Somalis are a large crime element in Denmark. I do think we should back away from our single-minded focus on Mexican and other Hispanic illegals to also be looking at other groups that are coming in at an alarming rate - by legally granted refugee status, etc. It is causing huge problems in Europe and is gaining momentum here as well.
I'm not against immigrants and I love having a mixture of cultures here - that is what has made America great - but many of these new immigrants aren't like those in the past. Many of them are criminals and troublemakers with a sense of entitlement to the riches others have worked so hard for.
I think we need to stop the flow from everywhere for awhile, until we can stop and think out solutions for the problems this is causing American citizens. When we are paying citizens to sit at home and not work - but bringing in people that will do the work cheaper - we got a real big problem.
That's been the prevailing sentiment about all immigrants since the founding of the nation.
Ben Franklin warned about German immigrants in his time:
"I am perfectly of your mind, that measures of great Temper are necessary with the Germans: and am not without Apprehensions, that thro’ their indiscretion or Ours, or both, great disorders and inconveniences may one day arise among us; Those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant Stupid Sort of their own Nation, and as Ignorance is often attended with Credulity when Knavery would mislead it, and with Suspicion when Honesty would set it right; and as few of the English understand the German Language, and so cannot address them either from the Press or Pulpit, ’tis almost impossible to remove any prejudices they once entertain. Their own Clergy have very little influence over the people; who seem to take an uncommon pleasure in abusing and discharging the Minister on every trivial occasion. Not being used to Liberty, they know not how to make a modest use of it; and as Kolben says of the young Hottentots, that they are not esteemed men till they have shewn their manhood by beating their mothers, so these seem to think themselves not free, till they can feel their liberty in abusing and insulting their Teachers. Thus they are under no restraint of Ecclesiastical Government; They behave, however, submissively enough at present to the Civil Government which I wish they may continue to do: For I remember when they modestly declined intermeddling in our Elections, but now they come in droves, and carry all before them, except in one or two Counties; Few of their children in the Country learn English; they import many Books from Germany; and of the six printing houses in the Province, two are entirely German, two half German half English, and but two entirely English; They have one German News-paper, and one half German. Advertisements intended to be general are now printed in Dutch and English; the Signs in our Streets have inscriptions in both languages, and in some places only German: They begin of late to make all their Bonds nad other legal Writings in their own Language, which (though I think it ought not to be) are allowed good in our Courts, where the German Business so encreases that there is continual need of Interpreters; and I suppose in a few years they will be also necessary in the Assembly, to tell one half of our Legislators what the other half say; In short unless the stream of their importation could be turned from this to other colonies, as you very judiciously propose, they will soon so out number us, that all the advantages we have will not in My Opinion be able to preserve our language, and even our Government will become precarious."The Nativist Movement of the 19th Century warned us about the nation's impending doom at the hands of the "wretched paupers" Irish "Papists" that were certain to destroy the Founders ideals of a nation of Protestant values. Certainly, the Nativists argued, the Catholic Church sent the hordes of Irish immigrants here to subvert the spread of democracy and take control of the under-populated American west. These sentiments gave birth to the Native American Party (the Know-Nothings) whose anti-Catholic sentiments are still evident today in places like TOS.
Anti-Italian immigrant sentiments led to one of the largest mass lynchings in American history, when 11 Italian immigrants were hung by a mob in New Orleans for a crime that nine of them had been acquitted of committing. The other two were just at the wrong place at the wrong time and of the wrong nationality. After the lynching, New Orleans police reacted by arresting hundreds of Italian immigrants arguing that they were all criminals. Anti-Italianism, was part of the anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic ideology of the revived KKK in the early 20th century, with the Klan's stated goal being the preservation of Anglo-Saxon Protestant power in the US.
We have changed as a nation. I don't expect mass lynchings of illegal aliens, but the fear that immigrants will change the nation for the worse still abound.
Most immigrants, or at least those that are not part of a national brain drain strategy, come here and take any work they can take, because they have to. It's not a choice, it's a survival technique. They (we) will take jobs as hotel maids, busboys, waiters, seamstresses, and in lawn maintenance, all of it with the knowledge and the hope that our future generations will achieve the thing that precipitated the sacrifice of leaving a homeland.
All those jobs I listed were at one point or another, held by my parents and myself.
The problem today isn't the immigrants.
The problem is the people in government who have come to understand that immigrants are the road to political power.
