Immigration Nation Peturbation Compilation

Or "this CNN poll on immigrants makes a lot of sense and none at all at the same time" as Dibgy points out.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation national survey, the vast majority believe that most immigrants are basically good, honest people who are hard-working. However, nearly seven in ten say that immigrants are a burden on the taxpayer, 62 percent think they add to the crime problem, and 59 percent believe they take jobs away from Americans.

The poll, released Wednesday, asks about all people who have immigrated from other countries in the past ten years, and not just about illegal immigrants in the U.S.

"The results may explain why most Americans think that the policies that made the U.S. a 'melting pot' strengthened the country a century ago but do not make the country stronger today," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

Apparently immigrants are like members of Congress:  the ones you know personally are great, hardworking people who are very friendly.  It's the ones you don't know personally who are all criminal, job-swiping parasites.  Digby explains the dissonance:

I don't know exactly why CNN thought this was worth doing, but if their polling is correct, it's apparent that "most Americans" are a bunch of nativist jerks. Perhaps that's true. It's certainly always been the case that Americans have always tried to pull the ladder up behind them, whether it was the English settlers to the Germans, then the Germans to the Italians and the Slavs or everybody to the Chinese and other Asians. As for Latinos, well, they have always been here and we just use them as scapegoats whenever we feel like kicking somebody. Apparently, that would be now. 

When all the Republicans have in 2010 is a deck of scary race cards, every hand looks like El Tri over a pair of welfare queens.