Immigration is a hot button topic, but how much of the debate is based on fact and how much is hate-filled rhetoric fueled by media personalities who are paid by the decibel? Bob Ritz has lived among undocumented workers, and in Here They Are, Ready or Not, he challenges the conventional wisdom and provides studied solutions to an issue that won't go away. Ritz says that immigrants don't bring crime to our communities: some of America's safest cities are migrant-rich. Ritz also maintains that foreign workers don't take American jobs or cause them to be outsourced. He relates the story of an employer who wired six thousand dollars to three Guatemalan teenagers to pay a coyote to smuggle them into the United States. The employer couldn't find reliable workers in Oklahoma or Arkansas. What does this say about the American workforce? Ritz argues that in order to reduce the pressure on the border and the high cost of maintaining it, the United States needs to devise a legal way for people to come here to work. Migration, he says, is basically a matter of supply and demand. The United States must decide on an optimum level of migration that will be beneficial to the U.S. economy, then make conditions difficult for anyone with a different agenda. Thought-provoking, Here They Are, Ready or Not provides readers with everything they need to understand the current situation. It is essential reading for all concerned Americans but it does not need to be read from front to back -- the material does not lend itself to a strictly linear organization. Rather, like a paint by numbers set, a clear picture should emerge no matter how you read it.
About the Author: Bob Ritz holds a master's degree in Comparative History (American History, Latin American History and Immigration Studies) with previous degrees in Liberal Education, Horticulture, and Spanish. He also studied at an agricultural college in Mexico. He is an adjunct instructor for history and political science and teaches immigration studies to law enforcement personnel. The author is an award winning print journalist. He also co-produced and wrote the script for a documentary film, Circus: A Living Tradition that had an 18 month rotation on the Discovery Channel. Circus won a bronze medal in an international competition before going into international syndication.