in the early 80's to work for Boeing an experienced machinist (almost 99.9% american), in the valley anyway, was making about $20.00 an hour.
    Almost five years later in the mid 80's when I returned to Southern California I found that most of the shops were now about 33% mexican and that the wages were about $18.00 an hour.  I could still find work mainly because of my experience but for less money and the conditions in the workplace were worse.  There were still the $20.00 an hour jobs but they were fewer and farther between and they should have been $23 to $25 dollar an hour jobs...
    Do we all remember what happened in the mid 80's in regards to immigration?
    Have we forgotten the past and are we doomed to give up the rest of our skilled labor and higher jobs to advancing illegal's that have now become a large minority and many of them now legal.  I would bet that the number of jobs lost by americans to immigration is greater than those that have moved overseas...
    About the only thing that bothers me more are all those "Americans" especially retired americans that are driving Japanese cars.  Especially retired government or state workers.  My tax dollars are paying their Toyota payments.

Anyway I'm still watching