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Comment by denimnerd42 | Hacker News Reader

think this says it all:

The state with the lowest adult literacy rate was California.

Must be immigration..

In fact. I had a really shocking encounter at my house with some young men (maybe as young as 16, hard to tell) who were digging a ditch for my sewer line as subcontractors to my plumber. I was trying to communicate with them in Spanish but I was having a hard time so I pulled out google translate. I realized they couldn't read Spanish. I used the text to speech in the app but that was quite a sobering realization just how little education they had experienced.

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>I realized they couldn't read Spanish.

They're from indigenous tribes from the highlands in Mexico and further south. We are allowing in illegal aliens who aren't even literate in their home countries' dominant language.

Perhaps those people risk their lives to cross our border _so that_ they can learn how to read.

Also, you interact with and work amongst many, many, many more undocumented people than you think you do. Be kind.

It is quite obviously good for the people doing it. No one would ever debate that. It is incumbent upon supporters to explain why this is good for the native population. Shouldn't that be the priority?

Yup.. I'd love to start a general contracting business but I don't want to in an environment I have to compete with people that are hiring illegal immigrants and children. Not because of any moral reasons but I'd like to pay a fair wage and provide benefits. I can't compete with under the table pay and I'm not breaking the law.

That's certainly one example of a counter-argument. One might even consider the literacy rate falling from 96% to 79% as another.

but hey the GDP is going up!

We are the wealthiest country in the world. Our founding credo is that everyone belongs here. [0] We should stand behind that. Nobody wants to immigrate into a country illegally.

[0] The Founding Fathers had the right idea even if "everyone" didn't mean "actually everyone" at the time the country was founded.

I keep expecting the French to demand the Statue of Liberty back. Or at least tell us to change the sign to "Huddled masses: keep out".

That poem was added to the statue 17 years after it's opening, by an American. It has nothing to do with the French, and the statue was not designed to symbolize "immigration" but liberty and enlightenment.

Maybe they'll suggest chaining the sign, but they never created it in the first place.

>Our founding credo is that everyone belongs here.

This is an absurd falsehood. It is an indefensible assertion based on nothing but modern moralism.

>We are the wealthiest country in the world

This wealth can be squandered by catering to the desires of outsiders that want to come here. We should stand behind maintaining that wealth, power, and quality of life for our dependents and pass along that prosperity to them.

Turning the country from 96% literate to 79%, and all the associated degradation that comes along with that, is not the morally honorable position. The demographics in 1980, let alone 1776 were very specific and narrow.

I'll note that no one supporting this seems to be claiming the country will be better or stronger or this will benefit the citizens already here. Only that it is good for the people coming in. This is not how politics is done well or national interest is defended. Leaders that pursue this are abdicating their responsibility towards the people they are supposed to serve.

A significant amount of that wealth is built on the backs of those very people.

Further, insinuating that this literacy drop (putting aside changes to how literacy was measured during that time) is entirely the fault of undocumented persons is careless.

I’m not from California but why did you not report this immediately? Child labor is very bad and having it occur on your property is even worse!

A quick search indicates that 14-18 year olds can obtain a permit to work in the state of California.

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