“Unlike Nahncee, I don’t much mind seeing immigrants sending dollars to their home countries.”

Me, neither. If an immigrant has already been vetted and is on the short list for citizenship, it shouldn’t be assumed that they are sending money to criminal enterprises.

If, on the other hand, you CAN make a blanket assumption that they are sending money to pirates and terrorists, then they shouldn’t be on the citizenship short list in the first place. The kind of citizens you want send money overseas to put their kid brother or sister to nursing school, or help their invalid dad, who doesn’t get workman’s comp after accidents in the third world sweatshop. It’s what any decent family member would do.

The reason why Silicon Valley keeps clamoring for H1-B visas permitting overseas types to work here is because immigrant wannabes work like horses (in comparison to me-generation local hires who are products of the US education system) after being starved for a fair shake in their home dictatorship, didn’t like it much there, and beat the competition just to get here to these shores for a chance at the race. It’s a real sweet deal for any employer to get folks who work twice as hard, voluntarily, who don’t have the privileged attitude of, “You owe me, man” or “Doesn’t this job allow web surfing?”