Thread: Editorial from Suntimes in Chicago

Thought others would like to give feedback to this one.
Spain sounds like a good place to deport them to, sounds like they would
enjoy life there.


Irrationa Attack on Immigration
http://www.suntimes.com/news/greeley/40 ... 25.article

Agreel@aol.com

this is his email...

His site
http://www.agreeley.com/

It is just amazing how 'they' who believe in immigration and amnesty always turn this to make us look like racists and that we have no rights NOT to allow them in our country undocumented.

It never fails that those who favor immigration and amnesty always fail to recognize our ancestors were LEGAL immigrants who followed the laws of this great Nation.

"economy would collapse?" Not when they are a net drain on it.

But I am very glad such a church spokesman has volunteered to pay for the shortfall. Just start taxing churches and we will be fine!

Irrational attacks on immigration
May 25, 2007

BY ANDREW GREELEY

As the immigrant haters demolish the current version of "reform," the wise person tries to reflect on these three propositions:

The first is self-evident: All humans are created equal and have certain inalienable rights -- life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Immigrants are humans. Therefore, they have these inalienable rights.

Second, as long as you have a long border with a labor supply on one side and a labor demand on the other, impoverished people will find ways to cross the border -- unless they are shot on sight.

Third, the United States needs these workers. If we sent them all back, the national economy would collapse.


All the irrationalities of the arguments about "amnesty," "protect our borders," "our ancestors were LEGAL immigrants," "enforce the laws," "send them all home" collapse in the face of these three ineluctable facts. The fury aimed that these poor, hardworking people is comparable to the fury against the Italians, Poles and Irish a century ago. It is as useless now as it was then. And as evil.


Americans are not the only "nativists," not the only immigrant haters. Most European countries, with their aging and war-depleted populations, need immigrant workers. But politicians who run against them win or come close to winning elections. They want foreigners, strangers, people with darker skin, no more than we do. They accept them grudgingly and demean them whenever possible.


However, there is one notable exception to this rule. In Spain the welcome mat is out for immigrants. Eleven percent of the people living there are immigrants -- just a shade under the American rate. In each of the past two years 600,000 immigrants have poured into the country. Yet, Spain accounts for half the new jobs in Europe, according to an article in Business Week, and enjoys the best-performing major economy in Europe. The immigrants are from Eastern Europe (especially Romanians, who are not really welcome anywhere, even in Ireland), Morocco, Latin America (especially Ecuador) and Africa.

Like many of our immigrants, they are concentrated in the construction industry, which has been booming in recent years with new buildings, hospitals, schools, railroad stations and airports . Spain also offers an easy amnesty (dirty word!) to its illegal immigrants.


For a couple of thousand years, Spain has been a cultural, racial and religious mosaic. The people who are native to the country now see no reason to exclude these new "invaders" because they are adding notably to the prosperity of the Spanish state. Many of them also speak Spanish (of different varieties), which is a help. Nonetheless, they have different customs and lifestyles and look different.


The difference between Spain and this country is that the Spaniards realize that immigrants are good for a country. The American attitude is that they used to be good for the United States a century or so ago when our ancestors came, but not anymore. Yet the jobs they do suggests that they are still good for the country. To keep them illegal and to deny them citizenship to which they aspire makes it easier for Americans to exploit them and treat them like second-class human beings.


If one were a true cynic, one might come to believe that those who rant against "amnesty for criminals" are secretly fronting for those who want to keep the immigrants defenseless. Then we Americans can continue to treat them like subhumans -- Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and their ilk to the contrary notwithstanding.


© Copyright 2007 Sun-Times News

I'm not exactly sure where Mr. Greeley is getting his facts. Spain has been distressed by their illegal immigration problem for some time now.

http://www.euroresidentes.com/Blogs/200 ... spain.html

Also, Mr. Greeley shows his bigotry and bias when he singles out Europeans as a bunch of xenophobes for wanting to control immigration into their country.

Has Mr. Greeley tried recently to enter a Middle Eastern country, or an Asian one?? They have very strict rules, even for entering on a visitor's visa. I guess that would make them racists also.

This is in todays paper; thought you all would like to read it.
Thought some of you would like to respond to this one too.



http://www.suntimes.com/news/greeley/41 ... 01.article

Hatred of immigrants is sinful
June 1, 2007
BY ANDREW GREELEYBigotry never goes away. When it becomes unfashionable, it goes underground and waits until a new hate group appears into which it can project its twisted sickness. Racism, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism and anti-immigrant nativism are chronic infections in the American body politic. Rush Limbaugh singing the obscene tune ''Barack the Magic Negro'' is inviting prejudice and violence. However, for pure irrational rage, the current crop of nativists are some of the worst to come along since the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s or those God-fearing Protestants who burned convents in Boston in the 19th century.
I wonder why the right-thinking people, the establishment columnists and editorial writers and commentators and religious leaders and anchor persons remain silent in the face of this bigotry.
The poll reports last week, especially the one done by the New York Times and CBS, leave little doubt that large majorities of Americans approve of the immigrant reform bill pending in the Senate. These data send the nativists into paroxysms of rage. However, their rage is so violent that senators and members of Congress may well be frightened away from the legislation. How many American clergy, I wonder, are willing to denounce such rage from the altar as seriously sinful. If hating African Americans was a sin 40 years ago (and it was and still is), then hating ''illegals'' is a sin today.
The hate mail I receive because of my opposition to the war is mild in comparison to the hate mail on immigration. One woman, a self-professed ''devout Catholic,'' says it's a shame that some of the immigrants die trying to enter America. But, she tells me, it's their own fault because they have broken the laws of the United States. So death is an appropriate punishment for what is legally only a misdemeanor? I judge no person's conscience; I leave that task to God. But in the objective order of right and wrong, that thought is surely a very grave sin.
I am told by another correspondent that when the ''illegals'' march in protests, they wave the Mexican flag, which shows where their loyalty is. Yet, every other American ethnic group waves the flag of its origins -- Poland, Greece, Italy, Sweden, Ireland, Denmark. Why deny that custom only to one group?
Another hate mail affirms the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness belong only to American citizens. To exclude some men and women from those basic rights is to deny their fundamental humanity, which is how Hitler started against Jews and Gypsies and the handicapped. Am I saying that hatred for immigrants is a Nazi attitude? You bet!
What do these people fear? What terrible threat to their well-being do these poor peons represent? Hordes of infidel invaders perhaps -- just as my ancestors frightened the good citizens of Boston?
Are not the immigrants themselves guilty of sin for entering a country that does not want them? The moral theology I learned said that someone who was desperate for food could steal from the rich without sinning. Cardinal Josef Frings of Cologne told his people in 1945 when they were starving that it was not wrong to steal from the British occupiers. With all the abundance north of the border and all the poverty south of the border, I doubt very much that a generous God would find anything more than bravery in the souls of those who strive to improve the lives of their families.