Mar 26 2006
Immigration rights shouldn’t mean the right to be illegal
My ancestors were immigrants from Europe, so it isn't like I cannot appreciate the struggle of people wanting to leave their homelands and make a new life elsewhere. Some of them left hardship and poverty and gambled everything they had to take ship here and try to make a start.
But I listened carefully at the last family reunion and not once did I hear how my ancestors came here illegally in the back of a truck. They seemed to have used some mysterious legal process.
The immigration rallies this last week or so have really made me pause to consider this and frankly I can't totally understand where these people are coming from. Why is this such an issue?
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Immigration rights advocates more than 500,000 strong marched in downtown Los Angeles, demanding that Congress abandon attempts to make illegal immigration a felony and to build more walls along the border.
Excuse me but what is so wrong about saying you have to obey the rules to come here? Sure let's have a nice long debate about revising the guest worker program and immigration standards; lets discuss how to make the process better, but don't tell me that making it illegal to be here illegally is inhumane.
The borders are a complete joke, and still remain the single worst threat to the security of America, but these people just don't care.
Many protesters said lawmakers were unfairly targeting immigrants who provide a major labor pool for America's economy.
Ah...so you support it because they do the jobs you won't do. Save the cheap agricultural labor...hmm I didn't see that sign in LA...
"Enough is enough of the xenophobic movement," said Norman Martinez, 63, who immigrated from Honduras as a child and marched in Los Angeles. "They are picking on the weakest link in society, which has built this country."
I suppose you could say that the pilgrims were illegal immigrants, buit I think the situation was a bit different...
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation that would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants, require churches to check the legal status of people they help, and erect fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border.
Elger Aloy, 26, of Riverside, a premed student, pushed a stroller with his 8-month-old son at Saturday's Los Angeles march and called the legislation "inhumane."
"Everybody deserves the right to a better life," he said.
Tell ya what, since you want the borders to be open, I assume your door is to? Can I just walk in or do I have to knock? Do I have to obey some kind of law or rule to violate your property? I do?
So then the standard should apply. Shouldn't a person need to follow some manner of standard to come here and live or work?
President Bush on Saturday called for legislation that does not force America to choose between being a welcoming society and a lawful one.
"America is a nation of immigrants, and we're also a nation of laws," Bush said in his weekly radio address, discussing an issue that had driven a wedge into his own party.
Bush sides with business leaders who want legislation to let some of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants stay in the country and work for a set period of time. Others, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, say national security concerns should drive immigration reform.
I am not totally sure I agree but I see the sense in it. It would be logistically impossible to deport 12 million people.
About 200 people protested outside a town hall-style meeting held by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., a leading sponsor of the House bill. He defended the legislation, saying he's trying to stop people from exploiting illegal immigrants for cheap labor, drug trafficking and prostitution.
"Those who do that are 21st-century slave masters, just like the 19th-century slave masters that we fought a civil war to get rid of," Sensenbrenner said at the meeting. "Unless we do something about illegal immigration, we're consigning illegal immigrants to be a permanent underclass, and I don't think that's moral."
I think he raises a good point, the illegal workers are an underclass and do have to work outside of legal protects and fair labor standards.
And we like it that way.
Let's face a few uncomfortable truths: The middle and upper class citizens, sit smug and secure and superior and let them be the janitors and keep the crop prices low, and do all the jobs that pay too low and are beneath our conceit. For all the altruism preached in rallies, we might as well be planning to keep them as housekeepers.
To those who want to deport all of them, will you be heading down to the lettuce fields? The apple orchards? Doing the day labor and painting?
The people at the rallys and the businesses are right, they do fill a labor void that we frankly do not want to fill.
Obviously the issue is not going to go away any time soon. At the extremes are the security paranoid xenophobes who want to slam the borders shut, and the ones who want to let em all in and give em jobs and health care and who gives a rip about security.
And in between you will find that most of us who are the product of generations of people who played by the rules and made here anyway, and we understand the lure of the freedoms we have here. But we also are scared that the lack of security is going to expose our country to a greater threat...something a bit more extreme then expensive lettuce.
Reform is going to have to come in the form of changing the mindset we now have and trying to balance the lure of treedom with the need for some control.
4 Responses to “Immigration rights shouldn’t mean the right to be illegal”
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I wished I had time right now to really join in on this…
Yes, we all came from somewhere else, it just depends on when. Part of my ancestors came over here to oppress another part… Or so it might be said. I don’t have an ethnicity; I’m as much Cherokee as any other single group.
But no, it would be a mistake to assume "we" have always had the kind of "tight" immigration laws we have now. TIGHT??? AM I ON SOMETHING??? No… The fact is, the quotas are so small that for practical purposes the door is shut on these people. And that’s part ofthe rub.
You’re right to point out the economic hypocrisy of this. Make no mistake about it: Our economy would collapse without these people. And yes, their semi-slave status keeps our stuff cheap. I’ve been there. I’ve worked alongside these people and in some cases it might be argued slaves were better treated - a smart slaveowner tries to avoid damaging his valuable property. Illegals should be so lucky…
And while I’m no fan of GWB’s per se I think he’s getting screwed by this, just like he got screwed on the ports deal. Realistically, the last chance we had to fix this was years ago, and Reagan squandered it. A situation can go so far as to be irremediable, and that’s where we are today on this. This is a lose-lose-lose…
Which brings me to the "solution" I have suggested before. Federation. We need much closer ties with Mexico. We need to abolish the border.
