The Hill News

Lost in the Congressional debates between opponents and proponents of the Dream Act are two mutually reinforcing truths. First, America’s failed immigration system is the flip side of a failed foreign policy. For example, Mexican officials are allowed to export their revolution to the United States by not providing a decent standard of living for its citizens who then have to come to the U.S. in search of a better future. 

In short, America has not insisted on good governance in Mexico.  In the meantime, our country has grown from 200 million to more than 310 million in fewer than two decades. This means that our already-broken economic system needs to produce more jobs; protect more of the vulnerable; and build more schools, roads, and bridges. The problem is that the welfare system we have created along with a broken immigration system is unaffordable under the demographic and economic circumstances of the twenty-first century.

Congressional ! supporters of the Dream Act argue that we would not have become a global superpower without opening our doors to immigrants; that smart, self-motivated immigrants spur the innovations and create the jobs our economy needs to thrive. This may be true, but it does not tell the whole story.

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