In 1965 something major happened. Almost all of us missed its significance. We are now dealing with the consequences of the event.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article today about LEGAL immigration and the turn it has taken since 1965.

The article includes the following chart:

The staff of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration explains the history and significance of this chart:

Each year, millions of visas are issued to temporary workers, foreign students, refugees, asylees, and permanent immigrants for admission into the United States. The lion’s share of these visas are for lesser-skilled and lower-paid workers and their dependents who, because they are here on work-authorized visas, are added directly to the same labor pool occupied by current unemployed jobseekers. Expressly because they are admitted into the U.S. on legal immigrant visas, most will be able to draw a wide range of taxpayer-funded benefits, and corporations will be allowed to directly substitute these workers for Americans. Improved border security would have no effect on the continued arrival of these new foreign workers, refugees, and permanent immigrants—because they are all invited here by the federal government.

The most significant of all immigration documents issued by the U.S. is, by far, the “green card.” When a foreign citizen is issued a green card it guarantees them the following benefits inside the United States: lifetime work authorization, access to federal welfare, access to Social Security and Medicare, the ability to obtain citizenship and voting privileges, and the immigration of their family members and elderly relatives.

Some of our politicians see this as a way to fund Social Security, but they fail to notice the extra load it puts on the Social Security and Medicare programs.

The changes made in 1965 have not been good for the American economy. The 1965 immigration legislation for which Ted Kennedy was largely responsible has created problems for American workers:

Legislation enacted in 1965, among other factors, substantially increased low-skilled immigration. Since 1970, the foreign-born population in the United States has increased more than four-fold—to a record 42.1 million today. The foreign-born share of the population has risen from fewer than 1 in 21 in 1970, to presently approaching 1 in 7.

As the supply of available labor has increased, so too has downward pressure on wages. Georgetown and Hebrew University economics professor Eric Gould has observed that “the last four decades have witnessed a dramatic change in the wage and employment structure in the United States… The overall evidence suggests that the manufacturing and immigration trends have hollowed-out the overall demand for middle-skilled workers in all sectors, while increasing the supply of workers in lower skilled jobs. Both phenomena are producing downward pressure on the relative wages of workers at the low end of the income distribution.”

We need sensible immigration policies that will bring people to America who want to be here, who want to assimilate, and who want to work. Our current immigration policies do not do that. Again, I would like to point out that I am talking about legal immigration. Illegal immigration is a separate problem for many additional reasons–national security being one of the major ones.