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They’re Not Illegal Immigrants, They’re Heroes
We need to stop calling undocumented immigrants in the United States "illegal". A more appropriate term is: New American Heroes.
Why are undocumented immigrants heroes?
Millions of Americans, immigrants and citizens, work incredibly hard every single day in ridiculously low paying jobs that are the life-blood of our economy but are barely life-sustaining in return. I think every person who gets up at the crack of dawn or in the middle of the night to work one or two or even three jobs so they can pay the rent and put food on the table are heroes. But as hard as it is for every low-wage worker in the United States (and increasingly, middle class folks too) undocumented immigrants face additional, greater obstacles. These undocumented immigrants are heroes, too.
I certainly don't have what it would take to survive if I was forced to flee my home country because of economic or political insecurity, travel thousands of miles in sometimes life-threatening conditions, move to somewhere where I probably don't know anyone and don't speak the language, and do the most thankless and backbreaking jobs like picking vegetables in the 100 degree sun or washing pots in a restaurant - all to help my family survive. I think that is heroic.
But whether we're talking about undocumented immigrants in low-wage jobs or middle class immigrants who overstayed their visas, as a nation we have always believed that the pursuit of the American dream is heroic. Given that the rest of the world has long paid the price for sustaining the American dream (in terms of natural resources, cheap labor, wars, etc.), it's only fair that immigrants should in turn hope to share in that dream. Through our cultural dominance of the globe, we repeatedly hold up the American dream as an ideal to which everyone should aspire - and, we tell the world, one in which everyone is included. It's only fair that others should want in.
Some argue that all makes sense but still, why can't all immigrants just take the legal path to the American dream? Because, increasingly, there isn't one. Two very important facts have changed in the last decade that significantly impact the immigration equation.
First, in 1994, NAFTA was passed. Now, true, Mexico signed it - but it was largely under the coercion of big international business interests. The result was the devastation of Mexico's economy by larger corporations in the US that flooded their market with cheaper products. A lot of that was corn, which we subsidize with our tax dollars here - and that artificially cheap corn imported into Mexico drastically undercut local farmers. Folks who had been surviving for generations as farmers and local business people are now seriously struggling.
Second, two years later, the United States passed a harsh immigration reform law that, ostensibly, made it much harder for immigrants already here (and with proper papers) to get citizenship AND made it harder for migrants from certain countries - especially Mexico and Central America - to come here in the first place.
So you pass United States policy that intentionally smothers small farmers and shopkeepers, etc., in Mexico AND THEN you change immigration policy so that these now-much-more-desperate immigrants can't come to the US.
Why is it our corn can cross the border to "compete" in Mexico's economy but Mexicans can't cross the border to compete here?
In this context, the word "illegal" in the immigration debate is not only divisive but misnomer. If anything, the United States' political acts should be deemed "illegal", not the acts of well-meaning immigrants left with no other choice. Moreover, throughout history, we have celebrated those who disobey unjust laws in the name of justice. Undocumented immigrants today are carrying the torch of Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Sojourner Truth - great leaders who understood that sometimes we must all answer to higher laws, to a higher belief in freedom and equality for all. In the great tradition of the American Revolution, resisting unjust laws - even if doing so is technically illegal - is an act of heroism.
On May 1, 2010, hundreds of thousands of heroes marched in cities and towns across the United States demanding a workable path to citizenship that will move our entire nation forward together. Just as it would be unthinkable for President Obama and Congress to ignore the demands of military war heroes, we cannot ignore the dire situation facing these heroes of economic wars our country has wrought. Just as undocumented immigrants recognize higher good than broken immigration laws, the President and Congress must find higher guidance than what is considered politically safe.
The word hero comes from Greek meaning to protect or defend. Undocumented immigrants are protecting and defending something much more important than borders (which big business erased long ago). Undocumented immigrants are defending the very definition of America, one that has always promised opportunity for all newcomers and, with any hope, always will.
- Posted in
229 Comments so far
Show AllThis is just about the silliest premise, the most egregious form of obfuscation its been my misfortune to read at CD.
This is simply disgraceful, but Ms. Kohn is trying to liver up to her title I guess "Chief Agitation Officer"
She and those that could agree with this nonsense are going to agitate this problem to a finality that none of us want.
I think you could get that agreement as long as you reciprocate and treat the displaced in our own home with the same courtesy. This is very much a zero sum game, and for the "winners" of the job lottery coming in from the south, there are that many losers here. They should get some damned consideration as well.
