Karl Rove, one of President Bush's chief advisors, reportedly justified the administration's amnesty/open border position because “I don't want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas.” Source: National Review online 2/9/07.

Maybe Rove's son doesn't need to learn about work. Often the children of privilege don't. But traditionally in America, most young people have gained a work ethic and other benefits — very useful to them in later life — from performing humble jobs. Unfortunately, this training ground for success is shrinking.

Andrew Sum, a researcher at Northeastern University, notes that teenage employment in the U.S. has declined sharply in recent years. A major reason, he concludes, is competition from low-skilled foreign labor. By allowing this to happen, we shortchange our young people.

The unceasing flow of cheap foreign labor also harms adult U.S. workers in manual and low-skill jobs. Wage depression is one example. It is not a matter of immigrants doing “jobs Americans won't do.” In every major job category, U.S.-born workers are still the majority, but immigration makes it harder and harder for them to do those jobs and keep a decent standard of living.

Their plight, unfortunately, is small concern to the Karl Roves of this world, elitists who seem to hold honest labor — and the people who do it — in contempt. Their attitude recalls the words of the great American labor leader Samuel Gompers, “Those who favor unrestricted immigration care nothing for the people. They are simply desirous of flooding the country with… labor from other lands for the purpose of breaking down American standards.”