Thread: Commentary: Immigrants didn't cause your problems

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Commentary: Immigrants didn't cause your problemsStory Highlights
Ruben Navarrette: Critics of stimulus plan say it will employ illegal immigrants

He says critics are upset that the E-verify program won't be used to check in hiring

Navarrette says those who hire illegal immigrants should be jailed

He says immigrants aren't to blame for Americans' economic failures




By Ruben Navarrette Jr.


Editor's note: Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a nationally syndicated columnist and a member of the editorial board of the San Diego Union-Tribune. Read his column here


Ruben Navarrette says people shouldn't blame their failures on competition from illegal immigrants.

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- Here's the good news: Authorities say that fewer illegal immigrants are crossing the U.S.-Mexican border. The Los Angeles Times recently reported that arrests along the U.S.-Mexico border in the last five months are down 24 percent from the same period last year.

At the current rate, the level of apprehension this year could be the lowest since 1975.

A big reason is the frightful U.S. economy. After all, you don't often see people trying to break into a house when the house is on fire. Some illegal immigrants are even going home to Mexico.

But here's the bad news: There are still plenty of illegal immigrants in the United States who have families here, and they aren't leaving. And apparently those who are here are, because of the bad economy, more threatening than ever to those low-skilled U.S. workers who have to compete with them.

And now this issue has become part of the debate over the economic stimulus law recently signed by President Obama. Researchers at The Heritage Foundation and the Center for Immigration Studies (which favors limiting all immigration, even the legal kind) estimate that illegal immigrants could fill as many as 300,000 construction jobs. That's about 15 percent of the 2 million jobs that new taxpayer-financed projects are expected to create.

Advocacy groups say there is no way to predict how many jobs might go to illegal immigrants.

No matter. The topic is grist for talk radio and those blood-pressure-raising curmudgeons on cable TV. Why, they ask, should American tax dollars go to illegal immigrants? As if illegal immigrants don't pay taxes. They do -- sales taxes, property taxes, even income taxes thanks to something called an ITIN (Individual Taxpayer Identification Number), which Uncle Sam helpfully created to allow those who don't have valid Social Security numbers to still dread April 15.

Conservatives are miffed that Congress ignored their pleas to require employers who compete for stimulus funds to use the E-verify program. Run by the Department of Homeland Security, that program lets those employers who choose to participate verify the validity of Social Security numbers provided by new hires.

But the E-verify system needs to have its own accuracy verified. According to the Wall Street Journal, in 2007, DHS commissioned an independent study of the program, which found that "the database used for verification is still not sufficiently up to date to meet the requirements for accurate verification." The error rate was almost 10 percent. Someone using a valid Social Security card that doesn't belong to him would go undetected. Oh, is that all?

I understand that there is a larger issue here. As I've said for the last 15 years of writing about immigration, those who hire illegal immigrants should be prosecuted and jailed. But, in those cases where illegal immigrants squeak by and wind up on the job, U.S. workers have to compete with them, like it or not.

And that brings me to what really bothers me about this controversy. It's a sad state of affairs when people who were born in this, the freest and most prosperous country on Earth -- instantly becoming U.S. citizens, no less -- with a free education and every other opportunity to improve their lives find themselves afraid to compete with a group of people who don't have legal status, often can't speak English, and usually have no more than a 6th-grade education.

My fellow Americans, stop your trembling. Show some dignity. If you don't like competing with illegal immigrants, try making better choices. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Turn off those TV shows that constantly bash globalization and immigration.

Go back to school. Get more training. Move out of the comfort zone of your hometown to take a job in another state, if necessary. Take responsibility for your own life. And stop thinking the world owes you a living.

That was the "tough love" message I shared with the construction worker who called into a Las Vegas, Nevada, radio show about a year ago to complain that construction firms on the Strip were paying the same wage they were 20 years earlier. The caller blamed illegal immigrants, who he said were keeping wages low.

It's interesting that he didn't blame the companies that employed the firms, or the firms themselves. And of course, he never thought to look in the mirror and blame himself for not taking steps to improve his skills in the last 20 years. Maybe he could have gone into a different line of work long ago. He decided not to.

I suppose illegal immigrants were to blame for that, too.


http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/13/ ... mmigrants/

Go back to school. Get more training. Move out of the comfort zone of your hometown to take a job in another state, if necessary. Take responsibility for your own life. And stop thinking the world owes you a living.