Yes, I know that’s "giving up." I know it’ll cost "us" a great deal in the short run. But our wishes are subordinated to the laws of economics and the destiny of demography. America is demographically in decline. Furthermore, trying to enforce the impossible will infuriate millions of Americans, who may just react violently. It will make millions of Mexicans our enemies, which only feeds our real foes. And yes, it’ll cost us bigtime at the grocery store…
North America needs to be united. The Canucks should be encouraged to jump onboard, too. Mind you, I don’t like what I’m suggesting, but I don’t think the other "solutions" will work. Mexico brings demographic vigor to the table; Mexico and Canada bring resources. And we still have a bit to contribute….
So consider it. The United States of North America. We will still dominate and the resulting systems will be very much like what we have now. After all, those Mexicans are coming here for reasons…
And remember, all things change. Europe prospered - albeit at the expense of others - as long as it expanded. Today, the inheritors of the remnents of long lost empires are fighting a losing rearguard action, trying to hold onto yesterday. It isn’t their "socialist" systems that are ruining them, it’s their birthrates and over the hill resource bases.
Grow or die - that’s the rule of life. If we don’t grow, we’ll look like France in 50 years, and the Chinese - still commies, remember - will rule the earth.
Do you want that?
I wished I had time right now to really join in on this
and yet here you are.
Yes, we all came from somewhere else, it just depends on when. Part of my ancestors came over here to oppress another part… Or so it might be said. I don’t have an ethnicity; I’m as much Cherokee as any other single group.
A better question might be should it matter why our ancestors came here or where they came from, or should we just deal with who we are now?
But no, it would be a mistake to assume "we" have always had the kind of "tight" immigration laws we have now. TIGHT??? AM I ON SOMETHING??? No… The fact is, the quotas are so small that for practical purposes the door is shut on these people. And that’s part ofthe rub.
I am no Ellis Island scholar so i dont know how it used to work.
But I do know that we do have laws now, and those are what we have to discuss and or modify.
You’re right to point out the economic hypocrisy of this. Make no mistake about it: Our economy would collapse without these people. And yes, their semi-slave status keeps our stuff cheap. I’ve been there. I’ve worked alongside these people and in some cases it might be argued slaves were better treated - a smart slaveowner tries to avoid damaging his valuable property. Illegals should be so lucky…
Yep
And while I’m no fan of GWB’s per se I think he’s getting screwed by this, just like he got screwed on the ports deal. Realistically, the last chance we had to fix this was years ago, and Reagan squandered it. A situation can go so far as to be irremediable, and that’s where we are today on this. This is a lose-lose-lose…
Since there is so much anguiish and PC awareness of it, it is likely to just be a hotbed political issue and nothing be done to fix it.
Which brings me to the "solution" I have suggested before. Federation. We need much closer ties with Mexico. We need to abolish the border.
I dont know if that will be necessary. I can see that a revamping of the laws to encourage people to immigrate legally would stem the illegals, but I dont know if we are ready for a new country/state federation.
Yes, I know that’s "giving up." I know it’ll cost "us" a great deal in the short run. But our wishes are subordinated to the laws of economics and the destiny of demography. America is demographically in decline. Furthermore, trying to enforce the impossible will infuriate millions of Americans, who may just react violently. It will make millions of Mexicans our enemies, which only feeds our real foes. And yes, it’ll cost us bigtime at the grocery store…
Again there are a lot of options between deport them all and give up.
North America needs to be united. The Canucks should be encouraged to jump onboard, too. Mind you, I don’t like what I’m suggesting, but I don’t think the other "solutions" will work. Mexico brings demographic vigor to the table; Mexico and Canada bring resources. And we still have a bit to contribute….
Hmm
So consider it. The United States of North America. We will still dominate and the resulting systems will be very much like what we have now. After all, those Mexicans are coming here for reasons…
And remember, all things change. Europe prospered - albeit at the expense of others - as long as it expanded. Today, the inheritors of the remnents of long lost empires are fighting a losing rearguard action, trying to hold onto yesterday. It isn’t their "socialist" systems that are ruining them, it’s their birthrates and over the hill resource bases.
Grow or die - that’s the rule of life. If we don’t grow, we’ll look like France in 50 years, and the Chinese - still commies, remember - will rule the earth.
Do you want that?
Interesting point to ponder…..
Living here in Washigton State, I still haven’t heard why we should treat borders on the South and East differently than the borders on the North and West. To me, they are all just lines on maps.If you cross the Columbia River, no problem. Come and go as you please. If you cross the Juan de Fuca straights . . . whoa, border guards, "your papers please," searches, barbed wire, walls, and all that. I’ve been to Victoria, B.C. and people there are no more crazy there than Ted Kazinski in Montana, or a lot of folk in Arkansas. Yet those in B.C. are basically frisked, while anyone at all can come freely in from Idaho.Not sure why we do that. Maybe there is an answer out there.
i think it should be legal