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I may be opening a can of worms here, but I'm genuinely curious: what's your position on illegal immigration and Arizona's new law?
This is one issue where I'll be seen as far more conservative than liberal. I'm against illegal immigration, and here's why: illegal immigration is illegal. You can't just sneak into another country, knowingly breaking the laws of that country, and expect to have them pat you on the back once you're there and go "oh all right, come on in, since you're here now you can go ahead and take advantage of our publicly funded resources!" But that's what happens here. WTF? If that were allowed in other countries, I might have just up and moved to Canada during the Bush years. =p They are NOT "undocumented residents," because they aren't supposed to be residents at all. They are here ILLEGALLY! When did "illegal" start meaning "perfectly fine"? If you break the law, you suffer the consequences; we don't get to shrug and go "eh, go ahead and break the law, it's fine." It's no different from committing any other kind of crime, and it should not tolerated, just like any other crime. It completely baffles me that some people think it's totally okay for people to just come here and stay illegally, and it's completely unfair to the immigrants who do go through the correct process.
I have no problem with immigration as long as it's done legally and through the proper channels. I have a master's in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages for crying out loud; I've worked with and know and like these immigrants! Hell, I grew up in one of the most diverse areas in the country where I was a minority most of the time. So, seeing as thousands of people manage this apparently amazing feat of entering the country legally every year, why can't the thousands of Hispanics streaming across the southern border? (I'll just focus on them since they seem to be the issue at the heart of the debate). And don't give me any of that "they were here first" nonsense. No, they weren't; their population is the result of Spanish invasion and conquest, just like the resulting populations of any other colonial imperialism that happened throughout the world at the hands of Europeans. The Spanish overran and decimated the civilizations that were already here, just like those who came after them. If you want to go that route, none of us should actually be allowed to be here except for the so-called Native Americans; but even they aren't really native to this continent, they're just the folks who traveled across the Asian land bridge and happened to get here first. Anyway, the point is that Spanish settlers conquered and killed in order to establish their dominance and form the culture to their liking, just like later waves of invaders. And since the US government is the most recent settlement to establish dominance here, they currently get to make the rules about who stays and who goes. That's just how history went, and that's just the way it is.
And now a big reason we need these rules is to help keep the population under control. Just look at how the country's population exploded in only the couple of hundred years of open immigration. There are only so many resources to go around, you know? It might not be so bad if immigrants were to spread out more, but do you see enormous immigrant populations in the hundreds of thousands in like, Montana? No, instead you see them concentrated in relatively small areas of the country which then struggle to support them. We have them here in California, which is suffering and straining under waaaaay more people than it can support, with not enough space, food, water, jobs, schools, hospitals, police, or anything else to go around, and more people coming every day. Northern Californians are always pissed at Southern Californians for hogging far more of their share of the resources than they create because they have more people. It certainly doesn't help that these immigrants tend to be Catholic and have enormous families, either (boo religion, again). Another decade or so and the state will probably collapse from the neverending stream of people coming here. Yes, we need people who are willing to work the lousy jobs picking fields and such, but only so many. And who's to say the actual legal citizens don't need or want those jobs, anyway? In this economy, I'll bet they do! There shouldn't be a hundred guys sitting outside of every Home Depot in the state every day, all day long, trying to get day labor work. How is that good for anyone?
As for Arizona's particular new law, I'm not really seeing what the big deal is, or why people think it's going to cause so many problems. It enforces the laws we already have: if you are here illegally and are caught, you get thrown out. If you want to be here, go do it the right way. People say it will lead to racial profiling, but I'm not so sure about that. As I understand it, the police are only going to be nabbing people who are already doing something wrong, regardless of origin, and THEN possibly asking for proof of citizenship. It's not like they're going to go around grabbing every brown person on the street and demanding identification, at least I would surely hope law enforcement officers have more sense than that! They're going to be catching the usual band of bad guys, thugs and gang members and drug dealers, etc. The bad guys go to jail, and now maybe they can also rid the country of them by deporting them while they're at it. How is this a bad thing?
ETA: I'm completely against illegal immigration, but I wasn't aware that Mexicans have next to no way of getting here legally. I couldn't understand why they'd pay thousands to smugglers instead of just using that money to go through the immigration process. The legal immigration system itself needs serious reform.
More importantly, I am also completely against anyone who hires them and makes it so they feel the need to come here illegally in the first place! It's because those jobs pay next to nothing and are basically little more than slave labor that no citizens will take them, but the immigrants are so desperate that they will. That's disgusting, that some of these industries rely so heavily on cheap labor they know they can get easily with few to no repercussions for doing so illegally. If they had to pay real living wages and benefits and all the other things they should, and if they had to suffer serious consequences for hiring illegals, they'd go out of business, which means their businesses are flawed and unsustainable from the start! Eliminate the jobs for illegals, majorly crackdown on the businesses that employ them, and they won't come here. Why do we allow this to go on?
