The United States, from its inception to this day, has been almost exclusively comprised of immigrants, yet now we find ourselves treating those who are also seeking a better life here (just as our ancestors did) in a xenophobic manner. Yes, they may be considered illegal, but down through our immigrant history, how many can actually be considered %26quot;legal?%26quot; So tell me, have we become that which our ancestors sought to escape by coming here? Are the words on the Statue of Liberty no longer true? I'm not trying to start some heated argument or debate here, I would just honestly like to know what in the American mentality has changed, why have we as a nation become so rigid and closed towards others that simply seek the freedoms and opportunities that we often take for granted?How can a nation composed almost entirely of immigrants be afraid of immigrants?As an legal immigrant I must say that it does drive me nuts thinking that my family had to wait 5 years to come to the US while some other just cross a border. However, I also have seen the desperation of people living in under-developed countries and not having anything to eat.
The US should create and enforce their immigration laws. They should also provide moe funding to protect their borders... just because you are building a wall that only runs through major cities or towns doesn't mean people will stop crossing the border.
The US should also do something about the millions of law-bindding illegal immigrants who work and have lived in the US for years. It would be unfair to send them back when they have their lives here. I think the US should model what Spain implemented 3 years ago where they allowed illegal immigrants to residents as long as they had steady income, could show proof they have lived here for longer than 5 years and show proof from their naitive country that have enever been arrested or been charge of a crime.
About the job situation.... I don't think immigrants are taking American jobs. I have yet to meet a anglo-american willing to pick lettuce or oranages in the sun for 9-10hrs straight, clean dishes or restrooms in a restaurant and work for minimun wage for it.
Over the years the American mentality has changed and things just got worst after 9/11. But what I find interesting is that the US govt wants to 'protect out borders because of terrorsim' but yet we are barely doing anything to protect our border with Canada. Is a heck of a lot easier to enter Canada than to get a visa to visit Mexico....
How can a nation composed almost entirely of immigrants be afraid of immigrants?
You are soooooooo right....the world is coming to an end...the bible says that there will be a strong lack of common sense...this whole immigration issue is just petty. This is still America right...who are we to say anyone can't come here.
How can a nation composed almost entirely of immigrants be afraid of immigrants?
The whole thing is American has never really been attacked from any foreign faction or nation so when 9/11 happened and they could pinpoint the terrorist from the citizens they became skeptical of everyone who wasn't 'American'. it is unfortunate that we don't tend to see things as it pertains to us. Most of the world lives everyday with bombs going off overhead while we safely sip coffee and watch our afternoon soap operas. We are in a much better place than our counterparts. But 9/11 changed everything on a national level. It proved that we weren't the exception to devastating violence, which is a wake up call to many Americans.
And what most Americans need to realize is that we have Detainment camps that are housing %26quot;terrorists%26quot; that are born citizens of this country without their due process. They very foundations that made this country appealing to the %26quot;hungry, the tired and the poor%26quot; is now crumbling under our feet because people are quick to jump behind the Dems, Repubs, Indep...and can't think for themselves. So God help us all....
We are more angry than afraid. The vast majority of people that have come into our country in the past have done so through legal channels. They learned to speak English, obeyed the laws, and became citizens. Good for them! If you don't see the difference in that and what is happening in this country now..........press one to continue in English.
well now there are laws concerning how you can go about coming and living in this country than in years past.
More people are concerned with ILLEGAL immigrants that take more than they give. Being that many get a tax free salary but b/c they don't make much use up resources that LEGAL citizens work hard to pay for.
People that are opposed to immigration period need to look at the history of this country. It is my experience that many are opposed to illegal immigration than immigration period.
People are ignorant. There is a thing called xenophobia and its not specific to the US. Most Americans are several generations distant from any familial immigrant, making it more difficult to empathize or overcome xenophobic tendencies based on their wandering Pilgrim heritage. Believe it or not, many Americans, especially in today's political climate, after immigrating to another country experience the exact same rigid closed mindedness from their new country's natives.
