I'm really starting to get pissed...

[KrAzY3]

Considering the fact that my wife is a immigrant, the entire immigration issue hits close to home. Also, considering the fact that I have lived in Gwinette County (which has one of the fastest growing Latino populations) I feel I am aware of the pros and cons of immigration, both legal and illegal.

Allow me to be clear. I have no problem at all with legal immigrants. In fact, I think there should be more. I have a problem with illegal immigrants which break and continue to break our laws. The idea that they can refuse to follow our rules and refuse to obey our laws, yet they want to be treated equally to law abiding immigrants infuriates me.

I'd like to set a few things straight:

It is not about immigration rights. It is about ILLEGAL immigration rights. You keep seeing equal rights for all immigrants. What does that mean? It means that the illegal immigrants want to be treated just as well as the law abiding immigrants. This is a absurd notion.

We are not just discussing adding ten million citizens. We are discussing forgiving the law breaking of ten million individuals and giving them citizenship. In fact, we are talking about rewarding them for breaking the law. This spits in the face of legal immigrants, what many are suggesting is that if you just come here you don't have to obey our laws. While millions of people sit overseas unable to even come here because of our immigration laws. This is a horrible double standard.

If we add ten million Latino citizens, we will also be opening the door for their family members as well. This could result in 20 or 30 million American citizens which would in turn have even more political power. This could easily result in complete failure to ever secure the border with Mexico. If ten million illegals can scare our politicians out of taking action, what will 30 million more voters be able to do? Do we even want to know?

We are not just talking about immigration here. We are talking about adding people who could not find work in Mexico, we are talking about giving citizenship to people that broke our law. This is about adding millions of citizens, over half of which are not even high school graduates. This will not just result in a political force, it will result in a group segregated by their low income, their poor education, their ethnic heritage and most importantly by their inability to speak English. I see a Democrat at a rally starting off his speech by speaking Spanish. Our social programs, immigration services, political processes and our very culture is at stake here.

Am I being xenophobic? Am I being racist? I have nothing against immigration. I have nothing against different cultures. I do, however have something against a system that rewards breaking the law. There are millions of people all over the world that would love nothing more than to come to America. We literally turn boatloads of these people away. We are creating a system that will allow Mexicans to immigrate at will, while we refuse millions of intelligent, hardworking people from other countries. We are destroying the very melting pot process by this double standard. We are creating one single group of illegal immigrants which outnumber the legal immigrants coming in (including Mexicans mind you!). The end result will be a failure to assimilate into our culture. The long-term political ramifications are scary. Parts of America are turning into Mexico and the scary thing is there are people on both sides that would like nothing more than to see that become a literal reality.

The time to enforce the law and establish our borders is running out. If we didn't have social programs, if we let immigrants from all over the world in, I would not be sitting here complaining. But as it stands, we are not doing those very things and the powers that be do not want anything to change. We've ruined the melting pot and in turn we could ruin what makes America great.

[AlonzoMourning23]

If we add ten million Latino citizens, we will also be opening the door for their family members as well. This could result in 20 or 30 million American citizens which would in turn have even more political power.

I'm not sure what's the issue with changing demographics. It's still a democracy and there's still freedom. Isn't that the whole point of america? The border is a legitimate concern, but is there anything other than that?

We are not just talking about immigration here. We are talking about adding people who could not find work in Mexico,

Many either had work in mexico, had work in other countries (40+ percent aren't mexican, many of them passed through) but the wages weren't enough to give their family any halfway decent life. Many poorer areas even have high rates of malnourishment. For those who didn't work, many times work was not available. Considering they are coming here for work, I don't see whether they left a previous job as having any importance, unless you want less unskilled labor.

This will not just result in a political force, it will result in a group segregated by their low income, their poor education, their ethnic heritage and most importantly by their inability to speak English.

This was said about every other immigrant group in america, some exceptions on the language part, other than those that arrived very early (like the puritans).

I see a Democrat at a rally starting off his speech by speaking Spanish. Our social programs, immigration services, political processes and our very culture is at stake here.

Does america even have a culture other than immigrant culture? As far as I'm concered that is our culture. If you're talking about more stereotypical steak and potatoes culture, then I've never enjoyed that anyway. Even then though, that's still the result of immigrants.

What traditional culture america had we kinda wiped out when europeans took over. And I'm not sure what's at stake with our political processes, do you think we're gonna have a dictatorship?

The time to enforce the law and establish our borders is running out. If we didn't have social programs, if we let immigrants from all over the world in, I would not be sitting here complaining. But as it stands, we are not doing those very things and the powers that be do not want anything to change. We've ruined the melting pot and in turn we could ruin what makes America great.