As far as criminality, I think the people using that language have little choice when the latin chambers of commerce have adopted and enforced a strict code of race-baiting to support their position of unlimited--but one way-movement into the US economy. It takes strong language to meet strong language. Both terms are bullshit, but as long as the price for opposition to the worker flow is cast in terms almost exclusively of racism, there is little choice for the opposition.
First of all, you're a liar, but a liar who demonstrates the point nicely. Nowhere did myself or almost any of the other posters say what you have been trained to "hear" us say. "Though you want to huhnt down Latino immigrant workers..."
I would not put words like this in your mouth, but obviously you have no compunction to place them in the mouths of others.
The notion of latin chambers of commerce (you'll notice I didn't capitalize it. Then again, you probably didn't notice that) is that there are some very large organizations who benefit from the large influx of migrant labor. This is basic Weber, and is common to many so-called "public service" or "non-profit" advocacy organizations whose funds and power are directly tied to the size of their demographic base. It's not just in immigration/migrancy that this is true. AARP, for another example.So to me, if you're making a business out of smoothing the hustling of outside labor into the country for the purpose of displacing native workers (feel free to start the reductionist "but none of us are natives!" sideshow here), then you're operating as a business organization in the same way as a chamber of commerce would.
Your appalling and unjustified attack on those who have legitimate disagreements with the corporatist party line as racists proves the point I originally made. There can't be an honest discussion of much of anything when people glaze over what people actually say and then fill in the blanks with their handy provided scripts.
The fact is that you assume everyone opposed to illegal migrancy is a right wing, white, redneck. That's the stereotype you're wedded to (or, more accurately, your opinion masters are wedded to) and there's not much I can do about that. But I can object to any pissant poster telling me what my politics are as if they know my mind better than I do.
"In post after post I have gone out of my way to make it clear that I know that many of the people posting anti -immigrant view points in fact consider themselves to be liberal defenders of the 'American' worker, etc. However, when you use made up words with Right Wing tomes like 'migrancy' to describe immigrants, you will get called on it. MIGRANTS ARE NOT VAGRANTS! 'MIgrancy'? What does a word of your special vocabulary say about you, Drone?"
This is wrong. In post after post what you've done is attack people relentlessly and viciously without grounds to do so. If you're not sure what someone means, ask them. Don't guess, and guess in a way that sounds like an attack one would expect from Fox.
You don't know why I used the term "migrants" (although I explain earlier why I won't concede the liberal frame), but if you knew what the frigging word meant, you'd understand that it applies to labor that relocates solely for the purpose of performing work with no intention to reside or gain membership into the receiving society.
As to what my use of vocabulary says about me, I think it suggests that I have one.
This is my last response to you in this thread. I don't think you have the maturity to hold a grown up conversation or the ability to treat language with respect.
drone
I'm a bit confused myself here. What/Who are the "latin chambers of commerce" you are speaking of?
"adopted and enforced a strict code of race-baiting to support their position"
Could you clear this up, define what you are talking about a bit more?
Sioux Rose
Requiem: Are you now or have you ever been a clone of Thomas More? Sure sound alike.
Sioux Rose
Hard to get rid of those darn clones! Semper Fi!
Thomas, my fellow Texan, we love you when you get things right but sometimes you have a habit of slipping out of control be it immigration, military, Europe, capitalism vs socialism, and all. It's not your positions on those issues that gets you into trouble but I think you get so anxious all of a sudden and like people, you post so many replies and make yourself look like a troll and then once again you lose your account. I don't know the technical details of CD's system but if I were hired, I would gladly fix their bugs. I would also implement an option to reinstate banned users depending upon their prior offenses that got them banned in the first place. The more severe the offense, the longer the user will have to wait. That won't stop name-changing but it will reduce it significantly. I believe that all progressive forums should allow that concept because banning people is just like the death penalty system and it doesn't stop bad people anyway. Obviously, CD will have to make their call. Meanwhile, I request CD to give Thomas More back his account just so he can stop cloning himself.
Ah, ole Suzie Q--the thread cop.
Self-appointed, of course--just like every other identity she claims.
Always invades other posters' privacy with her crackpot theories about their past lives--whether on or off this site.
Since this thread has to do with folks who work heroically hard, I am going to suggest that Suzie get a JOB.
I'll address it below on the comments from one of the spokepersons for said organizations.
