I'd get behind this guy and his group if it weren't for one thing.

[vaskidmark]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904060604576574924254753238.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Seems like a self-help/self-improvement program for Hispanics that does not support the idea of victimhood and promotes pretty much everything that needs to be fixed in this country whether you are Hispanic or anything else.

The only thing I did not see was a statement against amnesty for illegal immigration.

Focusing kids on civic responsibility seems hypocritical if you do not address the fact that illegal immigration is illegal.  Sure I support the effort to educate kids, and especially to educate them in English, and to foster good study, work and civic habits.  But for all the good they are doing both for the Hispanic community and for integrating the Hispanics into the total community that one omission just creates a glaring hole that cannot be ignored.

So, if someone were to ask you to donate to this group, what would be your response and why?  (Normally I guage support based on the willingness to donate time/effort but we'll use money as a "good enough" indicator.)

stay safe.

[Matthew Carberry]

If it doesn't make a statement for amnesty then why not support it as "mostly good" in most ways and simultaneously "not explicitly bad" in the rest?

The perfect is the enemy of the good.  If the rest of the teaching talks up self-reliance and such, and those elements rationally lead away from the idea of illegal immigration and/or amnesty as "good" (which they almost have to), then the program itself is programmatically opposed to them in practical effect.

While it would be nice to have it said, they will get to the same place but without introducing buzzwords that could turn people off prior to buying in to the rest of the program.  That's strategic thinking.

Why draw an explicit line in the sand when you can get people over to your side of the beach without it?

[French G.]

I dunno, xenophobe that I am I support a good bit of amnesty. Yes, they are illegal, yes it is wrong. However, most of the central american immigrants are here working hard and trying to better their situation, a rather American concept. It would seem wrong to crush them with the full force of the state. Any workable solution must, I think, include a path to legalization as well as making the border(s) airtight.

[AmbulanceDriver]

I'll give them a [censored] path to legalization.

It's the path where they march right back where they came from and get in line like everybody else.

It's the path *MY* family took when we moved here.

There's your [censored] path to legalization.

[MrsSmith]

There was a guy who worked for one of my clients several years ago. He and his wife had tried to leave Mexico legally with their two daughters. Had been trying for years and thousands and thousands of dollars, only to be refused by THEIR government. They used the very last of their money (and borrowed from family and friends) to get here illegally and get documents sufficient to get their daughters into school.

When I knew him, he'd been here illegally for two years and was trying to work with a lawyer to rectify this. His oldest daughter, Eledith, went to school with my daughter, was fluent in French, English and Spanish, had a 4.0 GPA, and wanted to attend Harvard Med to be a doctor. I have no doubt she'd have succeeded.
The whole family was hard-working, paid taxes without complaint, didn't take advantage of a single gov program, and would have given you the shirt off their backs if they even thought it would help you. Al was the hardest working person in my client's shop.

They were making headway with getting legal when September 11 happened. Within two months the family was deported and none of us ever heard from any of them again.

That's wrong. They were TRYING to do things right. Al told me that when they were trying to go through legal channels in Mexico, the authorities there insisted on interviewing each family member individually. Judith, the youngest, was four at the time. She was taken into a room without her parents and was kept for four hours. She didn't speak for several days afterward. Her mother didn't think she'd been sexually assaulted but that was the final straw for Al. And I can't say I blame him a bit.

There needs to be a way for refugees who are trying to build a better future for their families to achieve that, even if their own governments won't issue them the proper papers.

[longeyes]

The power of anecdotes strikes again.  You pick the perfect family and imagine a general policy around it. Sounds, frankly, like an Obama speech.  That, I am sorry to say, is not what is going on in America, much less in the California I grew up in and am distressed to see being systemically reduced to a Third World nation-within-a-nation.

A path to legalization should begin with a respect for the law, not anecdotal excuses and exceptions.

But don't worry, we're still, in the midst of massive unemployment, bringing in a million legal immigrants a year to compete with our own, and in my adult lifetime over a hundred million (counting their children).  If you don't see where that, under the multicultural leftists, is leading us, well, alas.

[freakazoid]

only to be refused by THEIR government

But I thought their government was sending them here illegally by the bus load? 

bringing in a million legal immigrants a year to compete with our own

If they are here legally doesn't that make them one of our own?

A path to legalization should begin with a respect for the law,

Judge Dredd: [Dredd has caught Fergee trying to escape inside a servo-droid and is judging him for damaging public property] And you haven't even been out of jail for 24 hours. He's habitual, Hershey. Automatic 5 year sentence. How do you plead?
Fergee: Not guilty?
Judge Dredd: I knew you'd say that.
Fergee: 5 years? No! No! I had no choice! They were killing each other in there!
Judge Dredd: You could have gone out the window.
Fergee: 40 floors? It would have been suicide!
Judge Dredd: Maybe, but it's legal.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

i know this is a dead horse but does anyone here know how one gets here legally from mexico?  a hint  you got a better chance at cwp in chicago

[longeyes]

Quote: If they are here legally doesn't that make them one of our own?


