<p>“Yes, humane in the same way that placing a tiny spare band-aid you carry around at the bottom of your purse on a gaping, hemorrhaging wound, and calling yourself a Good Samaritan for it.”</p>
<p>How else do you propose to deport Honduran juvenile illegal immigrants? Drop them in the ocean?</p>
<p>Lest we forget the spirit of this country by which we have built our diverse society for much of our history. Here is part of the poem that is inscribed inside our Statute of Liberty.</p>
<p>Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses
yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse
of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless,
the tempest-tost, to me,
I lift my lamp beside
the golden door!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>padad, I suggest you go back and read the article in post #1. These people, who are not verified juveniles, are not being “deported” through proper channels (INS) which bars them from returning to the U.S. Rather, S.F. is circumventing federal law. I suppose you must be okay with that.</p>
<p>Also, nice attempt to tug at heartstrings, but I don’t see “crack cocaine dealers” welcomed by our illustrious poem. But I assume you must be okay with welcoming them, too?</p>
<p>I recently read an article about an immigrant from Africa. The story circulating in Africa was that when you got to the United States you would get a Green Card. Immigrants only had to wear the Green Card around their neck and they would get free food and clothing from stores. This was the image the immigrant had when he came to the United States. Of course, he said once he got here he found out the story was not true, but this was his expectation when he came to the United States.</p>
<p>A popular television show about immigrants in Florida broadcast in South America was found to be the reason many South Americans began to come to the United States illegally. The lifestyle shown on the program was enticing and they believed once they came to the United States they would be allowed to stay - just like the characters on the television show!</p>
<p>You have to realize the majority of illegal immigrants are uneducated individuals. Very few have extensive education and most have not made it past the equilvalent of the 5th or 6th grade.</p>
<p>So have you read the latest? The shielded Hondurans… lol… escaped:</p>
<p>[8</a> crack dealers shielded by S.F. walk away](<a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/30/BAR211HGVL.DTL&tsp=1]8”>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/30/BAR211HGVL.DTL&tsp=1)</p>
<p>Yes, I posted that a couple of pages back – before someone challenged the very level of immigration to the U.S. :)</p>
<p>A poem does not trump the laws of the land. Unlimited imigration would further depress wages for many jobs and lead to all sorts of social ills from overcrowding of homes to excess demand for schools and social services. Keeping illegals limited to the current somewhat controlable number is more than fair.</p>
<p>The SF policy applies to all juvenile illegal immigrants, whether the offense is serious or less so. I don’t see how deportation through the proper INS channel will bar them from future illegal entry? The fact of the matter is that detained illegal juvenile immigrants in the INS system languish for a long period of time in detention centers before they are processed and deported. These centers have been cited for violation of human rights by various international organizations. Through INS, we have to pay for their flight home but also the cost of detention.</p>
<p>Regarding my quote on Lasarus, it is intended to address posts that pertain to the large number of illegal immigrants into this country. I trust you believe that most illegal immigrants are law abiding people except for their violation of our immigration laws.</p>
<p>“Keeping illegals limited to the current somewhat controlable number is more than fair”. How do you propose to accomplish this?</p>
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</p>
<p>I don’t believe that. Many would be an appropriate word, but I don’t think most. But is that like being a little pregnant.</p>
<p>^ Well, our founding fathers refused to pay tax, own slaves, took arms against the King, and killed off the natives.</p>
<p>Is this a great country or what?</p>
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</p>
<p>That statement in no way resopnds to me.</p>
<p>“How do you propose to accomplish this?”</p>
<p>So, given the difficulty (to say the least), it’s appropriate, even preferable, not to try? (Just wondering what you might be suggesting regarding an effort to control.) Because, I certainly would agree that the response of the U.S. gov’t, if it can laughably be called a “response,” is to throw up their hands & surrender to what officials and the general public apparently believe to be inevitable.</p>
<p>That ^ is <em>not</em> an immigration policy. It’s an assent to loss of control; that’s all it is. Or, if it’s a “policy,” it’s an ultimate open-door policy.</p>
<p>^^ Weren’t they the first group of illegal immigrants into this land?</p>
<p>epiphany, Here is what a bleeding heart liberal would do:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>If your want to get rid of the need for a sanctuary city, then make the process of deportation more humane. Caught illegal immigrants should have the rights to be processed and deported expeditiously. The INS is woefully underfunded. We all wsih they work more efficiently but few will want to grant them the funding needed to accomplish its missions.</p></li>
<li><p>One way to control illegal immigration is to provide temporary work permit that extends to unskilled laborers. Have a policy in which children of such temporary work permit holders are not granted automatic citizenship when born in this country, a policy that should extend to other visa holders as well. But to make it work, they should be treated like other tax payers in that they will receive non-discriminatory social benefits. Moreover, there should be a path to citizenship that does not discriminate against such visa holders and their children.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>In addition ot #56,</p>
<ol>
<li>I would make employers of such visa application pay a fee to recover costs. This would alleviate the problem of unfair competition for low wage jobs.</li>
</ol>
<p>There are no apologies available for those that continue to bring up the fact that the indigenous people of this country were mistreated. They mistreated each other long before we got here. So happens that when the europeans showed up they had the bigger stick and were on a mission of expansion and colonization. That’s the way it was. There was no such thing as human rights back then. As for the native americans, were they mistreated? Absolutely. Do I feel guilty about what happened to them back then, no. Do I feel for them, yes. I didn’t do it, I had nothing to do with it and even if some great-something or another relative was involved I’m not responsible for the actions of anyone generations ago. I’m responsible for what my children do until they are legal adults (unless the “it takes a village” folks continue to absolve me of that as well)…other than that I can only be responsible for my actions. We should learn from our past but not dwell on it. You can’t apply modern day thinking to the past.</p>
<p>“We should learn from our past but not dwell on it.”</p>
<p>So what are the lessons to be learned from our past as far as American Indians are concerned?</p>
<p>Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.</p>