A melting pot is always a good thing, but isn't always necessary for an immigrant group to be succesful. Asians in toronto and vancouver have very large immigrant populations, and many of the children of immigrants have moved out into the suburbs essentially creating asian suburbs (look up Markham in Ontario). Yet these are prosperous, middle class suburbs.

But, over time, such ethnic areas tend to eventually vanish, as future generations become more assimilated. After a few generations wealth, not ethnicity, tends to be a stronger determinant of where their children end up.

[KrAzY3]

I'm talking about giving illegal aliens voting rights. I'm not talking about demographics in so much as giving a group of law breaking people the right to shape our laws. If we give amnesty to 10 million illegal aliens we might as well forget about ever securing the Mexican border.


Many either had work in mexico, had work in other countries (40+ percent aren't mexican, many of them passed through) but the wages weren't enough to give their family any halfway decent life.


What? 80% of people caught entering illegally are Mexican. 80%! And you damn sure know we tend to look the other way with Mexican illegals so the argument could be made that the number is higher. How on earth do you arrive at the conclusion that only 40% of illegal immigrants are Mexican?

The problem I have, as I tried to spell out if we are creating a anti-legal immigrant culture. We are basically saying, Latinos can come in but everyone else can stay out. I do NOT have a problem with immigration. I have a problem with illegal immigration that specifically favors one group. I know that there will be more Latinos than any other group, but when we have one illegal Mexican for every legal immigration we have a problem. As I said, we are turning away BOATLOADS of people. BOATLOADS! We friggin' turned Pamela Anderson away once for goodness sake. We've turned away Olympians. I know a Scottish guy that worked for 311 and he wasn't allowed to work here. I know a high paid German tattoo artist, who was married to a American but wasn't allowed to stay in America. Hell, they want to deport my wife because of their own mistake (even though she never broke a law of any sort). We do this crap, yet we let illegals come in from Mexican and we don't arrest them, we don't deport them, we don't ever do anything to people that employ them.

Listen to the rallies, what you won't hear is any talk of making legal immigration easier. Oh, no... you see then they'd have to compete with other immigrants for jobs. They just want amnesty. Amnesty would basically say ok, sure here you go. You can become a citizen. As a matter of fact, we'll make it EASIER for you to become a citizen than any other immigrant. What kind of bull is that? It is spitting in the face of Asians, Africans, Europeans, etc... who want to come here.

In the long run, everyone will suffer. Due to lack of integration our culture will become fragmented as well as our unity. Our social programs will become overwhelmed due to the influx of low wage/low skill workers. Mexicans will integrate less (we have never had a influx of non-English speakers as big as the group we are talking about now) and in the end the Mexicans will suffer as well. But, the politicians, the businesses, Mexico and many Mexicans like the system how it works now because of short term gains. Mexico turns unemployed into a 20 billion a year income (yeah ok not from Mexico yet 20 billion finds its way there), politicians get more voters, businesses get low wager workers and Mexicans get their family members and people that speak the same language. And we keep turning boatloads of people away...

[CaptainObviousXL]

I have to agree with krazy. I don't exactly think it is fair to make it easier for Mexicans to immigrate into our countries if we don't do it for people of all other countries.

[Labrocca]

Well we did steal a part of this country from the Mexicans in a war.Â*Â*So now would you consider that fair?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican-American_War

The Mexican-American War was fought between the United States and Mexico between 1846 and 1848. In the U.S. it is known as the Mexican War or Mr. Polk's War; in Mexico, it is known as the U.S. Intervention, the U.S. Invasion of Mexico, or the United States War Against Mexico.

[KrAzY3]

Well we did steal a part of this country from the Mexicans in a war. So now would you consider that fair?


Oh come on, you can't play that game. How do you think Mexico came into existence? It was through a war...

We didn't steal it though, we won it, which was how countries got land back then. You kicked someone's butt and viola, it was your land then. That is how America got here and it was how Mexico got here. So you can decry that method but that was how things were done. It would be more than unfair to mistreat millions more people because of a previous "sin". We have over 30 million Latinos living legally in America. The entire population of Mexico is only 100 million. Believe you me, we've more than paid for that land you claim we have stolen. In fact, the way things stand now I'm pretty sure they'd be the ones owing us land if you want to look at it that way.

As I'm watching TV I'm listening to a guy talking about potential annexation of parts of America. He's talking about it being a "invasion". It is weird, because I've been saying this stuff for a while now, and all of the sudden Harvard professors and the like are echoing statements I've been making. I'm glad to see other well educated people can see what this high school drop-out sees.

What we have at stake, it much more than jobs. It is much more than social security and other social programs. It is more than our culture. Yes, parts of America could eventually become separationist like in Quebec. Yes, eventually we could have the two language law like Canada has. But that isn't the worst part. That isn't the greatest concern.

