<p>" didn’t for one minute think you’d want to welcome illegals"</p>
<p>So I guess spending Saturday mornings for 20 years teaching hundreds of people whom I know to be illegal immigrants to read and write isn’t welcoming? Well shut my mouth. I guess I just don’t know from hospitality.</p>
<p>Gosh, ldmom, so much inaccuracy in one little reply.</p>
<p>Not only did I never say deport even one immigrant, let alone 20 million, all of my posts, on this & other threads, represent a going-forward position of planning for the future. Did I ever say one needs only a calculator? No, of course not. But emotional arguments can not be separated from mathematical calculations when it comes to <em>national</em> <em>policy</em> – not whether any particular individual likes his or her gardener, housekeeper. </p>
<p>Further, my analogy of the expanded family reinforced the concept of concentrating on the future, not the CURRENT undocumented workers. </p>
<p>But hey, don’t let accuracy get in the way of your agenda, which is apparently to misrepresent posters & then argue against the misrepresentation.</p>
<p>And here for a moment the thread title made me think it might be about Scooter Libby.</p>
<p>ZM, good for you on the teaching of English to folks, no questions asked. A lot of the reaction against illegals is founded in a nativist, almost xenophobic outlook. It was refreshing while traveling in Europe to watch people not crap in their pants or shrivel up and die when languages other than that of the national language of the immediate locale were spoken. English, a few hundred words of Hungarian, and some pretty bad patchwork German got me through everywhere pretty well, even off the tourist-beaten track. And I noted many times in countries X, Y, and Z that I was being served by employees of countries A-Q.</p>
<p>And, hey, I felt perfectly safe using public transportation at all hours of night and day in societies without civilian ownership of guns and without the death penalty, imagine that…but that’s another story.</p>
<p>Try that in most of South America, Africa, and parts of Asia.</p>
<p>"A lot of the reaction against illegals is founded in a nativist, almost xenophobic outlook. It was refreshing while traveling in Europe to watch people not crap in their pants or shrivel up and die when languages other than that of the national language of the immediate locale were spoken. "</p>
<p>I don’t know how people I could possibly live where I do without knowing some Yiddish, Italian and Spanish.</p>
<p>zoos, I think it’s great you help immigrants – legal and otherwise – read and write English. But your arguments against the current immigration reform are still baffling to me. It’s legislation that calls for stricter laws & border patrol while offering amnesty to those with jobs, some savings & English. This program would help illegal workers legalize their status and hence contribute more equally to the city and state where they live.</p>
<p>Weirdly for me - this is the pet project of GW Bush whom I find appalling and abhorrent in every other way. So I don’t know whether to be chagrined that his immigration reform is failing – or to cheer how his own conservative support base has turned on his pet project.</p>
<p>“It’s legislation that calls for stricter laws & border patrol while offering amnesty to those with jobs, some savings & English. This program would help illegal workers legalize their status and hence contribute more equally to the city and state where they live.”
Part of the problem is that the benchmarks don’t really come into play before legalization, at least in practical reality. The border patrol segment is also worded in such a way as to mean that the likelihood of enforcement is a sham. Another problem I have is with the family reunification aspect. But my biggest problem is with the 24-hour background check. I think that’s just ludicrous. Not to mention dangerous. The “weirdly for me” part of your post made me smile. I appreciate the honesty. Strange bedfellows, right? It was surreal for me to see Brit Hume and Fred Barnes praising Ted KEnnedy to the heavens on immigration. For me, this was just the last straw in my disillusionment with Bush.</p>
<p>Idmom-</p>
<p>I do not see explained in the article how granting amnesty will solve the burden on social services. The author jumped to the conclusion that illegals rely on entitlements because they are “confined by their illegal status.” In reality, they are uneducated, unskilled and do not speak English and that is what relegates them to the lowest rungs of the economy. How will amnesty solve this problem? It seems to me they will still be dependent on free medical care, free lunches and welfare even after amnesty is granted.</p>
<p>Also, the story of Fernanda is a conundrum. Why is there such a need in this country for bilingual nurses? I’ll let you answer that question.</p>
<p>“But emotional arguments can not be separated from mathematical calculations when it comes to <em>national</em> <em>policy</em>”</p>
<p>Epiphany – details…just a few please. How could I misrepresent something that has no details or that I can make bare little sense of?? So far, all I understand is you want all of us to stop being emotional and start being rational. What is it exactly that you find so irrational and emotional? Let’s start there shall we?</p>
<p>“Also, the story of Fernanda is a conundrum. Why is there such a need in this country for bilingual nurses? I’ll let you answer that question.”</p>
<hr>
<p>Bay - perhaps we need bilingual nurses because we are a nation of MANY different cultures, one of the largest being Hispanic and Spanish-speaking. OR should I assume that you also equate Hispanic with “illegal”. I’ll let YOU answer that one.</p>
<p>Okay, well here is my answer. I do not equate Hispanic with “illegal.” But a non-English speaking person of ANY RACE in America is MOST LIKELY to be a non-citizen here.</p>