"You are right about that, Requiem. That's the reason that solidarity between those being exploited is so important, and not siding with the one group that is being urged to hound the other group. Yu are no populist, no progressive, no Leftist if that is what you are in fact doing."
Yes, and you can't have solidarity when you yourself are doing nothing but practicing wedge politics post after post. What's agggravating is that there is really not all that much disagreement here between most of us, but you're doing your very best to find it.
drone
I would love for you to define how I'm practicing "wedge politics"? I'm fairly clear and my opinion has not changed at all. My posts are quite consistent on this.
The idea that you can have solidarity between the American worker losing his job and the illegal taking it is a bit far fetched don't you think?
Should the American worker keep paying dues to the AFL-CIO that took his illegal replacemnt as a member while puttingg him out of a job for the sake of "solidarity"?
requiem, that wasn't a reply to you, but the ardent dude.
A big 10-4, requiem.....what a a crock of schitt! Where does Miss Sally live, Nuevo York...because it's obvious she's terribly misinformed or f-n clueless. I wish these whiners would get out of their ivory tower or brownstone apartment and take a trip to the border states, then their drivel might have some substance.
How is the truth obfuscation? If you want to consider who are the real citizens of the Americas, it would have to be people of brown skin color. They were here first. California was conquered by Spain by the Jesuits and the conquistadors and they used the natives that they controlled in one area to move to a new area and use those Indians to farm and produce the materials necessary to take over the next tribe of Indians. I sort of look at the situation as these people reclaiming their original territory. Manifest destiny is dead as a "good indian".
It seems to me those in Arizona are rightly worried about the drugs and crime that are creeping north. Our ability to deal with the "drug war" is non-existent. If we brought our troops home from around the world we could easily guard our 3000 mile (or so) border with Mexico with 300,000 troops. That would be 100 troops per mile. Just a thought.
You're making, unintentionally I'm sure, the rather racist "all Redskins are the same" error. The ones coming up from Mexico and points south are *not* the same as the people who were massacred first by the Spaniards and later by the Yanquis. The incomers are invaders just as much as any Chinese, Nigerian, or Swede.
The O'odham, whose remaining land crosses the US/Mexico border, are among the few who can justly move across the nation-state border and say "this too is our land". There are no Navaho living in Mexico or Central America. No Hopi, no Apsaroke. The Nez Pierce never lived in Chihuahua or Jalisco, nor the Rarámuri in California.
Sally Kohn talks about ridiculously low paying jobs and the necessity of working 2 or 3 of them to survive and then classifies illegal immigrants and American citizens "heroes" because they are working them. She then extols cheap labor as part of the American dream. Is she nuts? Real heroism entails organizing and the establishment of a living wage for all Americans, native and immigrant. This would be a true American dream.
Illegals are not heroes or villains but they are being lured as part of a plan by corporate america to increase the cheap labor pool in order to drive down wages.
"Millions of Americans, immigrants and citizens, work incredibly hard every single day in ridiculously low paying jobs that are the life-blood of our economy but are barely life-sustaining in return."
This does not make these people heroes, it makes them chumps - chumps, who are holding down the wages of all working Americans and creating huge profits for Corporate America.
As long as Illegal Aliens (those who broke our laws to get here) continue to work for way less than a "living wage," all American hourly workers will suffer. Doing that does not make them heroes in my book. But it does make them heroes to the corporate elite.
Maybe you didn't get the memo, but there *is* a left critique of unrestricted migrancy out there. To assume that someone is a right wing nationalist because he or she doesn't support the one-way dissolution of borders is just wrong.
This article is piss. It's one thing to drag out the old canard of "support illegal migrancy or you're a racist", which is bad enough. It's entirely another realm of dildoism to suggest that the source of massive domestic job displacement is somehow heroic.
Everytime I read one of these pieces, I'm reminded that there's a significant problem on the center-left with opinion leaders happy to throw the proles under the bus since their jobs are not under threat.
Make no mistake. A left criticism of unrestricted migrant flow must account for and address the causes of the migration itself, which are largely American in origin. So in essence, it's true that this is a problem that "we" have created for ourselves. Further, there are issues of basic decency and humanity which should prevent anyone on the left from trying to implement punitive and cruel policies against the migrants themselves.
But with all that said, this flood of human castoffs from the south is not in anyone's interest other than the flesh pimps who make money off of it. And it's those puppet masters that everyone who identifies with progressive politics--liberal or left-- should be focused on. That is the enemy here.
