According to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken last weekend and released yesterday 78% of the American people feel immigrants now in the country illegally should be given a chance at citizenship.
Wow! If you read the comments posted online to any news article or blog entry that mentions illegal immigrants you would get the feeling that there are an awful lot of Americans who think that all the undocumented should be immediately deported the moment anyone in law enforcement becomes aware of them, no matter how long the immigrants have been here and how many roots they have put down in our communities. Apparently those who feel that way are much more vocal and much more likely to publicly state their opinion than the 78% majority who feel otherwise.
Maybe the release of this poll will embolden people to be more assertive in defending the most vulnerable and least powerful among us -- the more than 12 million undocumented. You can't go back in time and stand up to the school-yard bullies like you now wish you had but you do have the opportunity to confront the adult bullies who think just because they were born here they can push around defenseless people who were not.
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7 comments:
I have no problem with people coming to this country. Hell, our ancestors did the same thing. None of us can complain about people coming here. But not we have laws set up so people have to register to come here and go through the proper steps. If you come here without taking those steps, you've broken a law and should pay the price.
That's a great line. I do wish I had stood up to those schoolyard bullies.
I think there were no restrictions on immigration until about 1880 when they started barring Chinese immigrants for racist reasons. The motive behind all the restrictions since then has been racist too. How about going back to 1880 and removing the restrictions.
The Mexican immigration "problem" could have been solved in advance in 1847 when the Marines took over Mexico City and there was talk of the U.S. just annexing the whole country. That idea was also rejected for racist reasons. But if it had happened, there would be no illegal Mexican immigrants today, they would have all been U.S. citizens since 1847. Too late now, I guess.
anonymous 4/22 11:44 AM
We are all very familiar with this point of view. It has been expressed often in recent discussions about immigration in this country. We now know that only about 22% of the American public think that all the illegals should be deported.
Whatever downsides there are to having a lot of recent immigrants in our society an increase in crime is not one of them. First generation immigrants commit far fewer crimes than people who were born here with similar levels of income, education, etc.
What do you mean "anchor babies?" I have never heard that term. Having a baby here does nothing to help the parents become legal. Marrying a citizen does help, although I have never heard of an "anchor spouse."
It would be much better to liberalize the immigration laws so as to allow people seeking work to be here legally than to just continue to allow them to stay here in in illegal status. The present situation gives us a class of people who can be exploited or victimized because of their illegal status. This is not good for them or for the rest of us or for our view of what American society should be. As a practical matter, not very many of them will be deported because employers want them here. So - for the sake of the American Dream, we should change the immigration laws to legalize them so they will be protected by the law from exploitation and victimization.
This lady has ruined my life.
she is an illigal immigrant right now for 7 years in the U.S.I HAVE HEARD ABOUT HER GOING TO MENS HOUSES COOKING FOR THEM AND HOUSE KEEPING SO SHE CAN HAVE THEIR BABIES.NOW SHES WITH MY UNCLE.SHE CHEATED ON HIM. HE DOESNT KNOW YET BUT I WANT HER TO GET DEPORTED AND ABORT.MY UNCLE HAS A LOVING AND CARING FAMILY WITH 2 BEAUTIFUL CHILDERN.I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO.
I NEED HELP
Anonymous,
Trying to get her deported is probably not going to work. I have heard of many people calling ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and telling them about a particular illegal immigrant and in all the incidents I have heard about ICE did not respond. What ICE seems to be doing is conducting a few high profile raids and sweeps to create a public impression that illegal immigrants are being deported while actually only deporting a tiny fraction of all the illegal immigrants. This intimidates the illegal immigrants and keeps them from demonstrating and causing trouble and satisfies the wingnuts that the government is doing something while essentially keeping the status quo, which is what the big corporations who really run things want.
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