Millions upon millions of people could fall victim to this process. We have people waiting DECADES to immigrate legally to America and we are slamming the door shut in their face. This is not a small issue, we are talking about reshaping America and doing it in a way that goes against our traditional values. We are talking about something that could eventually shut down immigration to all but Latinos. This is not fair, this is not reasonable and we are making ourselves beholden to our southern neighbor (which is a horribly run country). If we don't enact reasonable and fair immigration reforms things will get bad. This is not like any other problem we have faced, this is a situation unlike any before.

Quite litterally, parts of America are becoming Mexico. One need look no further than Mexico to realize that is not a desirable reality.

[AlonzoMourning23]

What? 80% of people caught entering illegally are Mexican. 80%! And you damn sure know we tend to look the other way with Mexican illegals so the argument could be made that the number is higher. How on earth do you arrive at the conclusion that only 40% of illegal immigrants are Mexican?


I said over 40% aren't mexican:

In fact, a recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center shows illegals from Mexico account for 56 percent of all illegal immigrants in America.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-immig02.html

Of the undocumented, 78 percent are from Latin America, most of them from Mexico, and in unprecedented numbers they are going to places they've rarely gone before.

http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4076

So 22% aren't even from south america



Another interesting statistic:

About a quarter of illegal immigrants have at least some college, with 15 percent holding at least a bachelor's degree.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/29/who.are.immigrants.ap/index.html

Though for all your talk about not minding immigrants, you seem paranoid about them destroying our culture, invading us, annexing our land etc.

Though I'd be the first one to let them reclaim texas. :D

[KrAzY3]

Though for all your talk about not minding immigrants, you seem paranoid about them destroying our culture, invading us, annexing our land etc.

Though I'd be the first one to let them reclaim texas. :D


I am paranoid about the bias being shown. If we opened our doors to millions people from ANY country, while keeping our doors closed to others, suddenly it would be a risk to our culture and our politics. The entire concept of a melting pot is to blend different cultures and combining them together. We've shut our door to immigration from most countries. Now, you have "numbers" and I have numbers. Considering 80% of people caught entering illegally are reported to be Mexican, I consider that a more reliable number than other methods of tracking illegals since we don't even know how many are here. But ok, even you said that 78% were Latino.

I am afraid of letting one singular group of people "take over" immigration. Call it Latinos or Mexicans, what we are clear on is that it is a group that has a common identity for the most part. And believe you me, if we do amnesty it will have preference for Latinos. How many Turkish people do you think will be able to get amnesty?

I do not fear other cultures. I do not fear other ways of lives. The melting pot works! But it is a system that a few people are manipulating. We let in one million legal immigrants each year. For the sake of argument let's stick with Latinos. We are saying to EVERYONE one million a year, that's it. And, as I understand it, we are talking about close to 50% of these legal immigrants being Latino (I feel they have a unfair advantage throughout the process though). I understand there will be more Latinos than other ethnic groups, I can accept that. But, that basically means we let in 500,000 non-Latinos a year. Now, if we let ten million immigrants in, we are talking about at least 8 million Latinos. That is more Latinos than we non-Latinos that will come here in 16 years! Even if you believe the system will work for the 20% non-Latinos we are talking about 2 million non-Latinos. The disparity would be 8,500,000 Latinos in one year, 2,500,000 non-Latinos in one year. The 8.5 million Latinos would then bring in their family members, which could double or triple that number. Even assuming the non-Latinos did the same, double that number and you have 5 million non-Latinos and 17 million Latinos hypothetically added in one year (never mind that the system could never handle that, it can't handle the one million a year).

How can someone not see the huge disparity there? As legal immigration clearly shows, there are tons of non-Latinos that want to come over here. The entire process is already biased for Latinos. I went to USCIS headquarters in Atlanta. Everything was in two languages. English and Spanish. The Indian people? The Russians? All the others I saw there HAD to understand English to get anything done. The Latinos? Well, everything was in Spanish. Latinos in American can even get Spanish language education in many places. Spanish language polls and so on. It is much harder to get these same things for people that speak other languages. This is a bias that is growing, a come on in Latinos, stay away everyone else! system..

If, we let the illegal aliens get citizenship, not only will they have a easier path to citizenship than my wife, for instance... but they will also form a politically dominant force. Things are already biased towards Latinos will become a joke. As I said, we'll leave the back door wide open and leave the front door closed. We can forget about immigration from other groups, it will become a thing of the past. I can not accept this was being fair or even good for any group of people. I've already explained reasons for this. We will break the melting pot and become a fragmented country.

Now, you explain to me why it is a good thing for this to happen...

[penmyst]

You should get pissed.

The real issue is about ILLEGAL immigration. You are dead on the money here.