I am ASHAMED of being a US citizen.
Citizenship was forced on Native Americans so that the US could say that they didn't have to honor any treaties because the natives were not from sovereign nations.
I have loived outside the US for nearly 20 years, and I would ditch my US citizenship in a heartbeat if my income from Social Security would not be made unavailable to me.
The Gringo government is one vindictive sonofabitch.
The inverse of nationalism - internationalism - is nothing but a synonym for corporatism. Anyone who is truly a leftist should oppose internationalism.
The key word there is *historically.* In the modern world - as opposed to the 1930s - corporatists have replaced My Country First with The World Is One.
Perhaps you should stop reading outdated textbooks and try reading a newspaper or two.
That's a silly remark.
The "internationalism" (a word they never use) of so-called "globalization" (a word they do use) is indeed corporate, but "internationalism" in its general usage refers to world socialist-worker unity, such as the Fourth International, which stlll exists, by the way.
Man, you have no idea of what you are talking about. Unions raise wages for the American worker. People like you will let others work for almost nothing, and feel good about it. I don't envy these people, I feel sorry for them, because they are getting screwed by Corporate America, which it sounds like is just fine with you.
Nationalism has nothing to do with Corporations taking advantage of not only illegal aliens, but every day American citizens, too. It isn't the American voter who sends us off to war, it is the Democrat and Republican Party and the Corporations who control them. American voters are trying to work one, two, and sometimes three jobs to keep their family fed and housed. Why? Because of those poor wages you seem to think are just fine.
You try spending 16 hours a day working, and see how astute you are on picking a candidate. The system is set up so the majority of American voters have a hard time figuring out what day of the week it is, let alone who will best represent them. Barack Obama is a fine example of that.
Immigration is essentially driven by America's OWN grievously immoral, underhanded, fraudulent and criminal actions under a policy of neo-liberal exploitation that has occasioned massive theft, political intrigue and election-tampering, coups, propping-up of corrupt dictators and brutal autocrats, blackmail, assassinations and death-squads, institutionalized terrorism, IMF/WTO/World Bank-imposed privatization and 'restructuring' and subsidized agricultural exports that have displaced huge numbers of small farmers, 'drug-war' skullduggery and forced de-funding of critical social services and public infrastructure -- the concept of 'illegal immigration' falls-apart. It is actually economic and political self-defense.
Illegal immigration is a wedge issue primarily because most Americans are ignorant about, in denial, or unwilling to face the fact that America has taken outrageous advantage of and abused the basic civil and human rights of Latin American citizens in order to prop-up America's bloated standard of living and overextended debt. The principles of rule of law governing allowable and acceptable economic trade practices and respecting the sovereignty of foreign nations have been consistently violated by America's appeal to its imaginary sense of exceptionalism -- which constitutes a huge nationalistic blind spot.
Americans in general tend to be astonishingly uninformed and misinformed about genuine history and the real consequences of American foreign policy-- thanks in large part to its disingenuous mass media and the co-opted public education industry. For all the popular rhetoric about America's National pride, honor and sense of values, and championing the causes of freedom, peace and justice, to a very large extent the American public is clueless about how hypocritical and self-serving the US has been, and how complicit they are by not holding their leaders and policymakers accountable for America's devastating Imperialist pretensions.
I strongly believe that they should close the border to Mexico. On one condition, which is you close it not only to people but to resources. If you say you want to
close it to people but not resources, what you're saying, one thing, is that you're a racist, but another thing you're saying is - I don't want you but I want the coffee that's grown on the land that used to be yours.
Why is this migration taking place? It's not taking place because suddenly a bunch of people from Guatemala decide they want to take an eco-tour of the strawberry fields in the San Joaquin valley. It's because their communities are being destroyed through the theft of the land. If you don't want these people moving up here then don't steal those people's lands, pretty simple solution.
Yes it is a xenophobic sleight of hand but it is used, as it has been for centuries in America preceding Republican-Democrat nonsense, to point the finger at the victim so as to keep the eyes averted from the horrors being perpetrated upon those victims and to ignore or rationalize the colossal banditry for the beneficiaries. The liberal class is particularly hypocritical and criminally ignorant on this point.
The problem is really quite simple as is the solution.
The problem: El Norte is pushing these "illegals" off of their ancestral lands so as to steal the resources that reside in Chiapas e.g.
