text: what do you think about legal immigration? yesterday someone posted a question in which she described how legal immigration affected the united states. her argument was that if immigration kept its current increase numbers, then by year 2030 the population would triple and that this would cause america to be a third world country. i have a problem with this, since i am a legal immigrant myself. what is your opinion? i don't know who posted that question, but the premise is silly.  from an economic standpoint, america gains from immigration (legal and illegal).    those that legally enter america do so because we are a land of opportunity.  they are able to apply their skills and talents to better themselves.  in the meantime, they are part of the population that find better ways of doing things (technological advances).  technological advances increase everyones standard of living.    those that come here illegally are hired by firms because of the cheapness of their labor.  this lowers the costs of products that all americans buy.  if this wasn't true, then there wouldn't be an illegal immigration problem.  the government would have taken care of it long ago.  but, in the end, money talks so the political question on illegal immigration will not be decided in the near future.  there is a lot of disagreement over this.  many people contend that illegal immigration overwhelms government programs costing the country more in services than their labor provides.  for myself, i wonder how much the american consumer has saved through lower prices compared to what they pay in taxes so the  government can pay for those services.  granted individual states may experience problems, but my bet is that for the nation as a whole, the american consumer is the beneficiary.  as an example, our population recently went over 300 million people; a 20 million increase from 5 years ago.  this was attributed to immigration.  has our standard of living gone down?  no, it has gone up.  that's because these people are working.  they increase our gdp.  even if they do not provide for increases in knowledge and technological breakthroughs (which everyone does through specialization), the proportional split on gdp is the same as if they did not immigrate.     my thoughts on illegal immigration are solely from an economic viewpoint.  from a societal, security, etc. viewpoint, i think we must stop illegal immigration.  i fully support legal immigration and believe it is a strength in america.  sorry so long, but i can be a chatty bugger.