Listening to the sheer idiocy of "discussion" on the tv and radio shows that don't seem to address this very key point is surreal.

Why is it important to denote the differences between illegal and legal immigration? I would say the most important reason is that LEGAL immigrants come to America to BECOME part of America. ILLEGAL immigrants come to America without any intentions of becoming American, and with absolutely no respect for the country or it's citizens. We don't want nor need those kinds of immigrants.

The real issue riling up the average joe U.S. citizen is that these illegal immigrants are hurting America. Immigrants that come legally help add to this country. And such ideas as "(illegal) immigrants do jobs Americans won't do" are total red herrings meant to dodge the core issue.

[KrAzY3]

I would say the most important reason is that LEGAL immigrants come to America to BECOME part of America. ILLEGAL immigrants come to America without any intentions of becoming American, and with absolutely no respect for the country or it's citizens. We don't want nor need those kinds of immigrants.


Very true. I see so many parts of this that upset me, that its hard to really nail down one thing. My wife, she's as integrated as possible. She speaks English, she has working permission and a job, she excels at her job, she's a functional productive member of society and she wants to stay and live here. At no point did she break any kind of immigration law, we didn't even skirt a issue or lie or do any of that crap. We followed the law and filled out the forms at every step. We've made trips to embassies and consulates. We've filled out forms and paid all kinds of fees. She got sponsorship, a real social security card, medical tests, you name it.

Her father is dying, due to a mess up with immigration (their mistake, they do a horrible job with many things) she can't leave the country or else she might not be able to come back. So, while we pay money and send off forms and hope they get around to resolving this matter, we're stuck waiting. She's made her choice and it is a difficult one. To see her suffering and the crap we have to go through to stay within the law, then to look at people having complete disregard and potentially being rewarded for it? Damn right I'm pissed.

[AlonzoMourning23]

Though for all your talk about not minding immigrants, you seem paranoid about them destroying our culture, invading us, annexing our land etc.

Though I'd be the first one to let them reclaim texas. :D


I am paranoid about the bias being shown. If we opened our doors to millions people from ANY country, while keeping our doors closed to others, suddenly it would be a risk to our culture and our politics. The entire concept of a melting pot is to blend different cultures and combining them together. We've shut our door to immigration from most countries. Now, you have "numbers" and I have numbers. Considering 80% of people caught entering illegally are reported to be Mexican, I consider that a more reliable number than other methods of tracking illegals since we don't even know how many are here. But ok, even you said that 78% were Latino.

I am afraid of letting one singular group of people "take over" immigration. Call it Latinos or Mexicans, what we are clear on is that it is a group that has a common identity for the most part. And believe you me, if we do amnesty it will have preference for Latinos. How many Turkish people do you think will be able to get amnesty?

I do not fear other cultures. I do not fear other ways of lives. The melting pot works! But it is a system that a few people are manipulating. We let in one million legal immigrants each year. For the sake of argument let's stick with Latinos. We are saying to EVERYONE one million a year, that's it. And, as I understand it, we are talking about close to 50% of these legal immigrants being Latino (I feel they have a unfair advantage throughout the process though). I understand there will be more Latinos than other ethnic groups, I can accept that. But, that basically means we let in 500,000 non-Latinos a year. Now, if we let ten million immigrants in, we are talking about at least 8 million Latinos. That is more Latinos than we non-Latinos that will come here in 16 years! Even if you believe the system will work for the 20% non-Latinos we are talking about 2 million non-Latinos. The disparity would be 8,500,000 Latinos in one year, 2,500,000 non-Latinos in one year. The 8.5 million Latinos would then bring in their family members, which could double or triple that number. Even assuming the non-Latinos did the same, double that number and you have 5 million non-Latinos and 17 million Latinos hypothetically added in one year (never mind that the system could never handle that, it can't handle the one million a year).

How can someone not see the huge disparity there? As legal immigration clearly shows, there are tons of non-Latinos that want to come over here. The entire process is already biased for Latinos. I went to USCIS headquarters in Atlanta. Everything was in two languages. English and Spanish. The Indian people? The Russians? All the others I saw there HAD to understand English to get anything done. The Latinos? Well, everything was in Spanish. Latinos in American can even get Spanish language education in many places. Spanish language polls and so on. It is much harder to get these same things for people that speak other languages. This is a bias that is growing, a come on in Latinos, stay away everyone else! system..

If, we let the illegal aliens get citizenship, not only will they have a easier path to citizenship than my wife, for instance... but they will also form a politically dominant force. Things are already biased towards Latinos will become a joke. As I said, we'll leave the back door wide open and leave the front door closed. We can forget about immigration from other groups, it will become a thing of the past. I can not accept this was being fair or even good for any group of people. I've already explained reasons for this. We will break the melting pot and become a fragmented country.

