Meritocracy Without Borders: Sowell Edition

In recent years, Thomas Sowell has been a staunch advocate of stricter immigration policies.  Which is ironic, because this passage from his Compassion Versus Guilt has stuck with me for thirty years:

When I travel through California’s vast agricultural areas, the people I see working in the fields under the hot sun are usually Mexicans.  So are many of the people who clean the hotels.  But when I have been approached by a panhandler in San Francisco or Los Angeles, it has never been a Mexic...