What an arrogant fool. The same paragraph can be told to illegal aliens. Go to school (in your own country). Get more training (in your own country). Move to another area (in YOUR country). Take responsibility for your own life (in your own country). And stop thinking the world (and the US) owes you a living (and services you steal).

There, that sounds about right.

Originally Posted by miguelina

Go back to school. Get more training. Move out of the comfort zone of your hometown to take a job in another state, if necessary. Take responsibility for your own life. And stop thinking the world owes you a living.

What an arrogant fool. The same paragraph can be told to illegal aliens. Go to school (in your own country). Get more training (in your own country). Move to another area (in YOUR country). Take responsibility for your own life (in your own country). And stop thinking the world (and the US) owes you a living (and services you steal).

There, that sounds about right.

Beauty! You got it right... they are in OUR Country.

what an excellent point, Americans should go back to school to upgrade their skills, so they can compete with illlegals (most of which come here with a 5th grade education). So the Americans not only will still be left without jobs because they are over educated, the American would also have to pay back loans for the education. And the Americans would still be forced to cough up the bucks to pay taxes to accomodate health care, education, incareceration and welfare goodies for illegals.

Meanwhile, the illegals paying no taxes, have little to no skills, would still be making money from the employers ( stealing jobs from Americans) and getting to live off of our taxes.

Navarrette. obviously has an agenda. I wonder if he was paid off by Mexico or the NAU affiliates or is just plain stupid? This article is like telling a rape victim that she should take her rapists out to dinner under the premise he only raped and robbed her because he wanted a better life. Pure nonsence.

If my recollection is correct, we have had quite a few stories whereby illegal invaders have been arrested holding such positions as county librarians, police officers, even some attempting to become Border Patrol Officers.

Also, what about the thousands of illegals who graduate from high school and or college in this country? Where do they go Ruben? Back to mexico? I doubt it. More likely, they are stealing jobs from other Americans who have worked long and hard to get an education and who are entitled to those jobs.

Rubin writes in Treason Speak. Americans should have a Major National Don't Spend Sit-In. Sit-in the house on weekends, don't go anywhere, don't buy anything except absolute necessities, save every dime you can get your hands on, explain to your kids why they aren't going to get anything new for awhile and can't go to movies or anywhere that costs money, time to stay home, make your own popcorn and play Rook or Monopoly.

Then in 2010, throw everyone of these Traitors in Congress, states, counties, cities who are up for election ... out on their bums, that's anyone who even breathes about what Mexico thinks over and above what the American People think, anyone who supports NAFTA instead of protecting the US economy, anyone who babbles about "free trade" treason being "good for America", anyone who supports Mexican Trucking while opposing mandatory E-Verify, anyone who doesn't want to put troops on our borders, anyone who yaps about "comprehensive immigration reform" to legalize illegal aliens, anyone who repeats ad nauseum "we're a nation of immigrants" and "illegal aliens do the jobs Americans won't do".

Wake Up America .... kick these turds in a punch bowl to the curb in 2010, every single one of them, then get the rest out in 2012 and 2014.

Americans must do this before we lose our ability to do it which is where we're headed right now if we don't act now.

I am sorry but while i am not someone who will blame the illegal immigrant seeking oportunities, who works 2 or 3 jobs to support his/her family, I am on the other hand livid, angry, at what is clearly a militant (almost army-like) organization at the Federal, State and local levels of some Hispanic organizations to push a Hispanic agenda first, over any else. We basically have one ethnic group, the Hispanics, made more special than any other ethnic group in this country. I have nothing against Hispanics at all. Hispanics are people who originate from many different countries connected by culture, language and religion. This is not a unique phenomena. I personally belong to an ethnic group of people who originate from 2 dozen countries connected by French culture, French language and catholicism. Exactly the same concept as Hispanic. But in this country Hispanic has been elevated to "racial status" and that is great because you can then get all the benefits attached to that.

Question: What could possibly the civil right some Hispanics are seeking that is not already there? Well their language of course because we have already shown that this is not a racial issue. And that is what is going on, pure and simple. The American dream en espanol because in their country they don't enjoy the same laws and institutions and liberties and they have no inclination to be part of our society - they want theirs. That is what to me the Hispanic message is, and it is in our face. A radical redesigning of America on the basis of demographic hegemony! It is the only reasonable conclusion I am able to draw from this.

