Well, partly, I guess. We're always happier to tolerate other people's pathologies if we don't have to pay for the adverse consequences of those pathologies, but it would be nice if we could insulate ourselves from the pathologies a bit. Maybe it's my southern California upbringing, but I'd share your optimism about Mexican immigrants a lot more if they didn't have such disturbingly high rates of joining street gangs, selling drugs, shooting one another over drugs, shooting innocent bystanders over drugs, committing armed robbery, and driving cars without licenses or insurance. Between the wonderful judiciary and the snarling-victim lobby, the inmates are running the asylum. We resent the money, but we also resent watching helplessly as our country turns into just another banana republic.

Which is part of why I moved out of California.

RL:

Of course we now romanticize the period when the gangs were Jewish, Irish, Italian.

Also the period when we could lock them up or deport them without letting them back into the country the next week. Maybe you romanticize Sacco and Vanzetti, but I don't.

Toleration of immigrants' failure to observe the standards of civilized behavior strikes me as another instance of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Those behaviors are part and parcel of both poverty and illegal status.

As Mexican immigrant's families move up the socio-economic ladder, there's less and less of that behavior - As with every other ethnic group.

However, illegals remain trapped at the bottom, unable to legally move up.
If we aren't going to legalize them, then they should be deported.

I am baffled by why OJ and his ilk are so tolerant of illegal immigrants. Of course OJ's rationale is illegals perform the jobs Americans refuse to do. Never mind that these tasks could be automated given the political will (read up on Japan's dark factories or Midwestern agriculture vs. Southwestern agriculture).

Then of course OJ likes them because Catholic Latinos are (supposedly) more pious - except that Hispanics abort fetuses at far higher numbers and that 36% of Hispanic births are to unwed mothers. I'm sorry OJ, but such people aren't going to save Western civilization.

We could instead pick and choose from skilled irreligous Chinese and Hindu South Asian software engineers and entrepreneurs with low crime rates, low rates of teenage pregnancy, abortion, single motherhood, and other social pathologies. Asians have in tact families, high rates of entrepreneurship and climb quickly up the socioeconomic ladder - never mind that Asians are net contributors - not recipients - to the social welfare tax base (moreso than yes, even whites). OJ, irrespective of faith, these are the true conservatives.

If Hispanics were truly moving up the ladder as all previous I'd be more sympathetic to your view. Yet when 41% of Fourth Generation Mexican-Americans drop out of high school I become skeptical of their progress.

Lving in lily-white New Hampshire has made you delusional. Move down to Compton for a reality check. If you truly believe that California is benefitting from the present influx of Mexicans, then why the continued white and black flight from The Golden State...

Bring the Asians and the Indians too. Haitians and black Africans succeed at typical immigrant levels. Bring 'em all.

"then why the continued white and black flight from The Golden State"?

Maybe its screwed up politics and screwed up politicians play a major role? And let's not forget the acceptibility of antisocial activity and the antisocial attitudes by large segments of the population of that state makes it another reason to flee. Maybe the reason California has an illegal immigrant problem is that only people with no social status have the stomach for what goes on in that state, or the people whose ignorance means they don't know any better, so that California is considered an improvement from the conditions back in the old country.

Which is not saying much about the Golden State-- "California: At least we're better than Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Haiti."

' . . . half of all people who felt hard done by reckoned that immigrants . . . '

I love Brit phrasing.

Ronnie:

Given the political will, there's no reason whatsoever that the US shouldn't be preparing to send humans to Mars.
However, we're not, because most Americans aren't all that interested.

The reason that we're not mechanizing stoop labor is, in part, due to cheap foreign labor, but also due to the fact that it's expensive to automate.
Also, you're primarily talking about agricultural labor, and many illegals work in manufacturing or service jobs, that may currently be impossible to automate.

Sure, America could pick and choose the best the world has to offer, but just look at the immense political problems Silicon Valley had with the H1-B skilled worker visa programme. The current social and political situation regarding immigration in America is schizophrenic: We don't want too many immigrants, so we restrict legal immigration, but we also don't want to do what it'd take to close off the southern border to illegals.

Thus, although few would call it the best possible situation, the reality is that we're going to be getting primarily poorly educated Mexicans.

Further, many would quibble with your dropout statistics. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that first-generation Hispanics have a dropout rate of 15%. One factor that inflates Hispanic dropout rates is that immigrants who did not complete high school in their native country are counted as dropouts, even if they never enroll in US schools.

The bottom line is, whether we wish it or not, Hispanic immigrants are here to stay, and in great numbers.
Those of us who are "Native Born" Americans can make the best of the situation, turning dross into gold, or we can consign illegal Mexicans to a social trash heap.
The latter situation seems needlessly shortsighted.

... more like America with its racial diversity and frayed social safety net.

Short observation here from a Canadian who has also lived in both the United States and Britain. It is laughable to say that the U.S. has a "frayed social net". Welfare cases in the U.S. live as well or better than the working class in Britain and many parts of Europe. They get medical care (through the federally-mandated programs Medicare and Medicaid) that is superior to the British NHS medical care. They usually drive their own cars and frequently own their own houses. They usually have heat and air-conditioning, their own private bathrooms and showers, color televisons, microwaves, VHS and DVD players, new clothing of good quality, and access (through food stamps) to subsidized quality food. They in fact have so much of the latter that obesity among the poor is prevalent. They also have access to abundant educational opportunities should they choose to avail themselves of such. The U.S. is as generous to its poor as any country I have ever seen, most definitely including Canada. BTW, I picked up a lot of this information when I worked in the community college systems of California and Washington State, so I know because I was there.