The solution: Stop El Norte from stealing the resources of the people in Chiapas e.g.
NAFTA is merely the latest acronym-IMF the latest international syndicate-World Bank only the latest MoneyChanger in this ongoing colonial conquest.
Neither the employer or the "immigrant" are really the fundamental issue.
Qualifier: Many who do employ "immigrants" exploit them and should be themselves forced to work in the broiling hot sun for 14 hours/day or forced to do backbreaking early death work in the maquiladoras.
Let the truth be the frame.
As for higher paying jobs these too are part of the problem and also obfuscate the issue.
People shouldn't need or even desire to make 70k/year(or even 25k). The problem is that it takes so much to live in our HP society. The solution- Elimination of rent-Free Health Care- Food stipends.
Everyone needs to be (allowed to) getting by with less-MUCH LESS.
Wealth is the problem, poverty it's necessary offspring, and it requires the aforementioned theft from other lands to maintain this obscene standard of living- a standard of living that has death of brown skinned people as one of its prerequisites.
mcoyote
Closing your border to illegal immigrants but not to buying oil, or food, etc. from their countries is racist? Why would you deny them jobs in their own country?
That makes no sense at all.
Sioux Rose
MCOYOTE: A big applause for taking the time to lay the case out step by step, even though some of the more dense posters resist listening to the argument as they are already utterly convinced of their own jingoistic positions. Cause and effect are of no value to their thought processes.
Mccoyote,
You've got much more patience than I do, laying it out step by step. Excellent comment, thanks.
Well said mc, again.
Thanks for some of those comments above.
So,working three jobs for s**t wages is the American dream?
Perhaps millions of "white" Americans would like to live in some other country. Well, if they do, strict and severe immigration and visa prohibitions in every other country of the world would prevent them from doing so, and this is no exaggeration. If you don't believe me, you can try it for yourself.
S.Kohn writes,"We repeatedly hold up the American dream as an ideal to which everyone should aspire."
Really? Is that what she has been doing all these years?
Well, that is not what I have been doing, and one can suppose others haven't been that either.
I am not against immigrants (my wife is one), but there are many unexamined assumptions in this article.
genicon
Unionize them first, then legalize them.
!0 million new citizens willing to strike and take to the streets for better wages, may just give some spine to Americans that have allowed themselves to be browbeaten into accepting low wages as a consequence of Globalization and so called Free Trade.
A fine bunch of ignorance in the comment section. Sally Kohn has a very accurate point. I have worked side by side with "illegals" for 35 years in the construction industry. Know why they came here? They were hungry. Know what 99% of them did when they got here? Worked, the same as most Americans. The difficulties these folks encounter on a structural level are incomprehensible to most Americans. The individual and systemic prejudice would be intolerable to US. You are agitating very nicely, Ms. Kohn.
This was an excellent piece.
Most of the other comments here seem to be terribly ahistorical in their views of immigration - legal or not. The USA was populated and built by immigrants without documents.
I don't like the expression, but to the extent that there was an "American Dream", it was built on the backs of immigrtants who organized the US's labor movement while the white anglo-saxon protestant "real" USAns were kissing their bosses asses. From the UMWA in the coal mines, to the steelworkers to the UAW to the IWW organizing the metal miners and lumberjacks out west, almost all of the organizing as well as the "troublemakers" exposing the capitalists for what they were, were recent immigrants - most of whom simply came over here without documents - including my own Irish, Italian, and German ancestors.
USA's immigrants - the people who brought you the weekend.
The recent immigrant Latinos, from the Republic Windows workers to the million-strong immigrant-rights marchers that dwarf what we antiwar organizers can muster are the ONLY people engaged in real mass organizing for change in these times.
This article is also quite correct in that the real crime was NAFTA and CAFTA and their destruction of the livlihoods and impoverishment of tens of millions of Mexicans and Central Americans. What is so hard about understanding that they have two options:
1. Stay in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatamala, Nacaragua and Honduras and literally starve to death while they watch their children starve and die; or,
2. Emmigrate the the US and provide for the survival for their families.
What would YOU do? The moral decision in this situaiton with "illegal" immigrants is an open and shut case. Support the immigrants. Why? As someone said in a Vonnegut novel, "Becasue of the Golden Rule, Sir". I am positively stupefied at people here who I would assume would call themselves "leftists" would express such intolerant callousness to suffering as is espressed in their attitudes toward the Latino worker.