Now, you explain to me why it is a good thing for this to happen...


Mexicans are more likely to cross the border multiple times so they can both work here and be with their family. Immigrants from other nations are more likely to attempt to stay here permanently. The increase border crossings per person is likely what results in the increased capture rate. That and they may not be as concerned about being capture, since they're closer to the u.s. to begin with.

Well, there are many more hispanics who want to come here than other populations. Africans (particularly north africans) have europe, chinese have europe (and canada to some extent), middle easterners have europe, hell even china has a large illegal immigrant population. When nearby nations have significant economic disparity, especially when one nation is poor, then you will have a significant amount of people trying to get into the neighboring nation. The neighboring nation doesn't even have to be "rich" in the western sense, this holds true even in impoverished african nations, where the neighboring relatively "rich" nations usually get the illegals. Mexico even has a sizeable illegal population.

But many immigrants would prefer canada or europe to america. America doesn't tower over the world, in terms of where immigrants want to go, like it used to. America is a popular destination around the world, but there are always going to be more hispanics who want to come here, per capita, than other people. That's simply due to our location. If somehow you switched africa and south america, hispanics would be banging down the EU's door, and africans would be fleeing into the u.s.

[KrAzY3]

I'm not sure what point you are making with the last post. I conceded that we expect a higher rate of Latinos, that the number for Mexicans I saw could be inflated and I'm pretty much conceding that our immigration will be around 50% Latinos. As I stated, my fear is of letting the disparity approach 70% Latinos which in turn would give much more political force behind keeping the southern border and only the southern border open. I just don't want to let one group of people hijack immigration.

In more direct response, we do have Africans banging down our doors sometimes. Every now and then we see boat loads of a war torn African country trying to come in. There are people that have more to claim than just economic hardship and yet we tend to turn them away. The idea that only Latinos want to come here is not true. It is not merely a issue of more Latinos coming over here, it is a complaint about it being easier for a Latino to come in live and work here illegally than it is for a non-Latino to come and live and work here legally. Now, this isn't the only problem I have with the issue but I think it is one of many things I can single out that I consider to be unfair. Allow me to be clear here. I have no problem with Latinos. When I lived in Gwinnett County my best friend was Columbian. Even though I couldn't communicate with many members of his large family, I considered them to be nice, respectable people. I just don't want the American dream to only be available for Latinos, nor do I want to create a standard that says the best way to become a American is to just sneak in.

Finally, to make a point we are expecting 12 million people to enter the green card lottery this year (for 50,000 green cards). Keep in mind that this is a diversity program, so countries that have sent more than 50,000 immigrants to America in the previous year are not eligible. Here is the list:
CANADA, CHINA (mainland-born), COLOMBIA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, EL SALVADOR, HAITI, INDIA, JAMAICA, MEXICO, PAKISTAN, PHILIPPINES, POLAND, RUSSIA, SOUTH KOREA, UNITED KINGDOM (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and VIETNAM. Persons born in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Taiwan are eligible.

As you can clearly see, Latino countries are well represented there as being excluded. The obvious conclusion is that we have more than 12 million people (obviously the people entering the lottery are not the only people that want to live in America) abroad that would love nothing more than to live in America. Yet, we only let one million in each year and as I have established only 500,000 of those are non-Latinos. Furthermore, while you make it sound like only Latinos want to come here, clearly several large Latino countries were ecluded from this list so they are not the ones entering. Basically, the number equals the illegal immigrants living in America. The idea that we are considering letting the illegal immigrants in, yet we will keep a vast majority of the 12 million people from a variety of countries out is completely unfair. Yet, that is exactly what we are on the verge of going. Programs like the lottery, to me make sense in terms of trying to keep immigration diverse. The problem is that 50,000 is just a drop in the bucket. We are on the verge of making it even harder for these millions of people to come here, while rewarding the ones that made no attempt to obey our law. This is not a fair or reasonable course of action in my mind.

[KrAzY3]

Here's another aspect of the issue that pisses me off:

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060411/NEWS01/604110328/1120/RSS

Immigrants' firing leads to protest
15 women lose jobs after attending rally; manager says they were warned

Gee, disregard for our laws and they don't even bother to show up for work. But yeah, protest protest protest! We know that works better than obeying rules...

[Old Corps Gunny]

Right on target. Legal immigrants have to learn English, American history, the Constitution, and quite a few other subjects in order to get citizenship. In fact, I think they are probably better educated in citizenship than most US high school graduates. Illegal immigrants could care less. On another note, there has been a concerted effort by Mexican (note I did NOT say Latino or Hispanic) activists since the 1960's to regain the territory they feel is theirs by right and unfairly gained by the US during the Mexican-American War of 1848. This includes aiding illigal immigrants. I would say they have just about succeeded, and they will if a general amnesty is granted. We need some way to identify and keep track of ALL illegal immigrants in this country for security reasons. Registration and temporary work permits works for me. If they want citizenship, then let them go through the same process required for all other legal immigrants.