<p>(BTW, your continual insinuations of racism on those of us who question your position is hurting your credibility. Why are you so defensive?)</p>
<p>Where are these ‘continual insinuations’ Bay? I’ve been very clear, time and again, that we have to be very careful not to blend two groups of people together, those who are Hispanic and legal and those who are Hispanic and illegal. There does seem to be a tendency to do this on these threads. Why some do this is something only they know…be it ignorance (my assumption) or racism (yours??)… and is something I am not concerned with…</p>
<p>(Btw…lol…I don’t DO defensive. Ask around.)</p>
<p>Many Puerto Ricans don’t speak much or any English, but they are definitely citizens.</p>
<p>ZM: capisce. I may be meshugganah but I’m not crazy.</p>
<p>===</p>
<p>I have little tolerance for those whose stance is founded upon “But they broke the law!” It’s one of the more jeer-worthy pronouncements in my book.</p>
<p>
Our current immigration laws are a hodgepodge, rooted in racial and ethnic prejudice and which has little to do with security and much to do with keeping “undesirables” out of the US but is hypocritically honored in the breach due to economic imperatives that most people, on both sides, don’t really want examined in the light of day. </p>
<p>A quick summary of American immigration laws through 1929 follows below. Pay particular attention to the details of the laws 1924-1929. When people boast stoutly that they and their ancestors complied with immigration laws, the laws they’re citing are either trivial (pre-1921) or racist (1921 and later)…there’s no great moral merit in the position.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I take the promise implied at the Statue of Liberty very seriously and I do not have any doubt that each wave of immigrants in turn has contributed to the success and vibrancy of the USA and that the current, on-going wave is no different. [It might be interesting to compare the assimilation of the Irish, who fought in great numbers in the Civil War, with Hispanics, who are currently enlisted in disproportionate numbers fighting and dying in Iraq.] </p>
<p>Am I in favor of open borders and a complete free-for-all? Absolutely not. But neither am I in favor of economic hypocrisy, nativist prejudice, xenophobia, people crapping in their pants when they hear a language other than English, and indulgence of racial and ethnic prejudice against people who don’t look like us, don’t sound like us, eat funny foods, play their radios too loud, and are a bunch of furriners who should return to where they came from.</p>
<p>“ZM: capisce. I may be meshugganah but I’m not crazy.”</p>
<p>Are you hungry? You look hungry. Sit. Sit. I’ll make you something to eat.</p>
<p>Idmom,</p>
<p>Trust me, I’m not the one you need to preach to. My maiden name is Hispanic and I was not born in the US, but I am a US citizen. And I definitely do not “crap in my pants” (as TheDad is so fond of repeating and I wish he would stop) when I hear foreign languages spoken.</p>
<p>My main beef is with the state-funded social services burden created by the illegal immigrant underclass. And I still haven’t heard how amnesty will ease this burden.</p>
<p>Speaking of the Irish and the Civil War, has anyone read Jim WEbb’s book “Born Fighting?” If you haven’t, it’s fantastic reading.</p>
<p>Question of the day - Why do we tend characterize the actions of those with whom we do not agree as ‘preaching’? </p>
<p>Could I not just be expressing my opinion, one that is my right to have?</p>
<p>Bay, I’ll stop using the phrase when folks stop ranting about hearing non-English in public, going all the way up the wall and half-way across the ceiling. It’s going to be a long wait.</p>
<p>As for social services, <em>which</em> services? Medical? It’s counter-productive to the point of idiocy for creating medical services that discourage illegals from coming forward out of fear. Educational? Best thing we can do for immigrants of any persuasion, legal or illegal, is to provide education, which will boost the contributions they make, fiscally and otherwise.</p>
<p>===</p>
<p>ZM: two of the phrases I learned in Hungarian, based on forewarning, were “enough!” and “too much!” </p>
<p>The first three things I try to learn in many languages, not that I’ve done it for all for which I have smatterings, are: </p>
<p>Thank you.
Where is the bathroom (toilets)?
Does this tram proceed to an estuary?</p>
<p>With that basic defense perimeter, you can branch out into many useful directions. Alas, my German includes “Do you have a younger sister for me?”</p>
<p>QUOTE:
“Am I in favor of open borders and a complete free-for-all? Absolutely not. But neither am I in favor of economic hypocrisy, nativist prejudice, xenophobia, people crapping in their pants when they hear a language other than English, and indulgence of racial and ethnic prejudice against people who don’t look like us, don’t sound like us, eat funny foods, play their radios too loud, and are a bunch of furriners who should return to where they came from.”</p>
<p>TD, I don’t see any of this on this thread or for that matter on CC. So perhaps you’re speaking to the wrong audience. To paraphrase you, neither am I in favor of being characterized thus ^^ when I (or others) happen to have intellectually defensible positions in opposition to the current proposed bill (or permutations thereof).</p>
<p>I also don’t see very much of a nod to any kind of traditional racial preferences in the pattern of current immigration (for example, the legal kind). Maybe it’s just where I work. Do a lot of you see quite a few Irish, Germans, Italians, Poles, newly arrived, where you live?</p>
<p>Here’s what I see:
Predominant immigrant group: Latino
2nd in frequency: East Asian
3rd in frequency: South Asian
4th: Middle Eastern
5th: Russian
6th: African</p>
<p>And ldmom, I also think you have been insinuating quite a bit about those who oppose your views.</p>