A Peculiar Day for Immigration Rallies - Law Day in the US

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1.  

   Dr. Fallon ~ 14 months ago

   0 votes
   
   It's a complicated issue, Kestrel. The laws make it difficult to come in the first place, and more difficult to stay. With quotas in place, everyone, every year, who doesn't qualify to enter legally, or to stay legally, has to make a choice: stay home (which probably means poverty and all that goes along with it), or break the law. Nobody, as far as I can see, is coming here for a joy-ride.
   
   Then there's the economic factors. As you point out (although I think you frame the issue 180 degrees differently than I do), if we had full employment, we'd LOVE having people come in and taking jobs. But as Lou Dobbs points out in his other work, we're "out-sourcing America" to the lowest bidder. Remember when companies had some loyalty to their workers, their communities, and their nation?That's a long time ago.
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2.  

   georgie ~ 14 months ago

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   I can understand your perspective, since it was such a struggle for so many years for you to achieve U.S. citizenship legally.
   
   And I'm wondering why it is such a struggle in the first place? And why some are allowed to participate in years of hard work to prove themselves able citizens, while others are seriously deterred. Why does the U.S. government, for example, hunt down people fleeing inhospitable living conditions who cross the border from Mexico but grant amnesty to Cubans who are fleeing inhospitable living conditions and float ashore on rafts in Florida?
   
   I don't have a personal issue with anyone who is seeking greater opportunity for a better life. But why the double standard, America? Foreign relations is one matter, globalization (as Dr Fallon pointed out) is another, but negative stereotypes and assumptions about immigrant peoples seem to be part of the war going on inside the borders.
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3.  

   earsz ~ 14 months ago

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   Immigration and border issues most certainly are complex! The United States likes to think of itself with some pride as a "melting pot," but it can be quite icy toward immigrants at the same time.
   
   Africans were free and had rights in the late 1600s, but then came slavery _ and the whole Don Imus bit is only a tiny and insignificant indication that racism remains strong.
   
   Folk today love to point to their Irish heritage, but Irish immigrants were treated severely during the 1800s. Chinese came in the 1800s and they and the Irish built our railroads, but the nation and many of its states wrote lots of ugly anti-Chinese laws during that same period.
   
   Every so often the nation decides to help rescue a group of people who were being severely mistreated at home by opening its doors, but in general the doorway to citizenship and to working in the United States legally is sealed by red tape.
   
   Americans decry outsourcing and moan about loss of job opportunities because of immigrants legal and illegal, but love buying the jeans and athletic shoes made in sweat shops and relish the relatively inexpensive electronics manufactured in those outsourced factories.
   
   There has been lots of media and other attention to discovery of a potentially Earth-like planet. I can see it now: We arrive in our space ships only to find we're barred by the locals. Then we go to war against those locals to prove that we're an adventurous peace-loving species who insist we have a right to go anywhere we please, and to do what we like when we get there. Duhhhh.
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4.  

   AdGuy

   22 votes
   
   This is my two cents...
   
      
   Hey you know AdGuy always gets the last word! ;)