I cannot find it now, but somebody here said something that implied they thought the illegals coming up from the south had high school diplomas.

I doubt that high school graduates are a significant portion of the illegals. Probably in the single digits, percentage wise. The low single digits is my guess.

They are the poorest and least educated portion of the populations they come from. Think of the people who live in the poorest parts of our country, in Appalachia and inner cities. They are more educated and better skills than the people coming up from Mexico, Salvador, and Guatamala.

I sold a house to an illegal immigrant couple once. Owner financed. They had been here 16 years, and his English was poor and hers nonexistent, but he had worked the same job for 16 years and had a character reference from his boss, so I took a chance on him. At the signing, when we asked her to sign, she looked bewildered. Turned out she could not even sign her name. Not even her name. We did the big "X" like you see in the western movies.

Turned out to be a good gamble. Enrique was as honest as the day was long, never missed a payment. When he developed cancer, his kids (citizens? Dreamers? I never knew) paid off the house so he could die in his own home. His widow still lives there, and I have no doubt she still speaks no English and still cannot write her name. Seemed like a nice lady, though.

Point is, maybe some of us should stop assuming that the people wading the rivers and running through the desert are well equipped to contribute. Sometimes you need more than a chance. You need tools.

I know of another who lived in a cave, and did not know how to answer a telephone or use a toilet.

Let's stop idealizing the illegals. many are nice people, and I have been able to help many of them over the years. But many are not so nice. Just as everybody in the poorer areas of the US are not noble, so everybody in the poorer areas of Central America are not noble.

Big, a lot of us came up out of poverty. Not all of us were born with silver spoons in our mouths. The main reason my parents were thrilled with my admission to rice was the zero tuition.