I think there are a lot of reasons. Some could be that we act as if these people are taking jobs from us, when the actuality is the majority are doing jobs that no one else wants to do. I think there is something to be said about a system of checks and balances and that people shouldn't just be able to walk into the country without following a process and that angers some. I think there is a subconscious problem with these being people of color and becoming the majority which frightens some, too. Just my thoughts...
The statue of liberty was a gift from France, and the words were French, not some extract from our constitution.
We have been friendly to legal immigrants over the years, and still give homes to more legal immigrants each year than any other country.
That does not mean that we are not a country with laws and that anybody can cross our borders to become instant citizens. There are also many people in this world that wish to do harm to America, and they need to be prevented from gaining access to our country.
In my eyes, we need to be fair with our legal immigrant policy, and completely non accepting of anybody that comes here illegally. It's not fair to the citizens of our country, and it's not fair to the legal immigrants that went through the process completely above board.
No one is afraid of immigrants ,just illegal immigrants.Come through the front door,get your papers,get your physical quit bringing in turburculosis and other diseases that were virtually wiped out here.It is an insult to ALL the people going about it the right way.Just because you climb over my wall and enter my house doesn't mean I'm going to let you stay.You go around and knock on the door and I'll tell you if I'll let you in or not.
Immigration is fine as long as it is done legally. The immigrants should also learn the language and pay taxes.....otherwise they become an overwhelming burden on our health care and social services sytems.
We need to put out a bulletin. %26quot;No longer want, poor, tired, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Holding out for educated, European multi-millionaires!%26quot;
First of all, there's no difference between how we treat immigrants now and how our fathers treated Irish, German, Dutch, Catholic, Chinese, and many other groups that came in large numbers in the past.
But the real problem TODAY is that so many are coming here ILLEGALLY. This is something new, and their uncontrolled numbers are wreaking havoc on our society. They lower wages for Americans, use up medical resources, steal Social Security resources, and add to traffic congestion. Remember that Mexican protest a couple of years ago? The only result was that everyone else was able to use the freeways again without the constant traffic jams suffered every OTHER day because of them.
It's not fear. It's logic. Where's yours?
Not afraid just concerned about overpopulation
Hear hear. People living outside the States just can't understand your 'thing' about immigrants. It's a big country, it needs labour, just what is the problem.
A classic case of the Pot Calling the Kettle Black
I don't know that ALL African-Americans and ALL Native-Americans are %26quot;immigrants%26quot;, but I found some information as it pertains to the opposing arguments for immigration
Economic arguments
Economic needs-driven immigration is opposed by labour-market protectionists, often arguing from economic nationalism. The core of their arguments is that a nation's jobs are the 鈥榩roperty鈥?of that nation, and that allowing foreigners to take them is equivalent to a loss of that property. They may also criticise immigration of this type as a form of corporate welfare, where business is indirectly subsidised by government expenditure to promote the immigration and the assimilation of the immigrants. A more common criticism is that the immigrant employees are almost always paid less than a non-immigrant worker in the same job, and that the immigration depresses wages, especially as immigrants are usually not unionised. Other groups feel that the focus should be not on immigration control, but on equal rights for the immigrants, to avoid their exploitation.
Arguments against the cost of immigration - for instance the provision of schools for the additional population - are prominent in the United States and Canada, see Economic impact of immigration to Canada.
Nationalistic arguments
Non-economic opposition to immigration is closely associated with nationalism, in Europe a 鈥榥ationalist party鈥?is almost a synonym for 鈥榓nti-immigration party鈥? Although traditionally, economic arguments dominated the United States immigration debate, it has become more polarized in recent years, as evidenced by nationalist demands to deploy the military to the US borders. The emergence of private border militias in the United States has attracted much media attention. Nevertheless, the southern border of the European Union in the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla has at least as many military patrols as the US-Mexico border.
