"For America, the key to innovation boils down to one word. Do you know what it is?"

Here is a portion of the commencement address that Mayor Bloomberg delivered on May 19, 2008, to the University of Pennsylvania. This specific portion of his address concerns his views on immigration. I'm interested in hearing any opinions...

"But I have never let myself look back, and the very next day I took a chance and began my own company with the wild and innovative idea of making financial information available to people, right at their desktops. By the way, for the record being kept by those who fired me. It worked out just fine. And make no mistake: I'll fail again - many times more if I stay active and try to push the envelope by innovating. For America, the key to innovation boils down to one word. Do you know what it is? Well, here's a hint. Let me ask everyone here who can trace their families back to the Mayflower to raise their hands. Congratulations, you are related to America's first immigrants. And the rest of us are the descendants of immigrants, too.

"And the word I was thinking of, the key to innovation is immigration. Our nation's greatest historic strength is that we've always welcomed the best and brightest from every corner of the globe. eBay, Google, Levi's, Budweiser, they were all started by immigrants. It's the story of New York, and it's the story of Penn - which has the highest percentage of international students in the Ivy League.

"And yet every year, Congress shuts the door to hundreds of thousands of doctors, scientists, engineers, and artists from around the world who want to work here. It's the greatest case of national self-sabotage and attempted suicide I can imagine. If our country's future is going to be as great as our past, we have to start realizing that immigrants have always been - and always will be - one of our greatest economic and cultural assets.