Immigration In Perspective

A friend of mine sent me this link to a short but telling lecture on immigration. It's only a couple of minutes and hits the mark well.

Why do they come here? Because they're poor and want to do better or because it's possible to live much better without doing anything here? Why are they not doing better at home? The quick answer is because the evil gringos stole all the land with nice houses and paved roads. So why are there no nice houses and paved roads back home? Something to do with the politicians running the place?

A business acquaintance in Puerto Rico once apologized to me for the endemic poverty there pointing out that the island was very small and had no natural resources. I pointed out to him that Hong Kong was only 25 square miles and had to import their drinking water from the PRC. They were still the highest GDP/capita in the world. I could smell the smoke from the wheels turning in his heat the rest of the trip.