Illegal Immigration.

[angemonkwj]

I dont have a problem as long as they are legal. They came over, learned the laws, applied for citizenship, the whole 9 yards. I mean the key word is ILLEGAL. They crossed the borer ILLEGALLY. I say we need to watch all of our borders better, not just Mexico, but Canada, and along both coasts. We get plenty of them washing up on the shores of S. Florida to. Keep in mind that when our immigrant ancestors came over, they gladly supported this country. They waived the american flag. They didnt wave the flag of the other country that they came from. They learned the language that was spoken over here. These immigrants today feel they dont have to learn the language, yet I need learn a different language in my own country to understand what the hell these immigrants are saying.

I totally agree with the fining of companies that hire illegals. Fine the landlords that rent to them to.

[Sonthert]

Ah, these last two posts contain conflicting views.

1. Learn some foreign languages. The world is a big place, if you don't like not understanding what people are saying, learn their language.

2. With that being said, we don't want to learn foreign languages, but we expect "them" to learn ours...quite hypocritical.

[Lakemonster]

When I go to Mexico... I speak Spanish....

When I go to Mexico... I get a visa.

[worr lord]

When I go to Mexico... I speak Spanish....

When I go to Mexico... I get a visa.

Yep.

I know an illegal from Nepal who deserves to be in the country, and couldn't go through the red tape to get in. He works 7 days a week, with 12 hour shifts at minimum wage so that his 3 kids have the opportunity to go to a crappy public school and live in a torn up apartment with his wife. And in the years that I've know him, I've never once seen him without a smile when he talks about the life he and his family have.

Now, I don't believe in all illegal immigration. Those that truly are here to support and give their family better lives deserve to be in, but if they have a sick child or something like that that needs to be here, they almost have an obligation to their child to get past the border illegally.

Just don't come to America 'in search of better life' then put a Mexican flag up and then brag about how great Mexico is compared to America.

[entrailsgalore]

I think that if you come to the states you should learn english. If you come to japan you should learn japanese.

IM half philipino and in the philipino culture we are raised to speak english as well as tagalog. And I dont mean asian americans, but in the Phillipines, if you speak tagalog in school you would get in trouble.

You could speak tagalog at home but when you were in school you spoke english. But thats just how the phillipino culture is and Im not saying every culture should be that way.

But if you go into someone elses home, you follow their rules. When they come to your home they follow your rules. So if people want to make a better life here in teh states, im all for it. Atleast take some effort into learning english, it doesnt have to be perfect either.

I just get irritated when its MY fault because a customer cant understand me or I cant under stand them because they dont speak english. I just dont udnerstand how thats MY fault for not learning THEIR language when its the USA. And this applies to anyone not just hispanics. If its a chinese guy, and they are getting mad because I dont udnerstand what hes saying...that just doesnt fly with me. If I were coming to anotehr country I would show them the respect as to learn their language. Thats my only gripe.

[entrailsgalore]

When I go to Mexico... I speak Spanish....

Just don't come to America 'in search of better life' then put a Mexican flag up and then brag about how great Mexico is compared to America.

Word due... word.

[angemonkwj]

When I go to Mexico... I speak Spanish....

Just don't come to America 'in search of better life' then put a Mexican flag up and then brag about how great Mexico is compared to America.

Word due... word.

/agree!!!

[Sonthert]

If someone doesn't want to learn English, thats their tough break. Who cares? Its no skin off my ass.
On the other hand, I do object to making ballots and other official paperwork in other languages. If you don't want to learn English, fine. If you want to particiapte in government or privileges like driving, learn it.

Oh, the Mexican flag, the Mexican flag. How many people run around wearing Irish flags or German Flags or Japanese emblems? Anybody complain about those? It has nothing to do with their flag, it has everything to do with them being dark-skinned foreigners who speak a different language. They are just the scapegoat for our woes. We, as a country, need to stop blaming Mexico for our problems. We are the problem, not them. Moreover, without the Mexican immigrants in this country, this country would be flat on its ass, broke.

[entrailsgalore]

I get what you mean, Im not limiting it to Mexico but to everyone in general. But Im talking about the people who come here for a " better life" then say " fuck the USA, my country is better". If their country is so much better why did they come here? Thats all Im saying.

But yeah if people dont want to learn english then they dont have to, but they wont be able to participate in anything that requires english. Im just tired of it being my fault when I dont speak anything else but spanish in a country where english is the dominate language.