Well, it would if that policy were truly known by and approved by the American people.

Our immigration policies have been the fiefdom of a select group in this country for nearly the last half-century, a group with an agenda of its own.  This is as true of legal as illegal immigration--commission versus willful omission.  And you can include refugee resettlement with those, the plaything of the State Dept. and an array of well-connected charities.  In all of these areas many propose but a very few dispose, largely behind closed doors.    

I would love to hear some hard questions about all of these issues, including the impact on unemployment, addressed to our GOP candidates.  At least then we'd know which ones will hide behind the all too familiar bromides.

[Scout26]

i know this is a dead horse but does anyone here know how one gets here legally from mexico?  a hint  you got a better chance at cwp in chicago

Get hired by a Armed Security or Armored Car company and you can get a PERC card in Chicago.

Analogy fail. 

[zahc]

In elementary school I read about how immigrants would come here by the boatload, legally, waves of immigrants, that couldn't even speak English half the time. Obtaining legal status was so easy they would assign you a name if they couldn't understand you. In fact that's how my family got here a few generations ago...easy legal immigration. There was this whole bit about poor huddled masses and so on; it was an American value.

What stopped? Was it ok when they were coming from Europe--just not Mexico? Is immigration anti-American now? When did it change; I must have missed the message.

I know it's begging the question, but most of the illegals that are here would be legal immigrants if legal immigration was as easy to obtain as it has historically been. Am I wrong?

[Nick1911]

Focusing kids on civic responsibility seems hypocritical if you do not address the fact that illegal immigration is illegal. 

Yes, they are illegal, yes it is wrong.

IMO, legality is not a good barometer for morality.  Many immoral things are legal, many moral things (victimless crimes?) are illegal.

[longeyes]

In elementary school I read about how immigrants would come here by the boatload, legally, waves of immigrants, that couldn't even speak English half the time. Obtaining legal status was so easy they would assign you a name if they couldn't understand you. In fact that's how my family got here a few generations ago...easy legal immigration. There was this whole bit about poor huddled masses and so on; it was an American value.

What stopped? Was it ok when they were coming from Europe--just not Mexico? Is immigration anti-American now? When did it change; I must have missed the message.

I know it's begging the question, but most of the illegals that are here would be legal immigrants if legal immigration was as easy to obtain as it has historically been. Am I wrong?

You didn't miss the message.  You just stopped counting.  And you forgot to read the part where Ted Kennedy told us the basic composition of the American demographic picture would not be changed.  The real issue was that the American people themselves were never consulted about what was about to be done by way of transforming their nation in two generations.  And, by the way, it's not about race, but it is about culture.

Re Mexico and Mesoamerica: since when does geographic proximity by itself entitle people to invite themselves to another country?  Is it not "fair" to infer that Mexico is now wildly over-represented in the American melting pot?

For the record, my grandparents arrived here, all four of them, about a century ago.  Yeah, on the boat.

[BReilley]

In elementary school I read about how immigrants would come here by the boatload, legally, waves of immigrants, that couldn't even speak English half the time. Obtaining legal status was so easy they would assign you a name if they couldn't understand you. In fact that's how my family got here a few generations ago...easy legal immigration. There was this whole bit about poor huddled masses and so on; it was an American value.

What stopped? Was it ok when they were coming from Europe--just not Mexico? Is immigration anti-American now? When did it change; I must have missed the message.

I know it's begging the question, but most of the illegals that are here would be legal immigrants if legal immigration was as easy to obtain as it has historically been. Am I wrong?

Respectfully, I offer that the times were quite different when immigration was more open.  We now have generous government-run social welfare coupled with numerous policies and laws which give the wink-and-nod to the illegal - naturally such practices encourage the lazy to come and nurse on the government teat.  Now consider the barely-surmountable task of legal immigration.  Of course the would-be legal immigrant, who has respect for the rule of law, is discouraged by the cost and hassle.

Americans are not bigoted people, in spite of what the mass media and holier-than-thou hysterics will tell you.  Americans are, however, generally aware of when they are being taken advantage of.  I personally believe that most of the people who are screaming about illegal immigration have zero problem with "brown people", but huge problems with a system which, by making it enormously time-consuming and prohibitively expensive to "do it the right way", actively encourages illegal immigration.  I expect most would be completely satisfied if the immigration system was reformed to weed out the truly undesirable(criminals, etc.) and the entitlement programs pared down to a true "safety net", not the body-condom they are now.

Edit: What I'm getting at is that "we" still want people to come and be part of America.  We have enough land to go around; we have enough goodwill to welcome good people from anywhere.  We just resent being taken advantage of AND being told that we ourselves are the problem.

