Why the Debate Over Illegal Immigration Matters

[brewdogmike]

Students at Montebello High School in California did this.

See the rest of the photos.

[Mass_SkinsFan]

So far as I am concerned that is an act of TREASON. I understand it doesn't live up to the Constitutional definition, but that's definitely the sort of thing that we need to start PUNISHING VERY, VERY HARSHLY.

If these kids love Mexico that much more than America, maybe they need to be sent there, permanently and told that if they're caught in the United States again, they will be summarily SHOT as foreign spies.

[Thiebear]

Actually that is o.k.

The school is in need of help...

[stevenaa]

We had some walkouts in Dallas. They went to City Hall, like any legislation is passed there. Anyway, the local media was interviewing the kids and they just embarrased themselves. Half of them didn't know what they were protesting, and the other half couldn't form a cognitive thought as to what was wrong with the bill. To top it off, they were carrying Mexican flags and chanting Viva La Mexico. How friggin stupid.

[Redskins Diehard]

This really makes me sympathetic to their cause. If us gringo's are upside down, go back south of the border.

[Fergasun]

Our local conservative radio station interviewed some students from the LA Walkouts on Monday.

Common themes... "immigrants are citizens", "latino power", "that law is racist", "I don't know how a bill becomes law". I was amused by the answer than shocked at how little these kids understood about what was going on.

Walking out of school tells me they appreciate all the tax money we've spent on educating them. Not to mention the fact that LA School District and LAPD just sat around with their thumbs you know where. So basically they learned they can get out of school free whenever they want as long as the veil it in a political statement.

[Fergasun]

... and it was funny when the mayor was speaking to them.

After giving his speech Antonio Virarrigosa said something like... "Now... it's important for you to go back to school...".

The students response..."Hell no, we won't go, hell no we won't go, hell no, we won't go".

[Destino]

I disagree entirely with the thread title. An act of stupidity by children is not why the debate over illegal immigrations matters. The lives of working adults trying to make a better life for themselves, the need for the US to be secure, and the needs of American business are why immigration debates matter.

[Fergasun]

Well... food for thought. In 5 years these students will be voters, and in 20 years they will have spawned similar thinking children who are voting. Do you think they would try to vote the Southwest US back to Mexico?

[Crazyhorse1]

Students at Montebello High School in California did this.

See the rest of the photos.

An upside down flag is a call for help, not a sign of disrespect. Of course, I don't know what these kids intended.

[DjTj]

Well... food for thought. In 5 years these students will be voters, and in 20 years they will have spawned similar thinking children who are voting. Do you think they would try to vote the Southwest US back to Mexico?

ummm ... no. There's a reason their parents LEFT Mexico.

[Destino]

Well... food for thought. In 5 years these students will be voters, and in 20 years they will have spawned similar thinking children who are voting. Do you think they would try to vote the Southwest US back to Mexico?

If they are in highschool they it's less then 5 years. However let's look at that time period - Is anyone the same person at 16 as they are at 21? How about 25? I don't think so. Most of them will change their world view once they enter the real world, just like everyone else does.

Your comment on children is an extension of your being wrong on the previous point. These kids have not yet developed an adult world view - they will for the most part change as they experience different things and mature.

Also - the voting the south west to Mexico thing is laughable IMO. Never going to happen.

[Fergasun]

It's easy to speak from being in the comforts of Northern Virginia and UVA... you guys don't understand the situation in the border states and Southern California. As much as you think I'm some right wing "racist, whacko, nutjob" there are people in this country from Mexico who would like to see Mexican supremecy in the Southwest US again.... and are as racist as is being projected on me.

If you clicked on the link you'll see a picture of a student being shouted down in Dallas for carrying around a US flag. Whoever is fueling these walk-outs and protests seems to have a deeper intent.

The protestors are shouting "Viva La Raza!" and "Mexico, Mexico!" and proclaiming "Latino Solidarity". These don't seem like people we should be welcoming into our country as potential American citizens. Their battle cry "La Raza" is an allusion to "The Race"... it would be like me going into the streets and shouting "White Power!". It's quite easy for an elite few to manipulate the uninformed and uneducated.