[Sonthert]

How many guys come over from the Middle East, open up something hookah related, a website, a tobacco brand and then when legal authorities or tax problems get too close, they skip town? Alot. Not just in hookah industry, but lots of others. Those are the "visitors" that should be "Shot in the head" and then returned to their place of origin.

That is, the visitors pose more problems than the illegals, seemingly.

[james]

They are just the scapegoat for our woes.  

+1

Moreover, without the Mexican immigrants in this country, this country would be flat on its ass, broke.

+1 million

[pboyle]

Technically the USA doesn't have a national language.
Although the greatest majority speaks English, it isn't a declared national language.

So technically.. people can speak what they want. It is just detrimental to those who don't speak english.
I mean.. we're the assholes who go to other countries and are loud and annoying.
With our tourists.
That classic look. The hawaiian shirt and camera around the neck.
And although I don't think immigrants should be free to just wander across the border, I don't think putting up a huge fence will work either.

You know they'll just learn to pole vault.

[worr lord]

If someone doesn't want to learn English, thats their tough break. Who cares? Its no skin off my ass.  
On the other hand, I do object to making ballots and other official paperwork in other languages. If you don't want to learn English, fine. If you want to particiapte in government or privileges like driving, learn it.

Oh, the Mexican flag, the Mexican flag. How many people run around wearing Irish flags or German Flags or Japanese emblems? Anybody complain about those? It has nothing to do with their flag, it has everything to do with them being dark-skinned foreigners who speak a different language. They are just the scapegoat for our woes. We, as a country, need to stop  blaming Mexico for our problems. We are the problem, not them. Moreover, without the Mexican immigrants in this country, this country would be flat on its ass, broke.

I apologize if my statement regarding their flag came off as racist. I don't care about a Mexican wearing a Mexican flag, nor do I care about a Polish person sporting a Polish flag. What annoys me, are the people who have genuine reason or need to come to America, but refuse to admit they have a better life. When I was in school I was quite familiar with a family who came from Mexico, who wouldn't allow their children to have Americans as friends, and who did nothing but brag about how flawed our country is compared to Mexico. They did nothing to me, I have no real reason to hate them, so I don't.
I look at Americans who bitch about their horrible job working under the "conformists" at Wal-Mart while making $9+ hourly to stand at a freaking cash register.

If Mexico is better, stay there. If you don't like making over $9 an hour to stand around, leave you job.

[Shavo989]

Here, here.

[Shavo989]

I'm with Scalli in the sense that I have a certain sympathy for illegal immigrants. I know what it's like to be treated like an outsider in a lily-white country. Anthropologists hypothesise that a long time ago my ancestors left their native India and began to move westward, for reasons that are still disputed. They moved toward Europe through the Middle East and the Byzantine Empire and were looked on as outsiders by people that physically looked a lot like them. Once they reached Europe (around 700 years ago) they were looked on with strong suspicion by the Europeans and a majority were rounded up and were sold into slavery in Eastern Europe. The ones that were not enslaved dispersed further west into Europe. Over the course of 500 years the Europeans would spin fantastic tales about how they were opposed to work and lazy by nature, how they were thieves and parasites hiding behind the guises of musicians, artisans, and fortune-tellers, how they descended from the blacksmith who forged the nails for the Crucifixion. They has laws and bills were passed against them, including the death penalty for simply being Roma and the death penalty for those that "shall become of the fellowship or company of Egyptians", fines for speaking their language or even calling one's self a Rom. They were fully released from slavery in 1856. After that many dispersed and ended up living in ghettos all over Europe and were the subject of racial hatred, along with the Jewish people, by the Europeans culminating in the Holocaust. The old ideas of the Roma didn't die after that, and they were still viewed as pick-pockets and vermin. Today we constitute Europe's largest and most dispersed minority.

I was born in Romania, my father died before I was born, my mother a couple of months after. When I was a toddler my grandmother and I were granted refugee status from the US due to the wars that had broken out in the Balkans at the time, and she took me to New York (we re-located to SE Massachusetts a few years later). Luckily the people of the United States, as opposed to their European counterparts, held the romanticised idea of Gypsies. Just happy, flamboyantly-dressed, free-spirited nomads. But in Europe, even in this modern and enlightened day and age, my entire ethnic group are mostly seen as just a bunch of no-good, lazy illegals (regardless that we have been living there for centuries). We're the ones that have to beg for money or do itinerant jobs like fix peoples furniture, tell peoples fortunes, perform music and dance on street corners.

