Illegal Immigration

Illegal Immigration Rant:

     If any of you in the U.S.A. have been watching or reading the news lately, you may have noticed for the past couple of weeks there have been many demonstrations and protests by illegal aliens and their supporters in response to legislation passed by the House and currently being reviewed in the Senate that deals with illegal immigration and border protection.  In the Senate they are currently introducing numerous different bills along with the House bill, with none passing so far.  These include:

Border protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005; H.R. 4437; Sensenbrenner.

Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005; S. 1033; McCain-Kennedy.

Securing America’s Borders Act; S.2454; Frist.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006; Specter.

http://www.numbersusa.com/PDFs/SensenbrennerSpecterMcCainFristComparison.pdf

    While the exact number is not known for obvious reasons, it is estimated there are anywhere from 12 to 20 million illegal aliens residing within the United States.  Most of these illegal immigrants happen to be from Mexico and other South American countries (that is, if they are able to get past the Mexican SOUTHERN border patrol without being tossed out). There has been talk from various politicians of granting various degrees of amnesty to these people who have entered the U.S. without permission, and I am vehemently against such a notion.  We need to secure our southern border and we need to enforce the immigration and hiring laws that are currently on the books.

     First of all, what message would an amnesty send to LEGAL immigrants who have the respect for our laws and our county to go though the legal process to become citizens of this country?  Are we to tell them that had they entered into this country unlawfully and stayed in this country unlawfully long enough that they would be granted the same status as a legal immigrant who has spent years to become an American citizen?  If I were a legal immigrant and amnesty was granted to millions of illegal aliens, I would be furious.  The focus can be on changing current immigration laws to make the process more efficient for legal immigrants to come into the country, but illegal immigration needs to be stopped before this can happen.

     Most of these illegal immigrants are from Mexico due to the obvious reason of the geographical relationship between the U.S. and Mexico.  Because of the nature of mass immigration of one nationality of people who speak a different language, they are not forced to assimilate within the American culture and instead have become a large sub sector within our country that view themselves more as “Mexicans” than they view themselves as “Americans”.  It is very dangerous for the welfare of our country to have subgroups of people with divided allegiances to other countries, as noted in the words of Teddy Roosevelt:

 “In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes
here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here.

Any man who says he is an American, but something else
also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.” – Theodore Roosevelt 1907

     Without borders and the right to determine who shall be allowed to come into the U.S., we cease to be a sovereign country and we are unprotected and venerable to any person in the world who wishes to come here without limit to numbers or criminal history.

     With these protests the past few weeks, Jr. High and High School kids have been protesting as well (though few actually know what they are protesting).  At numerous High Schools students in the MEChA (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan) protested and waved Mexican flags.  When one student organized his own counter protest (off campus during the lunch hour) by passing out American flags and flyers he was suspended from school while the Mexican flag waving kids were allowed to continue their “struggle for rights”.  Also at the large protests in the large cities, people are seen all over waving the Mexican flag.  At Montebello High School in California, illegal alien supporting students took down the American flag and raised the Mexican flag, then proceeded to raise the American flag UPSIDE DOWN. 

http://www.michellemalkin.com/archives/004869.htm

This behavior is intolerable and outrageous, and is a huge signal that we have a problem with a foreign invasion here in the U.S.A.

     I attended a meeting a few weeks ago in which people, government activists, and government representatives came to argue against the Sensenbrenner legislation.  They called this legislation that would add to border security and add more laws against illegal immigration “racist” against immigrants, and in the same breath noted how “their people” (Latinos) are coming here in great numbers, having babies, and will overtake the “Gringo” (white man) in population.  I was only one of about a handful of light skinned, fair-haired people in the audience, and I was sitting quietly and listening for the whole time.  Then, one of the better-known political activists, Jesse Diaz, had the gall to sit next to me and ask me “Are you with the racists?” Talk about racism and racial profiling!  Asking someone if they are racist solely based on the color of their skin? Later on, one of the other activists got up and made a speech about how they knew who all the racists were and they were going to be posting pictures of them on the internet so they could be identified by everyone; this was clearly meant to threaten and intimidate.

     Illegal immigrants and their supporters frame this debate by calling anyone who is against ILLEGAL immigration a RACIST.  They take the word illegal out of the equation and call illegal aliens “immigrants” and “undocumented workers” and claim that “no human being can be illegal.” I have news for these people.  Calling an illegal immigrant an “undocumented worker” makes just about as much sense as calling a bank robber an “undocumented withdrawer”.  They have immigrated to this country, and they have done so illegally, therefore they are ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS.  I am SICK of being called a racist because I am just about the furthest thing from being a racist.  I believe everyone should be treated equally no matter his or her color, origin, religion, etc.  However, I believe that anyone who wishes to become a citizen of this country should do it LEGALLY and should take all the necessary steps to become a LEGAL United States citizen. 

   They equate this movement to legalize millions of people who entered this country without permission to the Civil Rights movement of blacks in the 1950s and 60s.  This is a major false premise, because back then the movement was about the rights of U.S. citizens were being denied and violated.  The movement with the pro illegal aliens is about non-citizens of another country who have entered this country unlawfully who are demanding the same rights as American citizens and legal law abiding immigrants.  If American citizens marched down into Mexico ILLEGALLY and then demanded they teach our kids in English, demanded social services, demanded jobs, and demanded legalization and the right to vote, how far do you think that would go?  About as far as the distance it would take for the Mexican government to toss all illegal aliens in their country out on their rear ends; as they do with the illegal immigrants coming into their country from the South and Central American countries.  The Mexican government and its people are nothing but corrupt HYPOCITES.  The national plan of the Mexican government to improve the conditions in their own country involve only one thing: dump as many of their poor citizens into the U.S. as possible in order to avoid taking care of the problems themselves.