The primary argument of the nationalist opponents in Europe is that immigrants simply do not belong in a nation-state which is by definition intended for another ethnic group. Britain, in this view, is for the British, Germany is for the Germans, and so on. Immigration is seen as altering the composition of the national population, and consequently the national identity. From the nationalist perspective, high-volume immigration simply 鈥榓lters their country鈥?more than is desired or even necessary. Some of the support for this nationalist opposition comes from xenophobes who instinctively fear the presence of foreigners, but it is also consistent with the nationalist ideology. Germany was indeed intended as a state for Germans: the state's policy of mass immigration was not foreseen by the 19th-century nationalist movements. Immigration has forced Germany and other western European states to re-examine their national identity: part of the population is not prepared to redefine it to include immigrants. It is this type of opposition to immigration which generated support for anti-immigration parties such as Vlaams Belang in Belgium, the British National Party in Britain, the Lega Nord in Italy, the Front National in France, and the Lijst Pim Fortuyn in the Netherlands.
One of the responses of nation-states to mass immigration is to promote the cultural assimilation of immigrants into the national community, and their integration into the political, social, and economic structures. In the United States, cultural assimilation is traditionally seen as a process taking place among minorities themselves, the 鈥榤elting pot鈥? In Europe, where nation-states have a tradition of national unification by cultural and linguistic policies, variants of these policies have been proposed to accelerate the assimilation of immigrants. The introduction of citizenship tests for immigrants is the most visible form of state-promoted assimilation. The test usually include some form of language exam, and some countries have reintroduced forms of language prohibition.
Environmentalist arguments
Environmentalist opposition to immigration is prominent in the United States, which has the largest absolute numbers of immigrants. Responses to immigration are a controversial topic among environmental activists, especially within the Sierra Club. Some oppose the immigration-driven population growth in the United States as unsustainable, and advocate immigration reduction. Other environmentalists see overpopulation and environmental degradation as global problems, that should be addressed by other methods. Most European countries do not have the high population growth of the United States, and some experience population decline. In such circumstances, the effect of immigration is to reduce decline, or delay its onset, rather than substantially increase the population. The Republic of Ireland is one of the only EU countries comparable to the United States in this respect, since large-scale immigration contributed to substantial population growth. Spain has also witnessed a recent boost in population due to high immigration.%26quot;
stupiditiy
true most of us are immigrants, well all of us if you want to go way back, except native Americans.... but its the illegal ones, the ones who sneak past the border. They need to be checked with customs cause they could be smuggling drugs, weapons, terrorists, and carry diseases that could harm everyone else. Also immigrants can be paid cheaply therefore taking the jobs of the common American. I can kind of see what your saying but were no longer in the 1800's times have changed and so have circumstances.
Go back and read your american history.......the immigrants coming from Europe were hardly illegal. If they want to seek a better life, I propose they do something about their own country first, or at the very least, go about immigrating in a legal fashion. And send all the criminals, gang members, and mexican flag wavers back.
How brain-dead can you be? This country is %26quot;composed almost entirely%26quot; of LEGAL immigrants, who wanted to learn the language and assimilate. They went through the process of legalization, and understood why it was necessary to do so. There were limits to the numbers allowed to come here. Is there even the slightest similarity to this and to the mexicans who are digging tunnels, and sneaking in here in the dead of the night, many of them dealing drugs? Where in our immigration policy does it say that the stated goal is to turn this place into Northern Mexico, the graffitti capital of the world?
I think a lot of people are just overwhelmed by the enormity of the immigration. But also, many aren't so much concerned that there are immigrants, but that they are immigrants who haven't followed the rules. That leads them to believe that they may also not follow other rules (laws), and lead us toward a violent crime wave. Some say that's already been happening in the Southwest. I have no evidence to base that on, but some people have said that.
My point is that we have many people who have been waiting legally to enter the country, and haven't been allowed. Should we pass up those law-abiding citizens and instead give citizenship to those who have bypassed the legal means for entry? I think it's a bad precedent to set. Remember, one of the criteria for legal entry is that they can't have had a criminal record back home. Could it be that some of the illegals are actually criminals?
Yes, we need to be open to immigration, but I'm not convinced that allowing it without regard to legal standards is the wisest approach to take.