SaboCat
You seem to have the mistaken impression that illegal immigrants are only from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatamala, Nacaragua and Honduras. They come from every country in the world.
None of the countries you mentioned have anyone starving to death, there are countries where this is actually happening of course.
There is nothing "moral" about supporting illegal immigrants. How do you justify taking jobs from Americans and making other Americans pay to support these illegals? Thats moral? I don't think so.
While we can certainly agree on NAFTA and CAFTA, but they do not have the option of coming here simply because they decide to. That is what we are deciding and apparently the decision has been made.
I will tell MY story as immigrant:
I was , long ago, ILLEGAL also.
i came to the USA at the request of a close friend in the university who asked me to replace HER as the choir pianist of some seminarian group slated to have a performing tour in the west coast. she could not fulfil her obligations because she just received her doctorate and was offered a teaching position in the university...and the group was desperate to find someone capable and quick to learn their repertoire..and I was on "sabbatical" for a semester to prepare for my graduation recital in music. so i took up her request..but MY original purpose and plans and actions were to study in europe.
so i was on a "detour" "to the USA".
after the groups commitments were done some months later...since I had "updated" my music professor vacationing in the philippines from his chairmanship in a department in the USA east coast , he adviced me to "wait until i arrive back in teh USA...we'll prepare for an audition for you to the best schools in new york"....
which I did. i moved east - prepared quickly, got "half scholarship" allowed to foreigners but not full..and the rest I had no money of course, since this was not my original plan...but to go home after the "stint" and pick up on my europe plans.
nevertheless - I "followed" the immigration rules t0 have the "visitor" visa extended to cover my audition schedule and at least have a clean record before going home.
i went back to the west coast to be with relatives for a while while waiting for money to get my plane back home...and on the DAY that I recieved the MAIL from immigration, GRANTING my visa extension for the past auditions in the east coast - THAT WAS ALSO the day the visa EXPIRED.
I became "ILLEGAL"..and no one could really help because we had no money.
so i stayed on, one thing leads to another, until Reagan's "amnesty" signing which included myself.
but I MADE MYSELF USEFUL to the society, NEVER asking for anything, REFUSING even to allow myself to go "on welfare" simply out of pride..i took jobs here and there, mostly music, with little pay. some friends helped..etc..and without further ado - I certainly lived YEARS upon YEARS of FEAR while occupying myself with whatever I needed to do to survive as honestly as I could. that is the SAME with countless other "illegals".
did i "deserve" LESS to be "in america" or ANYWHERE for that matter because of some
DOCUMENTS of permission
by a country that ITSELF - merely STOLE LAND from other people such as the native indians?
people who have never been in THAT boat themselves have NO right whatsoever to be offensive or offended by "these illegals".
don't even go there - because americans who think along those lines have NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER to cast aspersions on people "who come to or stay in the USA illegaly"
after they themselves are merely "legal" citizens of an ILLEGALY and CRIMINALLY ACQUIRED and created "country"!!
to use Thomas Jefferson's OWN statement :
"for what we are ABOUT TO DO (exterminate the indians) - when I contemplate if there truly is a god of justice...i TREMBLE for our nation".....
I would vary it this way:
"for what the USA has DONE - if there REALLY is a god of justice....the USA would be DECLARED ILLEGAL"!!
Well said, teddy. Thanks for your point of view.
Excellent.
Thanks for the personal account.
So, we need more American style capitalism for these poor souls? Really, Sally? That's what they and we both need? More fresh, greedy capitalists to fill needs for all things shiny & new? We need to 'share the booty'--'share the love'?
Yeah, that's what we need.
As much fault as I find with the current Arizona law, I don’t see how so many opponents completely ignore the fact that the people in question entered the country illegally. The fact that 99% are hard working, decent folks just trying to make a better life doesn’t erase the illegality of it.
I agree the current system sucks, but the answer isn’t to just to ignore the current law. If that’s the case, I can think of LOTS of laws I’ll just ‘choose’ to ignore.
qwijibo
What is wrong with the current system of immigration other than its too slow, taking years and too expensive sometimes?
Slavery was legal. I mean, the owners paid good money for them slaves. So would it have been wrong to help a runaway?
I willingly obey traffic laws, since they are for the good of all. I obey tax laws because I have little choice. I felt no obligation to follow draft laws when we were murdering peasants in Vietnam. I feel no obligation whatsoever to participate in the oppression of poor people who are just trying to survive in this world.
