Here's a story from USA Today, been making the rounds among the major news outlets in one form or another all day. This one's entitled, "Fewer illegal immigrants entering USA" and says:
"The number of immigrants coming to the USA illegally since 2007 has plummeted — the first significant decline in two decades, according to a Pew Hispanic Center report out today.
To be sure, the problem of illegal immigration has bedeviled every Administration. At core, the problem is that you have a huge and very powerful - and affluent - economy here, sitting above an economy that is decidedly less so in every respect. That pull, from South to North, has been powerful and unshakable. No matter what barriers we erect - legal, physical or otherwise - the pull is so strong that the illegal immigrants keep coming.
Now comes President Obama, who has fixed the core problem. By keeping the US economy in the tank, and through government spending and other policies making sure to keep the unemployment rate at historic highs, he has successfully addressed the root cause of immigration. There just is not as much incentive for illegal immigrants to cross from Mexico into the US. This singular accomplishment by this Administration has been overlooked, and Obama has not received his share of the credit for finally addressing one of the most persistent problems that we have faced as a nation.
And so, on behalf of a grateful nation, a word of thanks to our President, for his brilliant but unheralded efforts to bring our economy more in line with our impoverished neighbor to the South, thereby removing the incentive to illegally come to the US.