I know, deep down inside, that the illegal immigration problem is not going to go away. It’s not going to get better. It’s going to have to be addressed, and the current bunch of politicians in Washington seem bent on whitewashing and ignoring the problem.
But I have trouble. Seems like the only Mexicans I see are working. Note this article. Yep, Louisiana had its own version of the same marches that took place all over the country.
Thousands of Hispanics rally in New Orleans
5/1/2006, 4:25 p.m. CT
By JANET McCONNAUGHEY
The Associated PressNEW ORLEANS (AP) — Thousands of Hispanics carrying signs that said “Nobody is illegal” and “Proud to rebuild” took Monday off to join a national day of protest and boycotts to show their importance to the country and to the area devastated by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
It makes me really want to scream. You see, this ain’t like the “Million Man March” of a few years back. In this march, people actually left work to march.
Many placards, spray-painted through stencils over discarded campaign signs from a recent election, referred to the many Hispanics who have gutted and rebuilt flooded buildings in southeast Louisiana. One read, “We are not the problem. We are the solution.” The same slogans appeared in both English and Spanish: “Proud to rebuild” and “Orguilloso de Reconstruir.”
Yep! While a sizeable contingent of New Orleans residents languish on the government dole in cities around the country, we got THESE people in New Orleans doing the work.
While we have healthy, able-bodied young men fro New Orleans out on the streets of Houston selling drugs, we have the men and women of Mexico and Central and South America in New Orleans making the city work again.
Oscar Tejeda Sr., owner of Oscar’s Lawn Service, said he and his 12-man crew all were at the march.
“I gave them the day off to come here, not to stay home,” said Tejeda, 32.
He said his mother sacrificed to bring him illegally to the United States from Honduras when he was 11. He is now a citizen. He said about half of his work crew has green cards and he got a required tax number to pay taxes for the rest.
At least that’s a LEGAL living. Here’s some more…
At the Staybridge Suites, assistant manager Corey Roy said 10 to 15 of his 35 employees didn’t show up at the 182-room long-term residence hotel Monday morning. They had notified him of the rally beforehand, he said.
“We just shuffled some people around and got them in early to get the guests taken care of,” Roy said.
Victoria Ramon, a housekeeper at the Staybridge, said, “We want justice for Latin people. I’m a resident here, but many don’t have it. We need it, one and all.”
Those willing to speak about immigration status to a reporter, whether in English or through an interpreter, said they had green cards or were U.S. citizens
It’s hard, folks, damn hard, for me to get mad at people who want to WORK.
Yes, I know there are the normal leftist mooonbats among them, the MechA, the Aztlan bunch, the normal “hate America” hangers-on, but I still want to believe that the brown-skinned guys I see on worksites are a damn site better than a lot of full-blooded American trash that my tax dollars are freely spent to support.
I’m not saying that I want open borders. And I’m not saying that illegal immigrants don’t need to go back home and come back the right way. But I am saying that an awful lot of these people will make a fine addition to America… We just need to figure out how to make it happen…
I’d like them to become legal…
This country has never suffered from people coming here to WORK.
And, the thing that has me really bothered is the people who defend the low pay they give the “immigrant laborers” keep telling us that they can’t afford to pay them more and if they did we’d not be able to afford the things and services they provide.
Somehow, when I heard this rhetorical stance it made me think…”hmmm, I’m just about certain I’ve heard this somewhere before.”
Then I remembered where. It’s what the white plantation owners said about slave labor, it’s what the industrialists said about the sweat shop labor and child labor.
And that bothers me. A lot.
Most of us who have a problem with the Mexicans and others who are here illegally don’t have any quarrell with those who are here legally, and who are working, paying taxes, and taking care of their own.
The problem lies with those who are here illegally, collecting welfare and food stamps, clogging up the schools and emergency rooms, demanding bi-lingual everything, sending their welfare checks and/or wages home to Mexico, and then complaining because we don’t want them here. I seriously resent having to pay for these folks to live here illegally.
IMMIGRANTS are welcome. ILLEGAL ALIENS are not.
Actually, immigrants aren’t so welcome. There are tight caps on how many, and under what circumstances they can come here. I’m for making it a LOT easier for them to get into the country legally and equally harder for them to stay here illegally.
It would be one thing to be out of a job in a rust-belt city where two auto plants just shut down, but a city on the rebuild with federal dollars pouring in like water over the levees? What’s up with that?
I agree with you completely. I see other bloggers calling them invaders or such and suggesting all they do is swell welfare roles which in my experience is far from true. That comment above, to paraphrase- easier to get here legally and harder to stay illegally sums up my feelings on the subject.
It might just be an urban legend that the illegals collect welfare, food stamps, etc. I really don’t know. It would be hard since you would have to have an SSN. It would be all too easy though to go to an emergency room for health care.