[RaspberrySurprise]

But I thought their government was sending them here illegally by the bus load?  rolleyes

Do you think the people they are sending over are intelligent and educated folks or the scum they want to get rid of?

[Pharmacology]

i know this is a dead horse but does anyone here know how one gets here legally from mexico?  a hint  you got a better chance at cwp in chicago

Well, my dad moved over to the states after being hired on with Halliburton as an engineer.
He then worked for them for about 10 years before he could get his citizenship. 


Also, when I was working on getting the Russian here, I was staring at a pile of paperwork just to get her a visa to cross customs.
Then, even more paperwork awaited us afterward.

[Perd Hapley]

In elementary school I read about how immigrants would come here by the boatload, legally, waves of immigrants, that couldn't even speak English half the time. Obtaining legal status was so easy they would assign you a name if they couldn't understand you. In fact that's how my family got here a few generations ago...easy legal immigration. There was this whole bit about poor huddled masses and so on; it was an American value.

What stopped? Was it ok when they were coming from Europe--just not Mexico? Is immigration anti-American now? When did it change; I must have missed the message.

I know it's begging the question, but most of the illegals that are here would be legal immigrants if legal immigration was as easy to obtain as it has historically been. Am I wrong?

I'm afraid you are wrong in your history. Immigration was easier for certain nationalities, very difficult for others. Quotas were used, to make sure we got enough northern Europeans, and not too many southern/eastern Europeans or Asians. If I remember correctly, Chinese were allowed in when we needed western railroads built, but later they were restricted.

I forgot to add that immigrants were screened for diseases. Also, some immigrants were deported for things like Marxism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mollie_Steimer

[Perd Hapley]

If they are here legally doesn't that make them one of our own?

An immigrant is not an American until naturalized. So no.

[freakazoid]

But they would still be an immigrant.

[French G.]

I'll give them a [censored] path to legalization.

It's the path where they march right back where they came from and get in line like everybody else.

It's the path *MY* family took when we moved here.

There's your [censored] path to legalization.

Well, provide a workable solution to uproot and deport 10-12 million people to get our lebensruam? Internment camps? Cordon and search raids on neighborhoods? They're here. We already failed in controlling our immigration. We encouraged them to come through lack of enforcement. There is no humanitarian process to deport them all. Maybe find everyone and issue them a temp visa and assistance in applying for legal status.

Re-reading you may note I would love to see a locked down border. With that ought to come a streamlined process to legally come here.

As far as paths to come here, others have noted that it was much easier and A-ok when to come here when it was good Irish families starving and when we needed workers in our factories.

Only one 1/4 of my family came here when there was immigration control. My maternal great-grandfather emigrated from Scotland when he was a teenager in the early 20th century. On the boat I presume, through Ellis island I think. So, I think that makes me 3/4 illegal? 

Maternal grandmother's people came much earlier, religious persecution(Hugenots),

Paternal Grandmother's people were poor Scottish farmers, mush not have been too poor, ended up with nice land, hog lot was where the 7-11 is in Bealeton, VA. Early 1800's I believe.

Paternal Grandfather's people immigrated and were opposed by the natives, I think they gave them smallpox. 1650 or earlier, to Virginia.


All of my wife's people came from Norway on the boat. No quotas, no questions, just get out there and farm. Seeing a place that was flat and had actual soil, they were happy to go west to Minnesota and do the jobs that east-coast Americans wouldn't do.

[Perd Hapley]

As far as paths to come here, others have noted that it was much easier and A-ok when to come here when it was good Irish families starving and when we needed workers in our factories.

A lot of people didn't think Irish families were very good at the time.

[longeyes]

"Well, provide a workable solution to uproot and deport 10-12 million people to get our lebensruam? Internment camps? Cordon and search raids on neighborhoods? They're here. We already failed in controlling our immigration. We encouraged them to come through lack of enforcement. There is no humanitarian process to deport them all. Maybe find everyone and issue them a temp visa and assistance in applying for legal status."

I think you have your Hitlers reversed.  Didn't Hitler invade other people's lands?  And is that not exactly what is being done to us?

If Americans want to keep their country, they'll have to become a lot more imaginative and a lot more focused on survival.  Yes, start thinking the unthinkable.  Any "debate" that begins with the idea that there are too many to deport, too many to apply the rule of law do is an official act of surrender, not to mention cowardice.  Yes, "we"--but not really "we" at all since most of us really did not know what the actual policy was, never approved it--let it happen, but that doesn't mean "we" have to go out not only let it happen but make it worse and make our demise go faster.

Illegals can be discouraged from coming or staying.  Stop the employment, stop the public assistance, stop the pandering.  Eliminate birthright citizenship and "famiiy reunification."  If it takes 25 years to expel them, fine, no problem, take whatever time is necessary take as much time now as it took to develop, but move in the right direction with vigor and honor and clarity and reason--if you want to keep your country.  Otherwise, the hell with it.