Now my view on illegal Mexican immigrants in the US is like the ones shared by others in the thread. If we didn't waste so much time in Iraq and if we instead made Mexico more of a better place to live and fixed up it's economy, then maybe people wouldn't try to cross over some imaginary border to come here seeking financial stability. Today I am a legal United States citizen, though I am not native-born, I love this country and it is my home. I don't go around talking about how much better Europe is then the United States and how much it sucks here, because, to me, it doesn't. I've been to visit family in the slums back in Romania, and although I like seeing my relatives (to a certain degree), I am happy living in and being a citizen of the country that I do/am, and not having to go through the stress some of my family experiences.

[jonny_lech]

If we didn't waste so much time in Iraq and if we instead made Mexico more of a better place to live and fixed up it's economy, then maybe people wouldn't try to cross over some imaginary border to come here seeking financial stability.

The other day Sen. Carl Levin said "We can't save the Iraqis from themselves" as a reason why we have to start pulling out of Iraq.


So what makes you think we can save the Mexicans from themselves? Certainly the drug trade goes a long way to screwing them up, but it's a lot more than that, and we should not get involved in their internal business.

[Shavo989]

But if we tried to 'pitch in' in making Mexico, as a nation, a better place to live for the Mexican people perhaps it would help slow down illegal immigration. I don't have a solution to the illegal immigration problem, but, in my opinion, militarizing the border and having more minutemen on patrol isn't the answer.

[worr lord]

So...... What? You're saying we shouldn't be in Iraq, so we should move to Mexico?

[Shavo989]

I said I don't have a solution to the immigration issue, I just think the whole insane border patrol thing is a bit ridiculous. We'd be wasting our time. No, I don't think if and when we pull out of Iraq we move the troops to Mexico. I don't have any idea how to stop illegal immigration, that's up to the government, as I have no control over it anyway. I wasn't trying to solve the problem of illegal immigration, just stating that I think the whole minuteman thing is stupid. And yes I think that the whole war in the Middle East is bull shit, and I think our good ole' southern boy president (who is from Connecticut :? ) is a shit head, but that's also just my opinion. As for the illegals in the US already, that's up to the government; and for the ones that are going to come later, also, up to the government. So I don't see sense arguing about it on an internet forum and I'm unsure of what to do about it, myself.

[james]

Illegal immigration is a political tool. It's a problem, but no one is actually interested in fixing. A fence won't fix it, and more border patrol agents won't either. The reformation of immigrations laws in relation to Mexico would help, and so would *gasp* a guest worker program. But, nothing that we in the US can do is going to actually solve illegal immigration from Mexico.

The problem is Mexico itself. Mexico's economy has been in the toilet for a very long time. Their government is so lazier-faire in its efforts to do anything that they couldn't stimulate economic growth with a hot poker. The distribution of wealth in the country is mirrored by third world countries. People in cities like Queretaro live quite well. In fact, if it weren't for people speaking Spanish, you could almost fool yourself in to thinking you were somewhere in the US. People in more rural areas are a completely different story. It's pretty common for people to literally live in thatched shacks. Thatched as in I-found-these-plants-over-there-and-made-my-roof thatched.

Bottom line is that I couldn't sit in some rat hole border town with my wife and kids without feeling that it would be my duty to cross over here and make a better life for myself and them. Yes, I'm breaking the law. If I'm caught, deport me. But I'll come back. And you can't expect me to try and immigrate legally. I'll be put on a fifteen year waiting list behind gobs of other people, while the wealthy families get to skip to the front of the lines.

And I can't stand to here a politician tell me about the crime caused by illegal immigrants. I live in an area with a heavy amount of illegal immigrants, and know quite a few personally. Two of the times that I've been to Mexico have been with a perviously illegal family to visit their relatives. Anyone who has been to Mexico (besides a border town or Mexico City) knows that crime in Mexico and crime in the US are completely different. They're less violent than we are. There's less crime down there. Period. And they bring that culture with them. Illegals don't get arrested around here for anything other than drinking and being loud. Drugs, theft, vandalism, assaults? That's more of a redneck issue. If anything, illegals account for less crime because who the hell wants to get arrested for something stupid and risk deportation?

Draining the economy is another political talking point that gets crammed down my throat. Probably 50%-75% of the manual labor force around here are illegals, or are from illegal families. Without them, we would tank. There's simply not enough people here to supply the demand. When asked who would take the place of illegals in the workforce, "my" congressman said that he was confident that retired people and high school students would fill the need. Yea. My grandpa can work the day shift, and high school kids can fill in nights. That'll work.