I don’t mind someone who will work and contribute coming to this country. I just want them to do it legally. We should know who is within our borders and we don’t know squat about someone entering illegally. Sure most of them don’t cause problems but I live in an area with a fairly large contingent of Mexicans. Believe me, there is a fair amout of violent crime there.
if they work and can make a living here, i don’t really see a reason why they can’t be made legal of course there might be negative impacts from a high population later on thats worth considering. The governments ALREADY ALLOWED so many in that have become important to the economyand they want to turn around and say we want you to leave-i mean thats bad governing, they should have made the decision before..now its so impractical. First things first if your indecisive about them coming in keep them from coming in. Most work and are helping i say leave them alone and in future monitor the issue better.
A side thought, i agree, it is really sad that there are so many capable americans that can work and they aren’t doing anything makes me think of the fact ive been in college for a while and haven’t really had a job because my parent was like oh you need to study and in fact was always very negative about me having a job even in highschool which i didnt, well yeah, but i needed somehting else to do, or things get kinda meaningless and i start to do bad in school but i listened a freeloaded for a long time but i needed that real world input, anyway sad it was bad advice.
Very few people have problems with LEGAL immigration. I have a lot of respect for those LEGAL immigrants who bust their butts in the tomato fields and on the roofs making a living. However, I do not like the idea that judges have directed that the school systems hire teachers to teach in Spanish nor the fact that illegal immigrants have children that are American citizens–with social security numbers and these kids then qualify for all of the welfare programs. The parents work under the table with no reportable income. Moreover, the school systems are bogging down bacause of illegal immigrants in many areas of the country.
Cheap foreign labor is not an answer to making an economy grow for a couple of reasons. First if labor is not paid enough to buy part of what they are producing an economy will falter. The second is that about a third of the dollars earned are not soent on the American economy but instead are sent back to the home country. The American economy then suffers because of the cash flow taken out of it plus the addition burden of the social programs used by the illegals.
It is a problem and the only way it is going to be solved is for the politicians to enforce the laws already on the books. These illegals are CRIMINALS because they have broken the laws by just being here. I suppost the house bill that calls for the deportation of ALL illegal invaders. The country survived without them in the past and can do so in the future…especially if the social welfare programs were tied to and renamed work programs.
Yes many of these folks are hard workers, and if they want to be here in USA they have to be LEGAL
Dang it, I had to JUMP THROUGH HOOPS when I arrived here from NZ 26 years ago to gain my legal Alien Status. Made me feel like someone with little pointy ears from an alien country.
If I could get my so called green card, then by gosh so can they.
Nancy,
Your comment is highly offensive. Do you really, actually, equate illegal immigrants who willingly break our sovereign laws with the historical slaves who were brought here against their will? How twisted is that thought process? It is illogic such as that that leads us down the dark, dusky path towards subservience.
I haven’t toiled my whole life to knuckle under to a couple of million law-breakers. It is daintily quaint that you find their outlaw behavior so electrifying, but I would strongly suggest that you moderate your asshattery to the point that you can identify the good from the bad. Your mental prowess at this point is sorely lacking.
I’ve wondered how the 12 million illegals number was compiled. Does someone count them at the border?
There wouldn’t be any illegal workers if illegal businesses and individuals didn’t hire them.
skh–
I am highly offended by YOUR high level off offense! I am all for very preferential treatment of “historical slaves who were brought here against their will”. Unfortunately, there are none left. Therefore, perhaps foolishly, I expect anybody else to get off their butts and earn their keep. Silly of me. And you cna’t get more subservient than sitting around taking government money in exchange for a lock-step vote and the “right” to a free ride. These aren’t people, these are the pets of the dimmocratic party.
I do not find “outlaw behavior so electrifying”. I DO find that given the choice between Louisiana receiving the benefit of the HARD WORK of aliens, both legal and illegal, as opposed to the continued taxpayer support of a HUGE government-created underclass, I’d choose the aliens.
They don’t give me that choice. I have to put up with both. So in a less than perfect world, I recognize the work ethic of people who see America as a REAL dream instead of something quoted in an MLK speech once a year.
MC
I am extremely shocked by how explicitly racist this blog entry is. I’m on the fence about the illegal debate. But for you to imply that Black Americans are a bunch of lazy layabouts soaking up goverment money and selling drugs all day is stupid. Stop letting the media tell you what is going on in your country.
There are a LOT of hard-working educated black people in the world. If you want to discuss illegal immigration then by all means please do. But do not sit there and write that the bunch of illegals marching the streets are somehow more deserving than the black people in this country. Your comparison has no merit and it only serves to prove that you are a racist pig.