Thread: Influx of illegals pushes more of us to the fringes

Influx of illegals pushes more of us to the fringes
TOM KNOTT (METRO)
May 31, 2007


You wake up one day and discover that you have been banished to the fringes of the far right on the subject of illegal aliens.
This is one of those living-in-a-parallel-universe moments. You have this on the say-so of the Bush administration, which has abdicated its responsibility to protect our borders and enforce our immigration laws. This, of course, has been met with approval by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who has a dubious history with amnesty plans. His plans never work.
This odious piece of reform being debated on Capitol Hill is no small matter in the D.C. region, where illegal aliens have descended on us in droves. Otherwise liberal communities in the suburbs are having a hard time coming to terms with their celebration of multicultural diversity and the reality of living in a neighborhood that has been overrun by illegal aliens.
The latest hue has been heard from the last of the holdouts of Wheaton, where 12 or so Hispanics to a brick rambler is not uncommon. The strain on the neighborhood is fairly obvious: from streets devoid of parking places to stressed public schools and social services and plummeting home values.
Many of these enlightened but concerned citizens love the notion of Hispanic Pride Day in theory but less so if they are smack dab in the middle of it. The lawmakers in Montgomery County lack the backbone to address the legitimate concerns of their constituents, apart from the biting of their lower lip and the feeling of their pain.
It is amusing on one level. All too many of the diversity-loving souls of our region never quite grasp the shallowness of their spiel, considering they usually are safely ensconced in their lily-white communities, whether Wards 2 and 3 in the city or the various wealthy enclaves across the region.
Their idea of diversity is a Haitian nanny pushing an infant in a stroller or a group of Hispanic landscapers dumping bags of mulch onto a garden bed. They do not live in Wheaton or Herndon or Falls Church or Manassas, because they have the money to live in upscale environs.
You also love those lawmakers ever eager to tell you how to live, but they never would surrender their fancy homes and toys to live among the unwashed masses. And now here they are ready to grant a free pass to 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens, while promising -- wink, wink -- that it all stops here, this last time.
They say our economy would slip into a massive funk if we started deporting all the $2.50-an-hour bricklayers in the construction industry, the 25-cent-an-hour maids in the hospitality industry and the 10-cent-an-hour line cooks in the restaurant industry. Why, business owners actually would have to start paying employees a competitive wage that would appeal to Americans.
The idea that illegal aliens do the jobs that Americans refuse to do is almost as insulting as lawmakers endeavoring to give lawbreakers a free pass. You can be certain that Americans are accorded no such latitude from our lawmakers.
In fact, in certain parts of our nation, in our so-called sanctuary cities, an illegal alien is accorded leniencies that working-class Americans could use. All too many illegal aliens put no money into the system, are permitted their fraudulent identification cards and spit out their babies in hospitals that have no choice but to provide free medical care.
We should try the phony ID thing and see how it works the next time a police officer has a reason to pull us to the side of the road. We desperately would like to have some of that sanctuary-city treatment.
Sorry. What do we know? We are part of the fringe element on the far right. We are out of step with most Americans and lawmakers.
In the spirit of the times, we will be hiring an illegal-alien painting crew to do the house.
Americans need not apply.

http://washingtontimes.com/metro/200705 ... -8890r.htm

As I sit here drinking my coffee and catching up on these new news stories, I think about my husband. I just sent him out the door to do one of those jobs the "Americans won't do." He's 59 years old and he's a roofer, worker 10-12 hours a day.

All through his life and mine, we have done those kind of jobs to earn a living. We never got special treatment from our government, we were told to just pay our taxes and keep our mouth shut.

I'll be damned if I'm going to sit back and let our government demean the hard work our family has done for generations. That's why I am fighting so hard on this issue, to keep my country out of the hands of criminals.

Just call me Hillary. "I'm in it to win it."