Posted on 07/21/2010 7:04:47 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
In a mid-May White House visit, Mexican President Felipe Calderon pressed the immigration issue in a way that reflected its importance back home, clearly making official Washington uncomfortable with his demands for reform.
"For us, migration is not only your problem," he told the US Congress. "We also consider it to be our problem."
Many banners and posters - often in Spanish - have been waved for months in Washington and other US cities in rallies urging politicians to fix the country's broken immigration system.
An unprecedented state immigration enforcement law passed in April in Arizona only raised tempers on both sides of the issue and brought condemnation from Latin America.
The law requires police to request immigration papers during traffic stops and other routine interactions, if they suspect someone may be in the country illegally. Supporters insist the law is intended to be race neutral, but critics say the law will inevitably lead to racial profiling against Latinos in a state on the Mexican border.
After months of protests organized around the country, the administration of President Barack Obama filed a lawsuit challenging the Arizona law.
The Justice Department filed the lawsuit on July 6 in a district court in Phoenix, arguing that Arizona had infringed on the US constitution, which gives the federal government power over immigration policy.
Mexico, Ecuador and Argentina have joined one of the lawsuits against the Arizona measure.
Arizona politicians argue that years of federal inaction forced them to adopt the law in the first place. Rising fears of violence along the border from Mexican drug traffickers and people-smuggling rings have fueled the issue in the state.
The Arizona law is set to take effect at the end of July.
In some Latin American countries, US immigration policy is a domestic political issue, creating pressure on national politicians who elevate it to a diplomatic issue with Washington.
The United States is commonly estimated to have about 11 million residents who lack the documents to remain legally. Most are Latino, predominantly from Mexico, though several other countries across Central and South America and the Caribbean have significant populations in the United States.
In late May, Michelle Obama was speaking with a group of children at a school outside Washington when Daisy Cuevas spoke up. "My mom says that Barack Obama is taking away everybody that doesn't have papers," the 7-year-old said.
Scrambling to improvise a delicate answer with news cameras rolling, the first lady replied: "That's something that we have to work on, right? To make sure that people can be here with the right kind of papers, right? That's exactly right."
"But my mom doesn't have any," Daisy replied.
The US-born girl's mother was reported to be a Peruvian overstayer. US immigration authorities have not pursued the family.
Just days later, Peruvian President Alan Garcia held previously scheduled talks at the White House with Obama, indirectly endorsing the US president's still vague reform plans and asking the US Congress "to support this idea."
But immigration reform at the federal level does not appear likely to succeed at least in the short term, with mid-term elections looming in the US House of Representatives and Senate.
"Ahead of the November elections ... there is no way that it's going to be discussed, because for both parties it is an issue which can cause political problems," Honduran Congress Speaker Juan Orlando Hernandez said after a visit this spring to Washington, including meetings on Capitol Hill.
Hernandez said that legislators acknowledged "that this is an issue that needs to be solved. The problem is when to solve it."
. That's a nonsensical, insulting phrase on par with "jobs Americans won't do" and "family values don't stop at the Rio Grande". Everything about the open borders advocates" arguments is necessarily Orwellian in many ways, just twisted, made up nonsense to try and make the opens borders argument sound half reasonable.
One of the major principles of international law is reciprocity. I want a villa on the Latino coast for 50 grand or less. Make it so, you Latin honkers!
It’s quite clear. Our leaders will declare an open border.
As you know, our country is unique and in order to maintain that uniqueness and an objective fairness allowing opportunity for anyone from any country to compete for American citizenship, we've long recognized established quotas for immigrants from any one nation. A very diverse minority population allows not only for opportunity for all but allows us to preserve our European heritage as a nation. America is a land of bountiful resources and natural wonders, in which over some 100+ years we've invested billions in preserving, for our own citizens and their grandchildren to enjoy; this also necessitates we exercise control over how quickly our national population grows.
Accordingly, may we suggest instead, that each latin american country interested in willingly surrendering their citizens to American citizenship or sponsorship, take the measure of adopting the Constitution of the United States as well as the Bill of Rights as the new laws of their own lands, and immediately apply all laws of the USA to all of your own citizens, rich and poor, including establishing welfare and healthcare programs for your poor. You may find, if you take this very simple measure, and end the corruption and violence rampant in your own countries, there would be no need to insist America accept those of your citizens who flee what they describe as intolerably repressive regimes.
Best of luck to you. Let us know if you need any pointers.
Your friends in the USA
Mexico's population density is about the same as Tennessee; Ecuador's about the same as Colorado and Argentina's about the same as New Mexico.
We should be demanding the right to colonize them.
Ok, let me see if i got this right...
If you cross the North Korean border illegally, you get 12 years hard labor while subsisting on fish heads and brown water if you’re lucky.
If you cross the Iranian border illegally, you are detained indefinitely, blindfolded and tortured
If you cross the Afghan border illegally, you get shot and your head will be used as a soccer ball.
If you cross the Saudi Arabian border illegally you will be jailed, whipped and beheaded.
If you cross the Chinese border illegally you may never be heard from again and your internal organs will be harvested and sold.
If you cross the Venezuelan border illegally you will be branded a spy and brought before a firing squad.
If you cross the Cuban border illegally you will be thrown into political prison to rot but you will have great health care unless you are a homosexual.
But if you cross the u.s. border illegally you get:
1 - a job
2 - a drivers license
3 - social security care
4 - welfare
5 - food stamps
6 - credit cards
7 - subsidized rent or a loan to buy a house
8 - free education
9 - free health care
10 - Right to vote illegally
11 - a lobbyist in Washington
12 - billions of dollars worth of public documents printed in your language and the right to carry your country’s flag while you protest that you don’t get enough respect.
Unless you came from Cuba as a child, your mother dying on a ramshackle raft made out of milk cartons, then helmeted paramilitary law enforcement with semi-automatic weapons will forcibly remove you from your home on good Friday and you’ll be harvesting sugar cane or rolling cigars by Easter.
I just wanted to make sure I had a firm grasp on the situation.
Latin America seems to attact crazies from Communists, Nazis, and Islamists. Many Nazis fled to Latin America.
Ping!
...again.
Many Latin American countries are volatile societies. It's easy for troublemakers to make contacts there to mutual benefit. If OBL had a satellite phone, the phone number of Zetas would be on a speed dial. AQ has access to tons of weapons, and Zetas, as matter of fact, control the US border.
They can all SHOVE IT
On behalf of all the would-be LEGAL immigrants from Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, one is pleased to extend to the complainers a big, VERY loud, and hearty razzberry.
I think they want the money sent directly, without having to send any of their people to work for it.
'Latin America demands US immigration reform
And I demand that the USAF use 'Latin America' for a Bombing Range.
” Oh, we’ll fix the immigration systems alright, NO immigration from anywhere for the next 25 years. Like that fix? “
See you at the signing!!
We should have just conquered the whole damn hemisphere.
Very true. Stability is very rare in Latin America for the most part. Coups are often common there. Bolivia has more coups than any other nations in the world.
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