I'm also completely against the fact that WE have to pay to support illegal immigrants. Of course they want to come here! As soon as they do, they have access to free medical care, schooling, and a ton of other things we pay for through taxes. Do they contribute to these resources they gobble up? Nope, since they're not hired legally and therefore aren't being taxed. So all of these resources are strained, bursting at the seams with teems of people they're trying to accomodate but shouldn't be using them in the first place. It's completely ridiculous. No citizenship should equal no access to public resources, end of story.
And yes, I do see the potential for abuse with Arizona's law. I bet it'll be overturned anyway, but I think it sends an important message that we seriously need do to something about illegal immigration. Hundreds of people cross the border every night, and even if they get caught, they just turn around and do it again a little later. Something more substantial needs to be done than just sending them back to the border. They'll never stop as long as they think it's still better to come here than anything else.
I don't know, I should probably just keep my trap shut, and I'm truly not trying to poke an angry beehive or offend anyone, but I simply do not understand the argument in favor of illegal immigration. I'd like to hear some other viewpoints.
This is one issue where I'll be seen as far more conservative than liberal. I'm against illegal immigration, and here's why: illegal immigration is illegal. You can't just sneak into another country, knowingly breaking the laws of that country, and expect to have them pat you on the back once you're there and go "oh all right, come on in, since you're here now you can go ahead and take advantage of our publicly funded resources!" But that's what happens here. WTF? If that were allowed in other countries, I might have just up and moved to Canada during the Bush years. =p They are NOT "undocumented residents," because they aren't supposed to be residents at all. They are here ILLEGALLY! When did "illegal" start meaning "perfectly fine"? If you break the law, you suffer the consequences; we don't get to shrug and go "eh, go ahead and break the law, it's fine." It's no different from committing any other kind of crime, and it should not tolerated, just like any other crime. It completely baffles me that some people think it's totally okay for people to just come here and stay illegally, and it's completely unfair to the immigrants who do go through the correct process.
I have no problem with immigration as long as it's done legally and through the proper channels. I have a master's in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages for crying out loud; I've worked with and know and like these immigrants! Hell, I grew up in one of the most diverse areas in the country where I was a minority most of the time. So, seeing as thousands of people manage this apparently amazing feat of entering the country legally every year, why can't the thousands of Hispanics streaming across the southern border? (I'll just focus on them since they seem to be the issue at the heart of the debate). And don't give me any of that "they were here first" nonsense. No, they weren't; their population is the result of Spanish invasion and conquest, just like the resulting populations of any other colonial imperialism that happened throughout the world at the hands of Europeans. The Spanish overran and decimated the civilizations that were already here, just like those who came after them. If you want to go that route, none of us should actually be allowed to be here except for the so-called Native Americans; but even they aren't really native to this continent, they're just the folks who traveled across the Asian land bridge and happened to get here first. Anyway, the point is that Spanish settlers conquered and killed in order to establish their dominance and form the culture to their liking, just like later waves of invaders. And since the US government is the most recent settlement to establish dominance here, they currently get to make the rules about who stays and who goes. That's just how history went, and that's just the way it is.
And now a big reason we need these rules is to help keep the population under control. Just look at how the country's population exploded in only the couple of hundred years of open immigration. There are only so many resources to go around, you know? It might not be so bad if immigrants were to spread out more, but do you see enormous immigrant populations in the hundreds of thousands in like, Montana? No, instead you see them concentrated in relatively small areas of the country which then struggle to support them. We have them here in California, which is suffering and straining under waaaaay more people than it can support, with not enough space, food, water, jobs, schools, hospitals, police, or anything else to go around, and more people coming every day. Northern Californians are always pissed at Southern Californians for hogging far more of their share of the resources than they create because they have more people. It certainly doesn't help that these immigrants tend to be Catholic and have enormous families, either (boo religion, again). Another decade or so and the state will probably collapse from the neverending stream of people coming here. Yes, we need people who are willing to work the lousy jobs picking fields and such, but only so many. And who's to say the actual legal citizens don't need or want those jobs, anyway? In this economy, I'll bet they do! There shouldn't be a hundred guys sitting outside of every Home Depot in the state every day, all day long, trying to get day labor work. How is that good for anyone?
As for Arizona's particular new law, I'm not really seeing what the big deal is, or why people think it's going to cause so many problems. It enforces the laws we already have: if you are here illegally and are caught, you get thrown out. If you want to be here, go do it the right way. People say it will lead to racial profiling, but I'm not so sure about that. As I understand it, the police are only going to be nabbing people who are already doing something wrong, regardless of origin, and THEN possibly asking for proof of citizenship. It's not like they're going to go around grabbing every brown person on the street and demanding identification, at least I would surely hope law enforcement officers have more sense than that! They're going to be catching the usual band of bad guys, thugs and gang members and drug dealers, etc. The bad guys go to jail, and now maybe they can also rid the country of them by deporting them while they're at it. How is this a bad thing?