That's not to say all of these undocumented workers harbor ill intent... but they seem quite prone to be stirred up by the wrong crowd and don't seem to realize waving their flags around is doing more to piss off Americans and legal immigrants. There's nothing wrong with patriotic flag waving, but the context of this week is far different than the people waving the flag around at the World Baseball Classic.

[DjTj]

It's easy to speak from being in the comforts of Northern Virginia and UVA... you guys don't understand the situation in the border states and Southern California. As much as you think I'm some right wing "racist, whacko, nutjob" there are people in this country from Mexico who would like to see Mexican supremecy in the Southwest US again.... and are as racist as is being projected on me.

If you clicked on the link you'll see a picture of a student being shouted down in Dallas for carrying around a US flag. Whoever is fueling these walk-outs and protests seems to have a deeper intent.

The protestors are shouting "Viva La Raza!" and "Mexico, Mexico!" and proclaiming "Latino Solidarity". These don't seem like people we should be welcoming into our country as potential American citizens. Their battle cry "La Raza" is an allusion to "The Race"... it would be like me going into the streets and shouting "White Power!". It's quite easy for an elite few to manipulate the uninformed and uneducated.

That's not to say all of these undocumented workers harbor ill intent... but they seem quite prone to be stirred up by the wrong crowd and don't seem to realize waving their flags around is doing more to piss off Americans and legal immigrants. There's nothing wrong with patriotic flag waving, but the context of this week is far different than the people waving the flag around at the World Baseball Classic.

I might be a UVA now, but I lived for four years in Pasadena. Also, As I've mentioned in other threads, my parents immigrated to this country. They have been to rallies in Washington, D.C. where they have waived Taiwanese flags. However, that doesn't mean they're a threat to our country. They may never be as patriotic as even someone like myself, who was born here, but they pay taxes, they vote, and they live their lives like any other Americans.

I've also had firsthand experience with Mexican immigration in SoCal. While I was in Pasadena, I was a supervisor at a private club where just 25 years ago, the staff was primarily American college students working part-time jobs. When I started there in 2000, there were still about 20-25 students on the staff. There were also about 50 Mexican immigrants, which included most of the kitchen staff and the cleaning staff. In 2000, the restaurant part of the club was losing on the order of $1 million a year, but because of the internet boom, there was plenty of money coming in from other sources.

However, starting in late 2001, they started cutting costs and making the staff work longer hours. Over the course of 6 months, about half the student waiters quit. The restaurant raised wages, and I worked to recruit more students. However, most of the new recruits would last only a few months, and we had very heavy turnover over the last two years I was there. To make up for the staff shortages, we had to hire additional staff, and they were primarily Mexican immigrants.

Almost across the board, these immigrant hires were harder-working and simply better waiters than my student employees. Even when their English wasn't great, some of them would catch on very quickly and make the transition from busboy to waiter.

Among the younger generation, most seemed intent on going back to Mexico, and some of them would actually spend their summers (when business was slower) in their hometowns in Mexico before coming back. Among the older generation though, who had mostly been hired 20 years ago, they had raised their children in America and were pretty committed to making their lives here - most were citizens by then.

Anyhow, my point is that it is working class people that make up the vast majority of these immigrants. They didn't immigrate because of some political cause, and they are not behind some sort of big conspiracy.

You are right that there are some Mexican nationalist elements among that population, but as you also point out, there are white supremacist elements in American culture. In both cases, that is an extreme minority viewpoint. These protests are not about secession or annexation, they are simply a group of people who want to be treated fairly. As we've seen in America, it's not hard to get young people to rally around goals of freedom and equality and fairness ... however, most hippies grew up to raise their own families in the suburbs, and these Mexican-American kids will do the same.

"La Raza" is a prominent National Latino civil rights organization, similar to an NAACP specifically for Latinos. "Latino Power" is a slogan obviously borrowed from the Black Power movement. These protestors are copying a distincly American form of political organization - namely, the Civil Rights movement of the 20th-century.

