My Conservative Voice
As someone who wasn't born in this country, who came here legally and followed the complex process required to live in America I'm angered by the attitude of illegal immigrants and the governments response. I'm now inclined to follow the opinion of hard-line Republicans even though initially I was more sympathetic. Two things have really annoyed me, the first is the protestors waving Mexican flags, the second is the Spanish version of the American anthem. This country gives people a sense entitlement that has extended beyond the citizenry to people who came here illegally and remained.
Amnesty is wrong, rounding up 11 million people and sending them back to their country sends the right message, irrespective of the cost. I was subjected to multiple interviews, background checks, finger printing, health examinations and ridiculously long lines. Why should anyone else who wants to live in this country not have to endure the same?
Amnesty is wrong, rounding up 11 million people and sending them back to their country sends the right message, irrespective of the cost. I was subjected to multiple interviews, background checks, finger printing, health examinations and ridiculously long lines. Why should anyone else who wants to live in this country not have to endure the same?
posted by mochi at 7:26 AM
5 Comments:
Mochi,
I don't know if what you speak of is conservative or liberal per se. In a post 9/11 world its simply good sense.
All countries have their immigration and citizenship programs--I went through the same process you did in both Australia and South Africa. (I am considered a citizen in both--although the United States doesn't recognize dual citizenship). Ours could definitely stand to see some improvement.
As far as the illegal immigration issue is concerned though, The hispanics have just been mobilized by their media and are following its instructions. Its our government that has allowed this to happen--has allowed it to reach this point, and now they want to act like it is a situation that they are rescuing us from.
-Jack
I also agree with the "conservative" stance. It really gets my goat when they talk about mobilizing immigrants and how immigrants should not come to work in protest, when what they really mean is illegal immigrants. There's a HUGE difference there. Legal immigrants are the backbone of this country. They ARE this country. I'm all for immigration, but we absolutely need an entry process and if we suddenly forgive people who illegally circumvent the process, then the process is moot.
I think the root of the problem is not being addressed, and that is, the gaping inequality that causes many to illegally migrate to "make a better life" in the first place. Typically, the people who are afforded legal means to migrate to first world nations have something "more" to offer. It is very difficult if one who is poor and/or possessed of little education to be granted a visa or some other form of permission to move to/live in the U.S. Mexico is our neighbor (and the Spanish were the first to establish colonies in what is now the U.S. (and in the past part of the U.S. was Mexico and vice versa). But that aside, there is still the problem of vast poverty and lack of opportunity south of the border. And that reality, juxtaposed to the "land of plenty" makes it seem worth the risk for millions to cross the border illegally.
Of course immigration is a difficult issue and the logistics need to be worked out around who can enter, and how to prevent an entire exodus from another country into ours. But the bottom line is, none of that will be able to happen if the root of the problem is not solved, namely, the vast inequlaity that exists. So we can try to put a bandaid over the top of a volcano, but that won't keep it from erupting.
Good point, Anthe. How do we chip away at this inequality though? Is globalization a step in the right direction, or will it do more harm than good? I'm honestly not sure.
MEXICO CITY—As dozens of major American corporations continue to move their manufacturing operations to Mexico, waves of job-seeking Mexican immigrants to the United States have begun making the deadly journey back across the border in search of better-paying Mexican-based American jobs.
"I came to this country seeking the job I sought when I first left this country," said Anuncio Reyes, 22, an undocumented worker who recrossed the U.S. border into Mexico last month, three years after leaving Mexico for the United States to work as an agricultural day laborer. "I spent everything I had to get back here. Yes, it was dangerous, and I miss my home. But as much as I love America, I have to go where the best American jobs are."
A group of Mexican workers make the dangerous trek home across the Rio Grande for their lunch break.
Reyes now works as a spot-welder on the assembly line of a Maytag large-appliance plant and earns $22 a day, most of which he sends back to his family in the U.S., who in turn send a portion of that back to the original family they left in Mexico. Like many former Mexican-Americans forced by circumstance to become American-Mexicans, Reyes dreams of one day bringing his relatives to Mexico so that they, too, may secure American employment in Mexico.
Despite the considerable risk illegal immigrants face in returning across the border, many find the lure of large U.S. factory salaries hard to resist—at 15 percent of the pay of corresponding jobs in America, these positions pay three times what Mexican jobs do.
Still, the danger is very real. When 31-year-old illegal Arizona resident Ignacio Jimenez sought employment at an American plant in Mexico, he was shot at by Mexican border guards as he attempted to illegally enter the country of his citizenship, pursued by U.S. immigration officials who thought he might be entering the country illegally, and fired upon again by a second group of U.S. Border Patrol agents charged with keeping valuable table-busing and food-delivery personnel inside American borders.
"It was a nightmare," Jimenez said. "Many became disoriented and panicked, and some were mixed in with immigrants going the other way across the Rio Grande and ended up swimming to the wrong country."
He added: "My cousin almost drowned. They fished him out and sent him back to wash dishes at T.G.I. Friday's."
Many say the trip across the border as illegal Mexican-American emigrants offers them a chance to land the American jobs in Mexico they never have been able to get as illegal Mexican-American immigrants in the U.S.
"It has always been my goal to have a good American job," Johnson Controls technician Camilla Torres, 27, said. "Many Mexicans now see Mexico as the land of opportunity. Mexicans will not stop trying to get here, no matter how much the Mexicans wish we would not."
Indeed, the trend of illegal re-emigration is causing great resentment among the local Mexican population, and tension between Mexicans and illegally re-entered Mexicans—dubbed repatriados—continues to build.
"I hate these Mexicans, always coming back here to Mexico from America and taking American jobs from the Mexicans who stayed in Mexico," said 55-year-old former Goodyear factory manager Juan-Miguel Diaz, who lost his job to a better-trained repatriado last March. "Why don't they go back to where they went to?"
Still, Jimenez, Reyes, and hundreds of others say they have no choice.
"The American Dream is alive and well in Mexico," Reyes said. "If I work hard, save my money, and plan well, I will be able to send my children to a good school—and who knows? If they study hard, perhaps they will get jobs someday at the new plant General Motors is building in China."
(from The Onion)
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