Many laws are made by the modern equivalent of the slave-owners for their own benefit. There is a huge gap between what is legal and what is right.
Joe
Given the fact that on stricty LEGAL terms half the land mass of the Western US shoul dby rights be returned to the Native Americans under TREATY law, and great swathes of the Southwest returned to Mexicans under treaty law, i Take it you FULLY support the US and its Citizens supporting treaty law and removing themslves from lands not belong to them?
Do you support IGNORING treaty law?
well...
if as you put it - it is a question of following "current law" and it is wrong to ignore "current law".....
how about this:
the CURRENT "law" in previous times was that Arizona BELONGED to the mexicans...america CHOSE to "ignore" that , invaded at the pretext of BEING invaded in a region that wasn't EVEN american, BUT mexican.
in other words - ARIZONA and the USA today - chose to IGNORE MEXICO's ownership of arizona, california, texas, new mexico, etc...
so - the "illegals" who "choose to ignore current law" are only , by instinct and natural human rights and need , "ignoring current law" -- but cERTAINLY without the BRUTALITY and THIEVERY that characterised AMERICA's ignoring of the laws of ownership BY mexico over arizona.
so why are you and americans COMPLAINING? these are people who come to the USA to their AGE OLD LANDS.
by RIGHTS - they SHOULD be able to IGNORE any american laws that are themselves standing on nothing but a history of THEFT OF LAND from the mexicans and south americans and native indians.
and you KNOW you can't get out of THAT fact.
Illegal is illegal, irrespective of how hard one works. Let them work hard in their own country. You must live in "pie in the sky" land to think all this lawbreaking is OK because they work hard! Shortsighted at best; diasterous at worst.
The lowering of our standard of living is already happening and you, Ms. Kohn are too blind to see. I suggest you read and consider the following:
http://www.frumforum.com/the-future-costs-of-todays-cheap-labor
OK, so if illegal is illegal, should sodomy laws still be on the books? How about the old Jim Crow Laws? The very progress of civilization has been about legalizing things that were once illegal!
The lowering of our standard of living has nothing to do with immigration. It has to do with white people - and it is most decidedly white people, who have allowed the capitalists to bust their unions, impose the neoliberal program on them, and refusing to organize against this abuse.
If they are breaking laws, lets change those laws! How did YOUR ancestors get here? Bet it was through Ellis Island, right? Lets set up some new "Ellis Islands" along the border and allow then to enter legally.
The *lowering of our standard of living* is a product of corporatism, and immigration is the engine of corporatism.
Ok then, how do you explain that the U.S. - a nation peopled by immigrants - is so right wing and corporatist? Clearly if immigration led to left wing, anti-corporatist politics, then the U.S. would be the most progressive country in the world. In fact, the small nationalistic countries of Europe are far more progressive than the U.S.
USA is also a country in which divide and conquer has been exceptionally successful in diverting people from acting in their own self-interest. Anger, fear and discontent are deflected toward those who are poorest and least culpable for the conditions of life. Race and ethnicity are among the most popular tools. We are the only of the advanced industial countries to be based on widespread internal slavery and genocide within our borders, right in front of our eyes. That got us used to accepting and rationalizing mistreatment of others and the mentality that "I'm bad off but at least I am not a ______". (Other countries had colonialism, whose cruelties most people did not witness directly.)
In this case, for instance, poorest of poor Mexicans are blamed for unemployment and low wages, not Goldman Sachs, not the practices of disaster capitalism, the bought-off politicians, the greedy, disloyal industrial owners who have driven down small business and exported jobs to turn profits into windfall profits. The immigrants from South America do actual work, unlike the playiz on Wall Street who run a giant fixed casino that had the life sucked out of it over and over by the profit-takers, has collapsed and has caused untold layoffs, cuts in social conditions here and in South America and now spreading over Europe.
Another source for right wing trends is our acceptance of the Dracula of militarism. There is a myth that we are exceptionally kind and democratic in our world role. There are also no jobs, so defense plants and enrollment in the armed forces are accepted despite the fact that the cost per job, the loss of soul are very very high.
Joe
FreeQuark
By any stretch of the imigination that won't fly. Immigration has always been our stength, always been the saving of our country and will remain so. Illegal immigration is used by Corporations to increase their profits considerably, but the "engine of corporatism", not hardly. And immigration certainly isn't.
The engine of corporatism is our government and its abdication of its duties in most areas. I thought that was self evident.