Links to check out on immigration
CVK
Blog Latina Lista has been doing an awesome job tracking media coverage of the immigration issue. Below are a couple of her posts I particularly recommend:
Has A Sleeping Giant Really Awakened?
The 12 million undocumented immigrants here have no influence over elected leaders. They’re not citizens. They can’t vote. They can make a lot of noise; they can’t make a difference in a politician’s future. But there are at least 15 million eligible Hispanic voters, and they can - if only they’d wield the full force of their votes. Numbers from the 2004 election, though, are not encouraging. Just 47% of Hispanic U.S. citizens (of any race) questioned after the election said they had voted.
Latino Student Commits Suicide After School Officials Threaten Punishments for Participating in School Walkouts
Though it’s natural that these children, some who have acted as their parents’ translators and balance their daily lives between the old and new cultures, and all who are in the formative stages of expressing pride in who they are and where they come from, would want to take to the streets to voice their support for their families and the greater Latino community. Yet, the very institution that is supposed to be teaching the children of this country about the democratic process has turned a very teachable lesson into a lesson that says if you dare practice one of the most basic principles of a democracy, you will be penalized.
Blog blac(k)ademic has an interesting take on why immigration is also a queer issue:
why hr 4337 is a queer issue
hr 4437 is not only anti-immigrant, it is anti-queer and criminalizes homosexuals from other oppressive societies abroad which persecute gays and lesbians… queer asylum seekers would become overnight criminals and could recieve up to 15 years in prison to eventually be deported to their countries to face more beatings, rapes and eventually death.
Blog reappropriate argues that the immigration debate, ultimately, is about race. It’s about upholding the white supremacist ideal of what America should be:
For indeed, this is not a controversy about laws, about immigration, or about border security reform. This is a controversy about race. This is a countroversy surrounding White nationals who insist that the American Dream should be reserved for their White bretheren who “deserve it” more.
And finally, I thought this Alternet article by Maria Luisa Tucker was good:
Immigration Debate Creates Strange Bedfellows
Throughout the dramatic highs and lows of the Senate’s immigration debate, one thing has rung true; no matter which side of the debate you are on, you are in bad company. Anti-immigrant groups that claim to be the voice of the American working class are being joined, to their dismay, by white supremacists and militant nativists calling for violence. Meanwhile, pro-immigrant Latino civil rights organizations like the National Council of La Raza are reluctantly standing next to big business lobby groups.
Ben wrote:
Paul Krugman has also written a couple of recent columns in the NYT about reconciling a pro-immigration moral instinct with the economic realities of the last 20 years.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/index.html
(March 27 & 31 - requires TimesSelect subscription)
Posted 12 Apr 2006 at 4:07 pm ¶
why... wrote:
why aren’t these protesters demonstrating in their own country for social and economic reform?
Mexico has very strict immigration policies against persons from Central Amercia (READ: AFRO-CENTRAL AMERICANS), yet Mexican immigrants and V. Fox demand rights and priviledges from America for Mexican illegals? Seems like a double standard.
Posted 12 Apr 2006 at 4:51 pm ¶
Wonc wrote:
I don’t think these illegals has no right to demand amnesty. This is America!! You better speak English!!! Don’t ask legal immigrants of other countries to speak in Spanish!!!
Posted 12 Apr 2006 at 10:25 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
Wonc: learn to speak (or at least type) it yourself! 2 negatives = 1 positive.
Um, just because all the protests have focused on the Latino group, doesn’t meant that the immigration debate is all about Latinos (legal or illegal).
Pick up a damn paper. Some of the 911 conspirators came in through Canada. There are illegal immigrants from Asia who have died while being smuggled through. There are “coyotes” and other traffickers who endanger, use, and exploit illegal immigrants for profit. There are construction, landscaping, agriculture, food production, and textiles industries that exploit a desperate labor pool of illegal and legal low-paid workers.
Language is not what we’re talking about. Dude, learn to type.