[AlonzoMourning23]

In more direct response, we do have Africans banging down our doors sometimes. Every now and then we see boat loads of a war torn African country trying to come in. There are people that have more to claim than just economic hardship and yet we tend to turn them away. The idea that only Latinos want to come here is not true.Â*Â*It is not merely a issue of more Latinos coming over here, it is a complaint about it being easier for a Latino to come in live and work here illegally than it is for a non-Latino to come and live and work here legally.

I never said no non-latinos come here illegaly (in fact I said 22% of illegals aren't latino). But such boats are a daily occurence in places like Italy.

Here's immigration statistics from 03 http://uscis.gov/graphics/shared/aboutus/statistics/IMM03yrbk/2003IMM.pdf

On page 5, look at the breakdown of legal immigrants. Africa is only 6.9, or 48,000. The u.k. alone admitted that much, or 32% of all admissions, in 03. http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs04/hosb1204.pdf. Only about a third of the African total came from the americas, but they don't break down north/south/central america.

I couldn't dig up italian statistics, primarily because they tend to be in italian.

You shouldn't be admitting equal populations if populations aren't applying equally.

And of course it's easier for hispanics to get here illegaly, other nationalities go to other neighboring countries, because it's easier to get into those. A disproportionate amount of hispanics want to get into this country because we are the closest.

Finally, to make a point we are expecting 12 million people to enter the green card lottery this year (for 50,000 green cards). Keep in mind that this is a diversity program, so countries that have sent more than 50,000 immigrants to America in the previous year are not eligible. Here is the list:
CANADA, CHINA (mainland-born), COLOMBIA, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, EL SALVADOR, HAITI, INDIA, JAMAICA, MEXICO, PAKISTAN, PHILIPPINES, POLAND, RUSSIA, SOUTH KOREA, UNITED KINGDOM (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and VIETNAM. Persons born in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR and Taiwan are eligible.

As you can clearly see, Latino countries are well represented there as being excluded. The obvious conclusion is that we have more than 12 million people (obviously the people entering the lottery are not the only people that want to live in America) abroad that would love nothing more than to live in America. Yet, we only let one million in each year and as I have established only 500,000 of those are non-Latinos. Furthermore, while you make it sound like only Latinos want to come here, clearly several large Latino countries were ecluded from this list so they are not the ones entering. Basically, the number equals the illegal immigrants living in America. The idea that we are considering letting the illegal immigrants in, yet we will keep a vast majority of the 12 million people from a variety of countries out is completely unfair. Yet, that is exactly what we are on the verge of going. Programs like the lottery, to me make sense in terms of trying to keep immigration diverse. The problem is that 50,000 is just a drop in the bucket. We are on the verge of making it even harder for these millions of people to come here, while rewarding the ones that made no attempt to obey our law. This is not a fair or reasonable course of action in my mind.


I never said only hispanics want to come here, I said (repeatedly) a disproportionate amount of hispanics do, due to where our country is situated.

But by allowing illegals already here to enter the lottery all we are doing is facing reality. They're already here, we can't deport 12 million people. And if they have children here then there's an issue, since the children will be disadvantaged due to the parents still being illegal, which isn't good for future generations.

You can complain about the low amount of legal immigrants we allow, or you can complain about allowing illegals a chance of become legal. If we don't let the ones here eventually become legal, we're just perpetuating poverty. They're still going to be here in massive numbers.

Though the lottery shouldn't be simply X amount from each. It should be a percentage of applicants. So if you let 1 million in, then you decide who comes in depending on which nations have a higher percent of applicants. If a country has 10% of the applicants, then they get 10% of the green cards from the lottery. Though it should be balanced somewhat by economics as well.

[Labrocca]

I just drank a beer...I mean cerveza. This thread is nice. (slurp more cerveza)

I think the whole illegal immigration problem is a smoke screen that the democrats are pushing. It's an issue they can look good on since they know that Bush has many latino supporters. It's bullshit imho.

Illegal immigrants are not the problem..the current laws are the problem. Of course congress botched a chance this week to correct it. Allow better legal immigration and suddenly illegal immigrants aren't a problem.

I love the Mexicans. I love their hard work. I love their food. I love their culture. I just don't like their poor ass government. Even Mexicans don't like their government. I never met a Mexican I didn't like. Maybe that's just me. You don't see Mexicans on COPS beating their wife and kids. Bah...

Viva la revolution!


Did any of my post make sense?