The challenge here is to separate Hispanic from Hispanic, those who are clearly looking for the American dream as we understand it and those who are not. Anybody saw on Lou Dobbs this week a piece about Obama speaking at the Hispanic Chamber of commerce and thsi guy being interviewed part of the coalition for the American dream? He spoke in Spanish!

Quote:
Go back to school. Get more training. Move out of the comfort zone of your hometown to take a job in another state, if necessary. Take responsibility for your own life. And stop thinking the world owes you a living.

What an arrogant fool. The same paragraph can be told to illegal aliens. Go to school (in your own country). Get more training (in your own country). Move to another area (in YOUR country). Take responsibility for your own life (in your own country). And stop thinking the world (and the US) owes you a living (and services you steal).

There, that sounds about right.

Exactly right. Not to mention the increasing efforts to keep people out of jobs by insisting they hold them for just hispanics, whether they do a better job or have the qualifications or not. Where's the competition in that when it's based soley on race? How about adding a foreign language in the mix that was never there before simply because one group refuses to blend in?
I did go to school. I did move. I did get additional education. I don't think anyone owes me, I just want a fair shot....which citizens no longer get in many cases.

Originally Posted by crazybird

Quote:
Go back to school. Get more training. Move out of the comfort zone of your hometown to take a job in another state, if necessary. Take responsibility for your own life. And stop thinking the world owes you a living.

What an arrogant fool. The same paragraph can be told to illegal aliens. Go to school (in your own country). Get more training (in your own country). Move to another area (in YOUR country). Take responsibility for your own life (in your own country). And stop thinking the world (and the US) owes you a living (and services you steal).

There, that sounds about right.

Exactly right. Not to mention the increasing efforts to keep people out of jobs by insisting they hold them for just hispanics, whether they do a better job or have the qualifications or not. Where's the competition in that when it's based soley on race? How about adding a foreign language in the mix that was never there before simply because one group refuses to blend in?
I did go to school. I did move. I did get additional education. I don't think anyone owes me, I just want a fair shot....which citizens no longer get in many cases.

Amen CB! I guess Ruben has not browsed the want ads lately here in CA. Many jobs want a college degree and require you to be bilingual, with of course the second language being spanish.

Does Ruben mean when he claims Go back to school. Get more training? Is he implying we should learn spanish in order to get a job in our own country? I have an education, but I refuse to learn spanish in order to get a job in my country.

There is a highly disturbing civil rights issue at bay here with the promotion of Hispanic Agendas, because being "Hispanic" or "Latino" in actuality in the manner it is used here in our country by individuals, organizations and our government is actually a fraud. It's purpose is to secure superior rights not equal rights based on "race", when being Hispanic has nothing to do with one's race and is actually nothing more than a language matter.

It makes no sense at all from a civil rights perspective to have organizations like National Council of La Raza funded with 501 C 3 tax exempt contributions as a charity when it in fact performs no charity while the NAACP is not a 501 C 3 tax exempt organization but a political action committee just like ALIPAC. The Hispanic and Latino 501 C 3 tax exempt status of these organizations means Americans pay more taxes than they would otherwise because La Raza fans chose to contribute to NCLR and other organizations like them instead of pay their taxes to support our government. Then they use their organization to promote the agendas of a group of people who call themselves Hispanic and Latino based on the fact that their great great grandfather was an immigrant from Argentina and spoke Spanish.

This has a reverse civil rights impact on equality and fairness in the United States because it qualifies such people for special superior opportunities that the rest of the population doesn't have access to starting with scholarships, seats in colleges and universities, affirmative action, 8 (a) government contracts, and special favoritism in our political system.

This is anti-civil rights, this is anti-equality, this is anti-fair. It's not right, it's wrong, wrong and wrong, and the solution starts with shutting down these 501 C 3 phony charities and C4 business organizations that tout one group of people as better or superior above another in legislation, government spending and business. Giving someone superior treatment based on the language of their ancestors is outright discrimination against all those with a different language heritage.

It's the epitome of Political Gang-Land Creation on a nationwide scale to foster one group at the expense of all the others that's resulted in a new Untouchables in the United States.