Posted 13 Apr 2006 at 8:30 am ¶
Wonc wrote:
Lyonside,
Are you supporting those illegals?
I paid my godamned tax to get green card, but those illegals want instant citizenship without paying taxes!!! It is totally unfair!!! Also do you understand whats going on to my black fellas? They can not get a job because they can not speak Espanol!!! Know the reality!!!
No Amnesty!!!
Posted 13 Apr 2006 at 9:58 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
Wonc. Stop screaming man, it’s the Internet.
1. You’re fixated on illegal immigrants from Latino nations. That’s not the whole picture. Repeat as many times as necessary in front of the mirror until it sinks in: “Not all Spanish-speaking people are immigrants. Not all immigrants are illegal. Not all immigrants are Spanish-speaking. Not all illegal immigrants are Spanish-speaking.” Oh, and make sure you turn down FoxNews while you do this mantra - it might be too loud for you to hear yourself.
2. I’m not FOR illegal immigration. But if security is your concern, most of the 911 hijackers got into the country on legal visas (they just overstayed them). I also don’t want to criminalize 12 million people, some of which HAVe been here and HAVE been paying taxes for years.
3. As for “blacks can’t get work because of Latinos” - get out of here. The causes for high black unemployment in urban environments is because of the LOSS OF INDUSTRIAL AND OTHER BLUE COLLAR jobs. Period. End stop. All I have to do it look at my home city and see the empty textiles, iron, and other manufactoring factories along the railroads. That is NOT the fault of an illegal migrant laborer. Add poor schools, decaying infrastructure, and illegal street drugs, and you have a recipe for high unemployment and a lack of businesses willing to go into the neighborhood.
4. It is true that there may be unfair competition in, say, construction or landscaping (i.e. businesses may hire illegal people because it’s cheaper/easier to have a desperate workforce that doesn’t demand raises or benefits). SO GO YELL AT THOSE COMPANIES.
The other big types of work that may hire illegal immigrants are agriculture, small textiles (i.e. sweatshops), and in-home child care. So when was the last time a black person THAT YOU PERSONALLY KNOW lost a job picking peppers, sewing knock-off hoodies, or wiping a baby bottom to an illegal immigrant?
5. This is a living-wage, underclass issue. All US companies should pay employees a living wage. All US companies should hire people w/ working papers. All US companies should pay taxes and make sure that their enmployees have taxes taken out.
So can the diatribe or at least get a new one.
Posted 14 Apr 2006 at 10:20 am ¶
Merq wrote:
In the words of South Park (back when the show didn’t totally suck),
THEY TUK OUR JERRBS!!
Posted 17 Apr 2006 at 2:18 am ¶
Marsha wrote:
Lyonside- You took the words right out of my mouth! Oh, and since I used to live in New Mexico, I can think of another business that hires a bunch of Mexican immigrants- fast food chains. Although, I think a lot of those people who worked there had resident alien cards so they were not illegal but still, I think some of these arguments that THOSE MEXICANS are taking OUR JOB is pretty lame. Afterall, I can’t think of that many Americans who are scrambling to get jobs at fast food restaurants or wash dishes except maybe teenagers. But, even with teenagers, I think a lot of them are looking into better paying jobs.
Also, I’d like to add that the “reality” of illegal immigration is that our elected officals and businesses support it. Why? Money. Plain and simple. (Also, the same reason why we turn a blind eye to China and Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses.) The big businesses that employ illegals are the ones that give all the big money to our elected congressmen and congresswomen. So, our elected officals turn a blind eye to illegal immigration because they know their campaign contributors will be pissed if they pass any legislation that either 1) makes it less easy for illegals to come and stay in the U.S. or 2) punishes businesses that hire illegals. Don’t you think if the U.S. really and seriously wanted to stop illegal immigration that would have already done so? Congress could have very easily have passed legislation that seriously penalizes businesses that hire illegal immigrants and enforce the legislation but nobody does so because our elected officals are too busy kissing the backsides of big business.
Posted 19 Apr 2006 at 2:01 pm ¶