[KrAzY3]

Am23 and Labrocca... both of you seem to pretty much agree that the laws are broken.

I agree with that and that is a huge part of my complaint. I am not trying to just blame illegal immigrants, I blame the systems, I blame governments and so on. But, I do not think should reward the people that broke the law while simultaneously keeping the door closed to the people that obeyed the law. It is not a matter of just letting illegal immigrants enter the lottery or apply for citizenship. If you read the suggestions and understand how immigration works, you'd see that many people are trying to let illegals have a easier path to citizenship than anyone else. It isn't a matter of giving them a even playing field despite being here illegally, it is about giving them preference because they are here illegally. That is at the heart of the problem and what I see as having the potential to destroy and disrupt immigration in America , which in turn destroys the melting pot, which in turn can disrupt the very make-up of America.

[Drocket]

I think the whole illegal immigration problem is a smoke screen that the democrats are pushing. It's an issue they can look good on since they know that Bush has many latino supporters.

Um, the Democrats are not the ones who started this whole debate. They've barely even been involved in the debate: its been pretty much purely an internal Republican fight between the xenophobic branch of the Republican party who want to kick all the brown people out of the country and the business branch who want to exploit them for cheap labor. The Democrats only real contribution to the debate was an extremely common-sense suggestion of allowing a path for illegal immigrants to become legal, since the alternative is to try to figure out how to get 12 million people out of the country (which isn't going to happen.)

Now, of course, the Demcrats are getting attacked by both sides for their refusal to take sides, all because of a debate started by the Republican party in a desperate attempt to distract attention away from Iraq and the Plame investigation.

[AlonzoMourning23]

I think the whole illegal immigration problem is a smoke screen that the democrats are pushing. It's an issue they can look good on since they know that Bush has many latino supporters. It's bullsh1t imho.


Democrats have given amnesty in the past. Then supporting bush's plan of making it so they can get citizenship is exactly what should be expected.

Am23 and Labrocca... both of you seem to pretty much agree that the laws are broken.

I agree with that and that is a huge part of my complaint. I am not trying to just blame illegal immigrants, I blame the systems, I blame governments and so on. But, I do not think should reward the people that broke the law while simultaneously keeping the door closed to the people that obeyed the law. It is not a matter of just letting illegal immigrants enter the lottery or apply for citizenship. If you read the suggestions and understand how immigration works, you'd see that many people are trying to let illegals have a easier path to citizenship than anyone else. It isn't a matter of giving them a even playing field despite being here illegally, it is about giving them preference because they are here illegally. That is at the heart of the problem and what I see as having the potential to destroy and disrupt immigration in America , which in turn destroys the melting pot, which in turn can disrupt the very make-up of America.

Illegals are benefiting our economy by doing many of the bottom rung job. We're getting something out of them. Though they're not really getting much of a benefit if they're going to the back of the line.

Though you haven't done a good job of explaining how this will ruin the melting pot, and I'm not sure how you can ruin the makeup of an immigrant country by adding more immigrants. It's a change in demographics, but not a ruining of anything.

[KrAzY3]

I'm not sure how many numbers I have to provide and how many times I have to explain it.

We are making it nearly impossible for non-Latinos to immigrate to America. For Latinos it looks like it is as simple as just walking here. Instead of questioning my logic, why not try to explain to me how that is fair.

As far as going to the back of the line...hah, is that what you believe? I've dealt with immigration, if you allow 10 million people to immigrate at once you won't be seeing any back of the line shit. You'll see a system that pays lip service to the rules and lets the immigrants jump in line. Our system can't handle one million a year, you think they can handle ten times that? Of course not, and the illegal immigrants can't meet the same critieria others (like my wife) met either so they'll even get easier criteria. It will be a farce, it won't be going to the back of the line (as I said before I don't have a problem with illegals leaving the country and trying to enter legally, I never have) it will be them flooding our immigration system and drowning out (legal) immigrants from the rest of the world. I don't see how you, or anyone can look at that and have a positive response.

[FucangLong]

Ugh, your posts are so long... And I don't have time to post a long one. Anyways, I agre with KrAzY3. It is very hard for people to become Citizens now. The test they have to take, I don't believe is fair. In a recent survey, it was showed that 40% of the American public doesn't know the three branches of government. If our citizens don't even know that, then why should immigrants have to know our whole history?

[penmyst]

Hey, just because our gov't run school system is an abysmal failure that can only churn out ignorant "skulls full of mush" (ty Rush) doesn't mean we should make it any easier to become an American citizen.

Most immigrants that are serious about being Americans can, and will pass those tests. Those are the kinds of immigrants that help improve this country so I can't see it being all bad.

[PittsburghAfterDark]

I've read this thread for a couple of days now as it's grown and not contributed until now.

