As border debate rages, immigrants' fears rise

sacbee ^ | 5-7-05

[LouAvul]

....snip......

"Why are they so angry?" asked Teresa Gonzalez, 57, a Mexican immigrant and naturalized citizen.

"They," according to Gonzalez, include a variety of individuals and groups:

• Last month, volunteers calling themselves Minutemen descended on the Arizona border to deter illegal immigrants from crossing into the United States, and a Southern California organization announced plans to do the same near San Diego this summer.

• Last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger praised the work of the Minutemen, saying, "They've done a terrific job."

• Earlier this week, Southern California Assemblyman Ray Haynes, R-Murrieta, submitted a proposed initiative that would establish a state police force to enforce immigration laws.

• And the U.S. Senate is poised to approve a measure that would, among other things, discourage states from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.

Gonzalez fears these elements are combustible and could spark violence.

She also knows there's no simple answer to her question.

Paul Rosenzweig is a senior legal research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. "There's a growing sense of dissatisfaction with the current (immigration) system," he said.

Though the Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank, Rosenzweig said liberal immigration advocates agree that change is needed.

"I don't think there's any consensus on what the right answer is," he said.

It seems everyone has jumped into the immigration debate, from President Bush - who has advocated a guest worker program - to California's GOP governor.

One popular theory is that Schwarzenegger's comments were a politically motivated attempt to boost his sagging poll numbers.

But activists on all sides offer a variety of reasons for recent immigration-related debates, border patrols and proposals.

[4Freedom]

Sucking the filthy byproducts and residue of burning marijuana leaves into your otherwise healthy lungs is neither a logical way to alleviate pain, nor a logical way to battle cancer.

Smoked marijuana is an illegal, gateway, recreational drug for a good reason. Smoking marijuana leads, more often than not, to further, future abuse of harder recreational drugs.

I was diagnosed with Beta immuno histiocytic (non-Hodgkins) lymphoma 25 years ago and survived it and the associated chemotherapy and resultant pain without marijuana.

You and all other cancer patients can too. The so-called medical professionals telling you otherwise are liars and most likely drug addicts themselves.

I told every pot-pushing, oncology ward nurse where they could stick their marijuana then, just as I'm telling this administration and their open-borders, Libertarian friends where they can stick their stealth-amnesty, guest workers program.

The United States doesn't need millions of unskilled, 3rd-world, Marxist/Socialist, non-English speaking freeloaders here masquerading as productive workers, while actually being an almost $100 Billion dollar net, yearly burden on the U.S. Taxpayers.

The solution isn't decriminalizing or legalizing illegal aliens or illegal gateway dope.

The solution is to build barriers along our own borders, as substantial as the walls we've paid for in Israel, South Korea and other foreign countries, and to give all the illegal aliens 90 to 120 days to get themselves onto the other side of them before we confiscate all of their stuff and forcibly throw them out without a penny of their ill-gotten gains to their names.

Next, we go after their employers. Fine them and throw them in jail. Confiscate their businesses and auction their businesses off to American citizens that are willing to run those businesses with American workers.

Then we institute an expedited death penalty for all human smugglers, illegal narcotics smugglers and domestic growers, producers and pushers.

That's a solution.

Most everything you're advocating is just another form of surrender.

[humblegunner]

Nice try turning the illegal criminal act of any nationality entering into any country in a manner not prescribed by that countries laws into a racical issue zippy

Ending a sentence with "Zippy" is prohibited by the National Interferance Promoting Positive Youth act.. or NIPPY for short.

The other act.. "Zero Incidents of Premeditated Pendejo Yahoos" (ZIPPY for short) is benched for the moment.

[Squantos]

That's a keeper HG !........ROTFLMAO !!

[jackbenimble]

Most of the people I have met who are against illegal immigration are Hispanics themselves. Please advise.

I think I might fall into that category because I am very much against illegal immigration and while I am watching wages fall for low wage workers I am not buying the arguments that the solution is more legal immigration either.

My mother was born in Cuba so I guess I might be Hispanic but it is a pretty amorphous category. What exactly is a Hispanic?

[texastoo]

You are totally right. I have never seen a starving Mexican and I live on this border. As a matter of fact, most Mexicans are obese rather than emaciated.

[Old Professer]

Last night we had a skywriter fighting the wind around dusk; never finished his job.

[judgeandjury]

I want our borders controlled but I have empathy for starving people trying to get into our country to secure a better life for themselves.

There aren't many Mexican illegal aliens who are starving. Of all the photos that I've seen of illegal aliens rounded up by the Border Patrol, I've yet to see a photo that shows an illegal alien who looks like they haven't been eating on a regular basis. Also, many of the Mexican illegal aliens who come to the United States quit jobs in Mexico to come here to work for higher wages. Plus, many of these illegal aliens had enough money saved up so that they could afford to pay coyotes thousands of dollars to help them get over our southern border.

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

They are criminals one & all when they commit unauthorized entry into the US. They make a mockery out of justice and our laws

There are millions around the world who stand in line for years trying to get into our country legally. I have nothing but contempt for those who excuse the illegal immigrant's actions, for whatever reasons they are illegals.