They are a drain on state provided social welfare programs, though. And that is a problem. But, they also pay taxes. When they get a job, they use a false SS number. It's too expensive to check the SS for everyone who you hire, so most employers don't do it. Just like everyone else, an illegal gets all the applicable state and federal taxes withheld from his/her check. Social security, FUTA, SUTA, fed and state income, everything. But, they don't pull anything out. At the end of the year when taxes are filed, the employer gets a list of bad SS numbers from the government. They then proceed to fire any of these workers who have bad SS numbers. A couple months later, the same people with come back with new numbers. But you don't get a tax refund if you’re illegal. And you'll never see any social security, either. So, that money's long gone. And we actually benefit from that.

Any hint of a supposed "sense of entitlement" is absent in the people I know. It's their kids, their kids kids, and their kids kids kids that have that. Can you guess why? They're American. They've integrated in to our culture. There's no difference between the sense of entitlement that Jose has and the sense of entitlement that Bubba has, other than Bubba is pasty white and flying a rebel flag in his yard down the road.

If someone wants to complain about Mexicans flying Mexico's flag, they also need to complain about how Irish immigrants fly the Irish flag, or Italy's flag, or the Union Jack. If I have a shirt with a British flag on it, it's just fashion. If I have a shirt with the German flag on it, it's heritage. But if someone wears a shirt with the Mexican flag on it, they're attacking our sovereignty and trying to destroy our culture. :roll:

I don't have the solution to illegal immigration. But I know it's not a fence or more of my tax dollars being spent on more border patrol agents that make the situation look prettier. Draining the economy? Make them pay taxes. Can't keep track of them within the country? Design a system. If it's available, they'll use it. The immigration system right now is a joke. Destroying our culture? lol. I'd like to know how.

But, why fix illegal immigration? It helps keep our nation running, and it's hot button political issue. Fix it and politicians couldn't beat the "Mexicans are destroying our country" drum anymore. The economy could tank, too. Since our nation is becoming less labor-oriented, we'd just outsource our industry. Then that would be the huge debate.

Sorry if I offended anyone. Nothing is directed toward anyone here. I didn't even want to post in here. I'm just extremely political and can't stand to stay out of things. I love my country. It just seems sometimes like the country I live in and the country (insert political pundit) lives in are completely different places.

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free... or not lollrz!11!!"

[Shavo989]

...Wow... James, you just said everything that I wanted too but couldn't figure out how too. I agree with you completely.

[worr lord]

James, that was an interesting read. Though it seems everything you have to say on the matter is purely your own personal experiences in an extremely small area of the matter. I mean, where do you live that up to 75% of the manual labor force is illegal aliens? Is this your city/state, or your neighborhood you're referring to?

By the way, no idiot can honestly say that a person sporting a flag is "attacking our sovereignty and trying to destroy our culture". This wasn't a stab at you, I'm trying to back you with that last statement

[james]

I live in southern Oklahoma. I can honestly say that the workforce of the major factories in the area is somewhere in that percentage range. Keep in mind that it's 50%-75% that are illegal or come from illegal families. That is, their parents are/where illegal, and they wouldn't be part of the workforce if their parents hadn't come here illegally. And, the percentage is more of an average. For instance, the workforce at the Turf Farm down the road is most likely 90%, while the percentage at Goodyear is more likely around %25.

Anyway, I am speaking from my personal experiences. My personal experiences encompass an area between Oklahoma City and Dallas, West Texas down to San Angelo, Phoenix, and San Diego/Chula Vista. So it's definitely not just my neighborhood. It's not my state, either (because I don't usually go north of OKC). It's places where I visit friends and relatives (PHX, San Deigo) and regions where have worked (West Texas). My experiences with illegals are generally the same wherever I go.

I've been to Mexico just under ten times. Rural and developed areas, too. Not Tijuana and Cancun. And as I mentioned, two of those trips were with the Trevino family who were made legal by the amnesty act. We went down to Rio Verde and basically lived with their extended family for around a week.

Someone else may have different experiences depending on where they live. And that's good, because the most valid arguments come from experience.

My statement about "attacking our sovereignty and trying to destroy our culture" is almost word-for-word something I've heard over and over from political pundits over the last year or so. You could, however, argue that they're idiots or are just power hungry and will say anything for attention. But people listen to them and take their word as gospel. And again, no one said that in this thread. Further demonstrates that I was lashing out at non-hookah smoking people.