     The only way this problem is going to be solved is by fixing the problem at the source, the country of origin. The Mexican government is so notoriously inept and corrupt it makes the U.S. politicians look honest, efficient, and responsible (which they certainly are NOT).  Mexico is a country rich in many vast natural resources and is actually very wealthy in its own right.  The problem lies in the distribution of this wealth and the policies that are in place to keep it that way.  There is not a big middle class in Mexico, and there is a small percentage that holds most of the wealth, while the vast majority of the country is very poor.  The Mexican politicians are corrupt and are in the pockets of the drug cartels and rich families.  The only thing thus far that has saved Mexico from a revolution is the illegal immigration from Mexico into the U.S. that has been allowed to take place.  It has acted as an escape valve, allowing poor Mexican citizens to come to the U.S. and take advantage of our social services and demanding more from the U.S. government rather than improving the conditions of their own country.  Amnesty of the illegal aliens here in the U.S. will not work, because there are more poor people in Mexico and other countries that will want to come here as well.

     I am also sick of hearing the phrase “Immigrants are doing the work that Americans will not do,” as repeated over and over again by President Bush and other politicians.  Let us get one thing straight; these are jobs American citizens and legal immigrants will not do AT THE SUBSTANDARD WAGE currently being offered to illegal immigrants.  Illegal immigrants will work at low wages in horrible conditions because it is better than any other options they currently have.  Meanwhile the rich business owners are reaping in huge amounts of profits on the backs of these poor people, because they pay far less money for labor with illegal immigrants than they would have to with American citizens and legal immigrants.  A great deal of these people are being paid under the table, and therefore the employers do not have to pay any social security taxes or employment taxes they would have otherwise had to pay.  They are free to do this because the U.S. federal government is not enforcing the immigration and labor laws that are currently on the books.  We already have laws against illegal immigration and hiring illegal immigrants, but it has become worth more to the employers to hire the illegal immigrants and deal with the slap on the wrist enforcements as they occur.

     As soon as the current group of illegal immigrants is legalized, they will no longer want to work for the substandard wages they have currently been receiving because then as American citizens they will have a better option.  They will unionize and demand higher wages and therefore, they will be replaced by more illegal immigrants coming into this country that are willing to work for less money.

     The “Guest Worker” programs and “Comprehensive plan” are words being tossed around by Bush and other politicians that are code words for AMNESTY.  This policy of amnesty has already been tried and has failed miserably.  An amnesty to the illegal immigrants currently residing within our country illegally would only encourage more people to enter into the U.S. illegally in hopes that they would be around for the next amnesty. In 1986 the IRCA Amnesty was passed which legalized 2.7 million illegal aliens.  It is now 2006 and we have 12 to 20 million illegal aliens within our country to show us just how effective the concept of granting amnesty is.  There is a “guest worker” program that will work, that will allow people from other countries to come here and become American Citizens.  It’s called LEGAL immigration.

     Along with poor people looking for jobs, who else is coming over the Mexican border?  Drug runners, human smugglers, gang members, M.S. 13 ex-military gang members are all free to come and go as they please across the border.  There are sanctuary policies in cities like LA, California called “Special Order 40” which prevents police officers from asking the immigration status of people.  Police officers cannot even go after illegal alien gang members whom they know to have been deported from this country from prior dealings with them.  These gang members must first murder, steal, and terrorize their community before police can even touch them.

     There is clearly a major problem that exists in the U.S. right now, and it is not going to disappear any time soon.  We need to protect our borders and enforce our current immigration laws, or the United States will cease to be the great country it is and it will eventually collapse under the massive vulnerability the current policies create.

Does anyone else have opinions on this subject?

First let me start off by saying that I am the daugther of a legal immigrant. My dad immigrated to this country from Iran.

I am definately on your side with this topic.

This is such a touchy subject. I know what you mean. It's hard to stand up against illegal immigration for fear of being labeled racist, even by those that aren't Latino or here illegally.

I do think this whole thing is getting way out of control. As much as 10,000 illegals are coming into the country each day. Doesn't the threat of terrorism make people think about protection of our borders? Even if we DIDN'T have a huge illegal immigration problem, I would think our representatives would have done something by now to increase security on both the northern and southern borders AND the ports.

Another problem that's making this thing all frustrating is that local police are not allowed to communicate with immigration officials that DO have the power to deport illegals.

This whole thing is troubling and it's not the first time it's happened to America. This issue is similar to slavery in many ways. After the Civil War, the south's economy went down the tubes because they had built such a reliance on free slave labor that they couldn't afford to pay for the labor. Can't you see that happening now? if crop growers and other businesses who hire illegal labor continue to do so and then build a reliance on that cheap labor, once the problem get's so far out of hand that we are FORCED to do something about it, it will have HUGE reprocussions on our economy. The price of food will sky rocket. We need to take care of the problem early before we are forced to and our economy takes a devistating blow.

In one of my art classes this subject came up and many of the people in the class were on the side of the illegals. Someone in the class mentioned that this country was founded on immigrants and quoted what was written on the statue of liberty.

But there has to be limits! We can't let just anyone come over whenever they want without checking them out first! Especially so many of them.