I think that citizenship should be a challenge. It should require a knowledge of this country's history, the English language and a basic grasp of our culture/laws from a working knowledge of the Constitution.

What kills me about the ILLEGAL immigration debate is the following; we're so concerned with produce pickers, nail pounders, hotel and restaurant workers? Why? How do these people inherently make this country a better place? Yes, we need people to do this work just like we needed the mass of Chinese immigrants to help build the cross country railroad. However this is not the basis on which to further a civilization.

Meanwhile companies like Sun, Oracle, Microsoft and other high tech firms are starving for math and science majors that our kids just aren't becoming. Instead we get students here on visas attending school for 4 years for those programs and then they leave? What sense does that make?

We're turning away tens of thousands of the world's best and brightest and most horribly, U.S. educated, because of a ridiculous quota system. Why would we send away masters and doctorate students in math and science? These are the people we want! These are the people that are going to move the world forward and instead we're sending them back to China, India, Japan or who knows where else. It's horrible policy.

We're a nation of immigrants and without them our nuclear and space programs would not have exceeded. Andrew Grove, founder of Intel, is Hungarian born. No one doubts that immigrants contribution to the U.S. business and society.

We used to get the best and brightest fleeing who knows what misery in their home country. Now we get the misery of another country bringing their misery here, making us pay for their misery in the process and contributing the absolute bare bones necessary to be deemed worthy of respect as aliens if they do at all.

I'm sorry, we don't need 12 million ditch diggers. We can use all the PhD's, masters and college graduates that attended schools here to stay and that should be the priority. We can find someone else to change the sheets and do dishes.

[KrAzY3]

Excellent point PAD...

I am for making immigration easier, but not in the sense that some might assume. I want more immigration, but I don't want us to dumb the process down, I want us to simplify it.

My wife, was a working contributing member of Germany before she moved here. She wasn't wealthy and no, she didn't have a PhD, but she did graduate high school and she did have the German equivalent of a two year college degree. She graded out at native level proficiency on her TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). She moved here with 20,000 dollars. Now that isn't that large a sum, but she personally brought 20 thousand dollars from Germany into our economy. It would have required over three times that amount for her to have been able to avoid having sponsorship and 50 times that for her to be able to immigrate problem free (you can immigrate to America if you invest a million dollars in America).

She is not the best and brightest the world has to offer, but she is intelligent, productive and hard working. Yet, the entire process is blind to that. She is treated with the same equal unfairness we treat all legal immigrants (unless they speak Spanish, in which case we provide any number of Spanish language services we don't make available to people who speak other languages). She came here, filed proper papers, paid the right fees and because some idiot at the USCIS doesn't bother to close envelopes (two came unsealed one never came at all) they want to deport her.

We have to pay 385 bucks to send something to Atlanta, which they will then send to Washington D.C. (we were in Atlanta but they informed us to resolve this we had to mail it to the place we were in Atlanta, not drop it off, no mail it and they would send it to D.C.... no we shouldn't mail it to D.C. somehow that would slow the process down). In order for us to waive the fee, she would have to be on public assistance. Oh, but see they make you sign a paper that says you won't go on public assistance for ten years. Yet, if you are on public assistance they not only will look the other way, they'll reward you by not making you pay fees either. Even the "legal" immigration process encourages breaking the rules.

Anyway, I'm going off track here but the point is that the process is very difficult. My wife has a stable job, she hasn't so much as paid a credit card bill late and yet, due to their own error they're giving her a hard time. The process, at no point rewards her for a stable income, it does not reward her for speaking English fluently, it does not reward her for following the rules. We have created a process that encouraging breaking the rules, that discourages following them and perhaps more importantly that does not reward good conduct, productivity, integration into the culture or intelligence.

Why not make it a lot easier? Run a background check, sure do that. Give them a TOEFL test, require they either show proof of graduation from high school or that they pass a simple test. Check their health, then let them in the damned door. We could do worse than to have intelligent, healthy, well educated immigrants. Yet, of course we don't do that. We've created a system of loopholes, the biggest being the southern border. Just come here and we've got jobs, fake social security numbers, medicare, public school and the like. Don't worry, we won't try to deport you once you've made it here. We're too busy bothering people like my wife, who are trying to follow the rules.

To be honest PAD, I think part of it relates to the post you made about voting IDs. Certain people have a vested interest in having large, poorly educated, segregated groups of people. They don't have a vested interest in well educated, integrated, productive people because they are much less likely to vote for them.

[KrAzY3]

This is a great start:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/04/20/immigration.raids/index.html

If we go after the people employing illegal immigrants and helping them break the law (and breaking the law by doing it) then we can start to fix the problem. I see this is one of a few keys in finding a real, long-term resolution.