Blog Spectrum

Yes i did frame the question specifically so that we could have this conversation. We'll probably do other specific facets of immigration in the coming weeks.

Yes, there is a problem. Immigration enforcement is so weak as to be non existent. Corporations that hire millions of illegals are at most given a slap on the wrist. Further you mentioned the Mexican issue, yes that is part of the problem and while Canada is an equally porus border i haven't seen a single report of the Canadian military crossing the border in pursuit of people, nor seen the Canadian government publish pamphletes on how to circument US law and enter illegally.

I’ve reviewed the arguments on the site; most are the standard issues related to the idea of “foreigners” arriving into a “home” country; it is difficult to escape xenophobia, I suffer from it myself at times.

It's not xenophobia, its simply that i don't have nearly as much responsability to someone from Darfur, Mecca or Mexico City as i do to someone from Detroit, Atlanta or Boston. The people from the latter trio of cities are my countrymen and women. This is why when i donate to charities i start by giving my money to those that help Americans first. This is also why i would cheerfully adopt a Cambodian child, or a Russian one, but only after all the American children in need of homes are fitted with them. Plain and simple my neighbor be he ever so obnoxious is my fellow American, and i'll help him first because he is such. Someone who comes here legally will be helped if they need it, but for the most part unless they are a direct threat to me and mine the rest of the world will have to wait until America solves its internal problems in my opinion.

I could point out however, that the majority of the terrorists responsible for 9/11 were here legally and the Bush administration recently relaxed the visa standards for Saudis

The idea that America is home to the “huddled masses” should not be forgotten. I doubt any of the readers here would qualify as aboriginal

If you could find that phrase in any immigration law you're arguement would have a leg to stand on, as it happens i think i should be offering your arguement a wheel chair.

I don't think anyone here is arguing that, i know i'm not. I simply want higher standards for who comes in and under what conditions they are allowed to stay. I also want fair even handed application of those standards.

Poet's, the French, and other dillente's have shouted this for a long time. I'm happier with an older line "if you don't eat you don't work". This country was started by those with a work ethic, it has to keep that ethic alive in order to contine the extrodinary efforts we put into helping other nations. We can't do much about the idiots who refuse to work that are born here, we can and should exclude those who attempt to come here to suck on the public teat. This is not a large percentage of immigrants, but they are there and they should be gone.

If we did not saddle our children with a fourth-rate educational system, they wouldn't have to compete with Mexican immigrants for jobs at McDonalds while we run desperately short of nurses and computer technicians.

Amen and Halleluiah, at least three times. But improving our education system won't shore up the borders, or x-ray hulls, or deport the illegals we do catch.

But most importantly, we need to remember the promise of America. There is a children's book about my great-grandmother's arrival at Ellis Island which was read to me as a boy. I know, at least a little, what that seven-year-old girl felt when she saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time.

Someone who arrives legally, and is willing to at least attempt to become enough of an American to help their family suceed is a whole different kettle of fish from the immigrants who move here and continue two to three generations later to barely speak english and co-opt their children into living in the same thrid world psuedo-reality they supposedly came here to escape but seem to be working hard at recreating.

Some of us don't have such a book, and cannot remember who crossed the ocean or why. They have the luxury of thinking of themselves as “real Americans” and of seen the Latino aliens as, well, alien. For me, it's not that easy.

Your ancestors chose to come here, not everyones did. Choice is a big, big part of what we are talking about. And when it comes to illegals, and those who are trying to turn the nation into the next Somalia, Egypt, or Chekeslovakia, they can head elsewhere.