The illegal immigration problem is a tough one.

I live among African-Americans. The woman who didn't very well take care of my mother in Dallas was more interested in having a data-entry job that paid $7 an hour than a house-cleaning job that can pay $10 an hour.

It gets back to Camille Paglia's notion of "revalorizing" trades. On an everyday basis, does the average American need a lawyer or a plumber? A surgeon or a dependable and honest car mechanic?

Immigrants doing dry-wall work in Dallas during the building boom were making $50,000 a year, which I, as a small-town journalist on my best day could never sneeze at.