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

push...over to the Democrat party along with Republican gays and Republican pro-choicers.

And may the tent flap smack them on the ass on their way out.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

I am not gong to register at this time to read anything from the Bee Ess.

Two things though, 1) within hours of 9/11/01 the editors opined that it was partly our fault; within a few weeks the publisher of the Bee Ess was booed off the stage in Sacramento when she attempted to preach the same Bee Ess and blasted the Administration for being mean to accused terrorists.

2) When Wen Ho Lee was accused of taking highly classified nuclear weapons material home with him the Bee Ess published several series and articles, as well as editorial opinions, blasting Asian bashing and dredging up W.W.II horror stories about internment.

Look for the Bee Ess to feature weeks on the evils of immigrant bashing, xenophobia, bigotry, racism, white supremacy, militias, lynchings, and the horrors earlier immigrants went through.

[LNewman]

Homeland Security airport efforts in OC evolved, devolved, into, I believe, a front-page soap opera whine fest of one Latina. She'd supposedly been here 5 years. Her husband was not working. She had FIVE children, THREE of whom where born in the US. Sputter ... cough ... gag ... spit! THREE children in FIVE years? You ain't had ANY TIME to work there senora, now have you?

Her weepy plea is .... "BUT my children are more American than they are Mexican."

[dennisw]

Congressman Tancredo points a bullet hole in the U.S. Customs Service, which faces the U.S. along the Arizona border in the Coronado National Forest.

http://tancredo.house.gov/irc/oldgallery.html

[Marine Inspector]

Amen

[Luke21]

Where you from, Boston? You been to the border lately? I would assume your screenname means you are a feminist. We already have a political party that favors favoritism for some citizens at the expense of others and brands everyone who disagrees with it as sexist, racist, homophobic, etc...

You think people will join the Democrats rather than respond to common sense? Let them join if they are that stupid.

[Marine Inspector]

They are criminals one & all when they commit unauthorized entry into the US. They make a mockery out of justice and our laws

There are millions around the world who stand in line for years trying to get into our country legally. I have nothing but contempt for those who excuse the illegal immigrant's actions, for whatever reasons they are illegals.

Agreed.

[rmlew]

Where is the Hispanic bashing?
The only way the GOP will be a majority is if we allow for the importation of a new proletariate to prop up the Democrats.

[antisocial]

Thanks, that was well said.

[Kokojmudd]

" My mother was born in Cuba so I guess I might be Hispanic but it is a pretty amorphous category. What exactly is a Hispanic?"

That's a good point. I don't believe the word Hispanic, in the conventional sense, is meant to describe Cubans or even Spaniards anymore. It has become synonymous with Mexican or American of Mexican decent. I was in the grocery store last night and walked by the Hispanic food aisle. There wasn't any Spanish or Cuban food that I could recognize, only Mexican. In the Asian food section there was Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc. Go figure.

[NewRomeTacitus]

What is a "Hispanic"? Valid question deserving of an honest answer. Short explanation: Hispanics are the amalgam of anyone remotely of Latin American descent vaguely lumped together under one umbrella by opportunistic LULAC lawyers (financed an egged on by the Ford Foundation) lusting for the power and privileges that the NAACP won for it's constituents.

"Hispanics" are not a race, religion or creed recognizable under any rational or sane standards; merely a term generated to create an oppressed class officially recognized by our government in order to wheedle more out of it than they would as average majority citizens. This was brilliantly pulled off during the Johnson Administration's cementing of social programs and generational dependence on government.

I say the only real Hispanics are people from the Isle of Hispaniola. Never met one, myself. If any are around I think they have to be grateful for all the perks inadvertently won for them by subversive Marxist lowlifes.

[TheCrusader]

"Businesses are in business to make as much profit as they can."

I believe this, that's why I said their greed is what's causing our jobs to dissappear overseas. I also agree with you that government tax and regulations are a large part of this problem, but while businesses have always been in business to make profit, I believe right down to my bones that modern day business in America has a gluttonous and insatiable appetite for excessive fortune, not just solid 'profit' like it once was.

I very clearly remember when most businesses, large and small, were pleased to make a good profit, expand themselves, and leave it at that. But I have watched our small, local banks get gobbled up by big, carniverous banking institutions which now charge us usury fees to bank with them. The small banks used to give out free glassware and small kitchen gadgets to bank with them, and nobody even thought about making people pay for each check they write if they didn't have a huge balance. You will now pay up to a ten percent fee just to withdraw a lousy $20.00 from the ATM.

I have watched movie tickets go from 50 cents in 1967 to ten dollars today. That's not inflation it's greed. The same ravenous, gluttonous price increases also apply to health care, automobiles, homes, food, utilities, and everything else we pay for. It's not about profit and growth anymore, it's about squeezing from us whatever they possibly can and giving us a cheasy product or crappy service for our money. They squeeze, they gouge, they cheat, and they build multi-billion dollar empires and then they want MORE.

And yes, the government is equally bloated and ravenous and part of the problem. Where it once was considered a vice and tended to hold people in check, greed is now a virtue.