Arizona gets tough on ILLEGAL immigrants

[Jonathan]

[Stephen Fox]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magaz ... -t.html?hp

Does this Hispanic politician have any answers for him?

[Stephen Fox]

http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=16038

[Stephen Fox]

[Haruo]

[Haruo]

Thanks, Timothy! I'll do it myself from now on.

[Ed Pettibone]

[Haruo]

I honestly don't know what a "Koran bible" is, Ed. It sounds like something someone made up in order to somehow make Mexican and Central American illegal immigrants appear to be Muslims. After all, it's easier to hate them if we have grounds to believe they came north in order to drive explosive-laden cars into our kindergartens in obedience to Allah.

The letter strikes me as extremely poorly thought out, poorly worded, and confused. It does not strike me as in any way convincing. Perhaps this is because of my starting point. I tend to see illegal immigration per se as more like jaywalking than like home invasion. Others see it the other way around. I don't know of any way for either of us to convince the other.

Most of the serious terrorist attacks on US targets seem to me to have been perpetrated by US citizens or legal immigrants, not by illegals. I have no idea if the Senator's figures about incarceration and assaults on police officers are correct, but her slipshod writing and thinking, coupled with her idolization of ranchers who think they're in Arabia just because they saw the first two letters, and her use of terms like "ACLU and leftist courts" and "the Socialist in power in Washington" bias me against trusting her in other areas.

Arizona should have had Spanish (and Navajo, and probably a couple other native languages) as official languages from the get-go. It was, after all, part of Mexico before it was part of the US. It had a large native-born Spanish-speaking population before the Senator was even born. So her complaint about the belated and partial (and temporary, now that the law she voted for has reversed it) realization of justice in this regard does not find me sympathetic.

[Chris]

[Chris]

[Dave Roberts]

[Chris]

Mexico has its own immigration problem. People sneak in from the south from nations that have worse conditions than Mexico (e.g. Costa Rica, Guatemala), to try to find a better life in Mexico.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=14632

If this is true, how can the President of Mexico complain about the USA or Arizona law?

Mexico wants to "have it both ways." Its President is a hypocrite.

[Chris]

[Haruo]

And no one is bothered by language like "gringo"?

There are plenty of Central Americans in the Western US, too, but the vast majority of them, legal or illegal, came through Mexico. What I haven't heard of is any great influx of Muslim-Christian illegals through Mexico (or, hadn't heard of this until some nameless Arizona rancher started finding "Koran bibles" in the desert).

[Chris]

This is kinda scary:



http://s454.photobucket.com/albums/qq26 ... age001.jpg

[Haruo]

So Chris, are you assuming that the guy who wrote that sign, and/or the guy carrying it, is an illegal immigrant, not a citizen?

I'd be interested to know more of the history of that photo and its subjects.

[Chris]

[KeithE]

[Dave Roberts]

As I read back through the posts that are part of this thread, there are some points of agreement for most of us.

First, all of us agree that the current system is not working. Whether we want to stop and deport every undocumented worker who is in this country or whether we want to give them a short cut to citizenship, there is broad agreement that the current system does not work.

Second, whethere we like it or not, the law passed in Arizona certainly sets at least that part of our country and possibly all of it onto a new track in dealing with the problem. Court challenges are likely, and the prospect is that the legalities will not be settled for 3 to 5 more years unless the Supreme Court decides to fast-track such a case.

Third, US businesses, especially the hospitality and construction industries as well as agriculture, rely heavily on labor that may or may not be documented. As long as businesses hire those from outside the country, they will continue to come.

Fourth, part of the rhetoric of this struggle is bound to the wider societal problem of illegal drug use, and smugglers often use those crossing the border to carry packages to drop points to feed the United States' drug habit. Until we begin to slow the use of recreational drugs in our culture, we will continue to have those who smuggle drugs into the country. (I live at a major drug-trade intersection on the East Coast, and there are seldom weeks that some courier is not captured passing through this area. Most of them are not Hispanic.) The immigration issue and the drug issue are only tangentially related.

Fifth, conditions in countries to our South encourage those who are looking for work to look to the US. There simply are not jobs for most of those people in their own countries by which they can make a living for their families.

Sixth, there are no simple answers to the problem. WE all want one, but they are not available to us. Perhaps we can search for answers, but the search is not going to be simple or easy.

That may not solve anything, but in a thread this loing and complex, someone needed to summarize what had been said.

[Chris]

(without comment) ---- Good summary, Dave R.

[Stephen Fox]

[Chris]

Our local newspaper, the Newport News Daily Press has 4 letters-to-the-editor today. All four are on this topic. Alll four support the Arizona legislature and Governor. In this corner of the Bible Belt, sentiment is clearly running WITH Arizona.

[Haruo]

Is it the Bible, or is it xenophobia?

Also, does the Newport News paper have an editorial position on this issue, and if so, what? (Sometimes such biases slant the letters newspapers accept for publication, other times and with other papers they may provide a fresh breeze from outside the office.)

[Chris]

[Stephen Fox]

http://georgiamountainsandbeyond.blogsp ... atred.html

Ought to get together.