I really think you're reading way too much into the "context" of this. There's nothing going on now that didn't happen in earlier waves of immigration. There's nothing going on now that didn't happen during the Civil Rights movement. We've seen this all before, and we've worked through it. When I look at this in context, I don't look at it with fear - I see a rather complex problem, but I also see many common-sense solutions.

[twa]

Personaly I think Fergusun is mostly correct ,the trends I see here are very disturbing (and I am partly of spanish descent), there are numerous efforts to divide the populus that should not be allowed to continue.

You folks up north will see soon enough :2cents:

[Fergasun]

DjTj,

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

One of the problems I have with the immigration debate is that it's largely been spawned by business decisions.

However, starting in late 2001, they started cutting costs and making the staff work longer hours. Over the course of 6 months, about half the student waiters quit. The restaurant raised wages, and I worked to recruit more students. However, most of the new recruits would last only a few months, and we had very heavy turnover over the last two years I was there. To make up for the staff shortages, we had to hire additional staff, and they were primarily Mexican immigrants.

Combine those business decisions with the largely quiet unenforcement of the law by the goverment, have put quite a strain on the average American taxpayer and our government resources. This can be seen in school overcrowding, a large increase in ethnic gangs in cities (MS-13), and closing of lots of emergency rooms (at least in Southern California). Most citizens had no idea what was going on behind the scenes thus we are quite upset with our goverment now for 20 years of unenforcement.

Up until now the nation saw this only as a regional problem for the SouthWest, but now it's becoming an even bigger issue. Businesses have taken advantage of the governments lack of enforcement (under Bush I, Clinton and Bush II)... and now we are stuck with people who shouldn't be here, but could be needed by businesses.

[MLiverpool]

The poll numbers in this article are interesting...seems the majority of the U.S. is in favor of protecting the borders...and not granting work permits...

Mexican illegals vs. American citizens

Something just stinks in Washington....

And its obviously not the Redskins

[CrazyJoe92]

I think anyone can come to the USA no matter what part of the world they are from as long as they follow the same rules as the Americans. pay the same tax, follow the same laws.

[MLiverpool]

I think anyone can come to the USA no matter what part of the world they are from as long as they follow the same rules as the Americans. pay the same tax, follow the same laws.

Then why enforce a border? How to implement this too, because the reason so many come here and work illegally and avoid federal taxes?

And what if we do pay them, and they go back to their countries and use the money there to purchase goods and services, what happens to American business? The local business ma is more likely to be hurt by this then the corporate entity which is allowed to expand across borders...this creates cheaper competition for the U.S. citizen, so what happens when everyone is unbid by someone capable of living on less because it doesn't take as much to live in Mexico..and if we expand the economic base to deal with this, what happens to the middle class who try to compete? They're but into the middle and this is why the average income of the American will continue to slide in comparison to inflation... i.e. if the average income increases at a rate of 3 percent, but inflation 3.5 percent... and this trend continues at a long enough rate.. it means no one takes note, because its not drastic, nor immediate.. its slow and seemingly painless because you're getting the raise, its just not at the rate we'd like to see in comparison to the increase in the price for goods and services...

These aren't easy questions...There are limits to how many people our economy can sustain, we're not limitless...and allowing more people to sipheon away jobs isn't going to help the American economy... the more competition there is against nations with lower living standards, the lower our own wages have to become in order to compete... at least that's what my thinking... but I could be wrong...hope I am...

[luckydevil]

The protestors are shouting "Viva La Raza!" and "Mexico, Mexico!" and proclaiming "Latino Solidarity". These don't seem like people we should be welcoming into our country as potential American citizens. Their battle cry "La Raza" is an allusion to "The Race"... it would be like me going into the streets and shouting "White Power!". It's quite easy for an elite few to manipulate the uninformed and uneducated.

Do you favor an ideological test for residency? This country is filled with racist organizations like the KKK, would you be in favor of deporting current citizens/residents who belong to groups like the KKK?