Posted on 03/25/2006 8:03:27 PM PST by Amerigomag
Angered by what they see as increasing hostility toward immigrants, hundreds of thousands of people converged on City Hall Saturday to demand amnesty for illegal aliens and reject federal legislation that would build more walls along the U.S.-Mexico border. Protesters, wearing white T-shirts to symbolize peace, danced, chanted and carried large banners as they filled dozens of streets in downtown.
They chanted "Mexico!" "USA!" and "Si se puede," an old Mexican-American civil rights shout that means "Yes, we can." Many protesters said lawmakers were unfairly targeting immigrants who provide a major labor pool for America's economy.
The rally was organized by unions, religious organizations and immigrant rights groups, with disc jockeys on Spanish-language radio stations calling on listeners to attend. Crowd estimates varied widely through the afternoon as protesters came and went and dozens of streets were closed down. Police Cmdr. Louis Gray Jr., incident commander for the Los Angeles rally, said aerial helicopter snapshots and other crowd estimation techniques placed the estimated number of demonstrators at more than 500,000.
"America is a nation of immigrants, and we're also a nation of laws," Bush said in his weekly radio address about the emotional immigration issue that has driven a wedge into his party. Bush sides with business leaders who want legislation to let some immigrants stay in the country and work for a set period of time.
Many protesters also took issue with the argument that amnesty for immigrants who entered illegally would be unfair to those who entered legally. "You always hear the argument about 'being unfair to the people waiting in line,'" said Perias Pillay, 44, who immigrated legally from Malaysia when he was 18. "But the reality is that most people don't qualify to wait in line. The government needs to make it easier to immigrate."
(Excerpt) Read more at pe.com ...
The dirty little secret is that California and America both benefit from and are hurt by illegal immigration. Having a large and growing pool of low-paid workers is good from an economic efficiency standpoint. It is bad from the standpoint of propping up wages in an era of globalized competition. (Among other things, it has played a huge role in the decline of the United Farm Workers.)How do illegals prop up wages?
Simple they had to pass out free American flags, but it seems Mexican flags were more natural to the surroundings.
Were you there? It looks like crowds were crammed in from the freeway to the library, at least?
They must have even bumped the homeless off the park benches in front of the library.
The Democrats used to be against it but they've changed both a result of a large pool of new welfare dependents to exploit and just out of a sheer loathing for America. So you've got a coalition of strange bedfellows that normally agrees on nothing but sees illegal immigrants as of benefit to them financially and politically.
Will tougher laws be passed to counter the problem? Its really hard to say since we live in a deeply divided house in America. If we cannot even agree on the menace of Islamofascist terrorism abroad, its questionable whether there will be a genuine, sustained national effort to combat the illegal immigration crisis at home.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Not long ago my local paper interviewed a group of illegals standing around on a street corner in the barrio they have created in a nearby city.
Their main complaint?
"Too many Mexicans. Not enough work."
"What do you want to happen to those illegals that have built a life for themselves here, own property, pay taxes,watch their kids join the military, and follow our laws?"
There is not that many out of the total that fit this description.
But of the majority who are in the shadows that don’t have a permanent life, who don’t own property, but oppose our military; the least we could expect from them is to behave and follow the laws and pay their way like the rest of us.
If illegal immigrants paid income taxes, state disability insurance like us, car insurance so we don’t have to carry uninsured motorists, health insurance so we can again use the emergency rooms for emergencies , if they paid out of state tuition like the rest of us have to pay if we send our kids away from our kids birth home to attend college, and pay for their own kids school lunches even before they go to college,(I had to pay for mine , and explain why as citizens we don’t get a free lunch), also either the illegal immigrants or their employers pony up for some funds for new roads that connect between their neighborhoods and their employer’s so the legal residents don’t have to spend two hours a day stuck in traffic for which used to only be a 15 minute commute, THAT would be a start...then we can being to discuss what could happen.
Yet if they can't even follow a simple law such as filling out citizenship papers and pay small fees to immigrate legally, what makes anybody think they are going to voluntary pay more and do a lot more paperwork for all the things legal citizens have to pay, especially since they know we don’t have the will to uphold the laws of our land?
Solution, make their employers pay, by fines for hiring workers and make the employers pay who do not pay their mandated state disability insurances, or withhold income taxes, and the fees to rezone whole cities for their workforce. Employers wont want pay these fees, or go to jail, so they would eventually would have do to business by the rules like legal business do and hire legal workers. Then the illegal employees can migrate elsewhere, or they can go home, its the only fair thing that can happen; turning off the illegal labor magnet which draws this ravenous underground economy to this country.
Yeah, I'm sure they'll be voting Republican.
They really are "the stupid party" if the leadership believes that.
It is amazing how much racism exist in these postings. Where is the humanity? Illegal Mexican immigrants are here trying to make a living, looking for a better life. They are not criminals. The U.S. offers opportunities that have historically enticed all immigration here. Let us remember that the only people in this land who are not a result of immigration are Native Americans. Why not focus more energy in legalizing the people already working and making a life in U.S. soil. Also, lets work on a bill that will make it easier for Mexicans to come to the U.S legally.
And at one time, they stole the land from somebody else too. What's your point?
I'm with you. You said it all.
if they want to march with and live under the chicken and the worm flag , as obviously many in today's rallies do , then they should migrate back on down there south of our border .
It's not far and they should go. Bye bye , we will not miss you.....
"They are not criminals. "
They are breaking our laws, coming in illegally...
NEWS FLASH...that act alone makes them CRIMINALS!
I say cut off ALL funding for illegals. No education,no aid of any kind...and that is just for starters.
It would not bother me in the least. Load em up and send em home. See ya, don't let the door hit ya in the ass on the way out!!!
They do not want to be Americans, they want the social services and the money. Thats it. Nothing else. Zip.
You're joking right?
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