ETA: I'm completely against illegal immigration, but I wasn't aware that Mexicans have next to no way of getting here legally. I couldn't understand why they'd pay thousands to smugglers instead of just using that money to go through the immigration process. The legal immigration system itself needs serious reform.
More importantly, I am also completely against anyone who hires them and makes it so they feel the need to come here illegally in the first place! It's because those jobs pay next to nothing and are basically little more than slave labor that no citizens will take them, but the immigrants are so desperate that they will. That's disgusting, that some of these industries rely so heavily on cheap labor they know they can get easily with few to no repercussions for doing so illegally. If they had to pay real living wages and benefits and all the other things they should, and if they had to suffer serious consequences for hiring illegals, they'd go out of business, which means their businesses are flawed and unsustainable from the start! Eliminate the jobs for illegals, majorly crackdown on the businesses that employ them, and they won't come here. Why do we allow this to go on?
I'm also completely against the fact that WE have to pay to support illegal immigrants. Of course they want to come here! As soon as they do, they have access to free medical care, schooling, and a ton of other things we pay for through taxes. Do they contribute to these resources they gobble up? Nope, since they're not hired legally and therefore aren't being taxed. So all of these resources are strained, bursting at the seams with teems of people they're trying to accomodate but shouldn't be using them in the first place. It's completely ridiculous. No citizenship should equal no access to public resources, end of story.
And yes, I do see the potential for abuse with Arizona's law. I bet it'll be overturned anyway, but I think it sends an important message that we seriously need do to something about illegal immigration. Hundreds of people cross the border every night, and even if they get caught, they just turn around and do it again a little later. Something more substantial needs to be done than just sending them back to the border. They'll never stop as long as they think it's still better to come here than anything else.
I don't know, I should probably just keep my trap shut, and I'm truly not trying to poke an angry beehive or offend anyone, but I simply do not understand the argument in favor of illegal immigration. I'd like to hear some other viewpoints.
no subject
However, Arizona will suffer for this economically. Mark my words
And that leads to the other issue. Illegal immigration as a whole. I can't say I'm for or against it. The problem is on one hand, many GOP decry it with such force, it borders on insane. Because on the other hand, they profit from it. The American economy thrives on those "illegal" immigrants. Why not reform the law to make it easier. Have you seen the tests they have to take and the money it costs? Most people can't even afford it. As for the test, I bet 50-75% of American's couldn't pass it.
Do I think it's okay for them to be here "illegally"? No but we, America, encourage it. Like I said on one hand decry and on the other *wink* come on over and work out horrible jobs for less than we would pay citizens.
So I don't think there's a good answer to that. I do find it interesting how everyone is really only worried about one countries illegals.....
no subject
THIS. Or a certain portion of the US where there are certain illegals. I don't see too many Latinos here in RI ......
I agree with your comment 100%.
no subject
I agree that the legal immigration process is pretty insane and ought to be reformed. But I don't think that excuses people who just skip it altogether and don't even try to integrate and become American citizens, instead just staying "Mexicans who happen to live in America" or whatever. It's like, do you want to be part of this country or not? I guess that's another thing that bugs me. I wanted to live in Japan, so I studied Japanese language and their culture and everything else I could find about them. It annoys me that so many people come here and don't even try to become part of our society. Anyway, that's getting off track...
I don't like that people make money hand over fist off of illegal immigrants by paying them diddly to do all the hard labor and incredibly low-paying jobs out there. I've never been anywhere where the guy mucking the stalls/mowing the lawn/cleaning the hotel room/picking fruit/standing outside Home Depot wasn't Hispanic, which is ridiculous. If those jobs paid more than peanuts, maybe more actual citizens would take them, instead of immigrants who will work for any little scrap they can get. They're taken advantage of by our greedy business setups, and it isn't right.
no subject
"For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or a law enforcement agency…where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person…"
Lawful contact can be pulling someone over for speeding (or for looking mexican if they feel like it, which is the heart of the problem I have with it) or jaywalking. And the term "reasonable suspicion" is not defined
Granted part of the law states "race and ethnicity cannot be the sole factors in determining a reasonable suspicion." But come on, even some supporters said it's about racial profiling
Now in AZ showing a DL is sufficient. However, what if you're walking, say you jaywalk. You don't have a drivers license or don't have it with you....
I agree to some extent re: those who come here and don't try to integrate, but then again, our culture has also made it unnecessary. I know in LA, we have little Armenia, Koreatown, Chinatown, etc etc. thus they don't have to because they have their own "areas". It's another catch 22
I truly feel there's no great answer to this. Although sometimes, I wonder if we put as much energy and money into helping people become citizens (thus paying taxes, etc), how would that work. But that's another issue and one that probably won't ever be a serious political discussion
no subject
no subject
Also, the level of racial profiling in almost any other instance where 'regular people' get 'irregular power', e.g. border crossings, the airport, etc, is so ridiculous and well documented that I can't believe some people think this is a completely harmless option to pursue.
no subject