T-C Line: Immigrant Boycott

This is from the T-C Line on the upcoming immigrant boycott that is an attempt to demonstrate their economic impact on the community:

So the immigrants are going to boycott? Let them. Our economy was much better off without them. My personal case in point: I have had credit cards for a number of years; never had a problem with any [there should be an “of” here, but this one must have slipped by the T-C editorial team] them. Within the last three to four years, I’ve had two credit card numbers stolen, with purchases made in Mexico. …Who do you think is paying for credit card fraud? Yes, the American citizens.

I am intrigued by this caller’s assumption that there was a time in this nation’s history in which there were no immigrants. I wonder how this caller thinks he ended up in America? Chances are, the caller is not a Native American, but even if that was the case, the caller cannot blame recent economic woes solely on immigrants. Hey, remember the ‘90s? Those were the lean years (note sarcasm), and yet, we still had immigrants.

The caller goes even further in blaming credit card fraud on immigrants, and assumes that anyone using a credit card in Mexico must be Mexican.

On boycott day in Longmont, I hope that this caller tries to …

build a house
hire a landscaper
get fast food
harvest crops
lay bricks
build a road
transport something
build any structure
hire a painter
go shopping
run a business

… and discovers through the painful process of being denied all those everyday, taken-for-granted services that immigrants are the backbone of this country's economy. Many of them work the jobs we don’t want, take the shifts we don’t want, and enable us to sit in our swivel chair with our feet up on the desk, while our iTunes music library is being pumped through our Bose noise-canceling headphones as we surf the internet.