Thread: Sanctions Apply Only if They Want Citizenship

Spin,
I think you are taking my posts in the wrong context. You do not
know me nor can you put words in my mouth on how I treat others,
if I have broken the law, or what my beliefs are! I have immigrants
from Russia, Germany, France, Spain, Brazil, Venezuala, Korea,
the Philipines, Cuba, Puerta Rico, Mexico and other countries who
are my neighbors in the apartment complex I live in. I treat them with
dignity and respect and many I am proud to call my friends.

As I said in my previous post there are many illegal immigrants who
are here to work hard, etc. but there are a few here that have other
agendas. In this I am referring to terrorists and criminals. They enter
our country illegally or overstay visas. We do not know who these people are, where they are, etc.


Did you forget 9/11!!! These men overstayed their visas
and slipped thru the system. You know what happened after that.
Our system needs to be reformed to prevent this ever happening again.
After they overstayed their visas there should have been some way to know where they were and what they were doing. They were even in Las
Vegas a month before the attacks having coffee not a mile from where I live.

While I have compassion for people and the reasons they want to come
to our great country; I want them to come here legally. Also, we have
no way of knowing who is crossing our borders. Next to the person
seeking a better life can be a terrorist or criminal who adjective is
completely different.

I will never forget 9/11!![/quote]

Neither will I forget. I lost a friend when the first plane hit the towers. My son lives in LV and I know the target that LV is. No, Debbie you are right we need to have compassion for our own people for a change and get our borders fixed and our laws enforced.

I guess when people try to point to bad behavior to justify other bad behavior or legal behavior it makes their argument weak in my opinion.

Debby,

I knew it wouldn't be long before the 9/11 argument came up. It is such a ridiculous line of logic to apply to illegal immigration. Do you really believe for a moment that the terrorists would have been unsuccessful if we had different immigration laws?

No, I haven't forgotten 9/11. I never will. But terrorism has nothing to do with illegal immigration. It's just another one of those ridiculous campaign speeches designed to gain support from people who don't think.

I'm not sure why you took so much time to write about yourself. I'm writing about ideas here, not about you. I would think that any of us here write on the assumption that everyone else is operating out of sincerity. I believe you are too. It's just that the reasons you offer for treating illegal immigrants as criminals are taken from some politician's rhetoric and are really unrelated to immigration.

Originally Posted by Gogo

I guess when people try to point to bad behavior to justify other bad behavior or legal behavior it makes their argument weak in my opinion.

Gogo,

I'm not justifying bad behavior. I am exposing overly harsh and thoughtless standards of judgement. Whenever we're ready to judge someone else's behavior, wisdom would suggest that we ask ourselves how we would want to be judged. Too often we judge with double standards - one for ourselves and another for people who we consider 'not one of us'.

Spin,
It comes down to this -
legal vs. illegal. If they are here legally, fine. If not, sorry but they don't belong here. They have broken the #1 law, breaking into my country. Black & white - legal vs illegal. I will not get into the 'well I've broken laws' stuff.

portaltotx,

Heehee. That's cute. Simple, straightforward, easy to understand logic. Would that the world was that simple. But it just isn't. And neither are immigration issues - they are about complex creatures with complex social, civil and economic structures.

Spin- I have yet to hear Gogo,Greyrider or any of the others say they want to have anyone treated as" criminals". Your wording "treated like criminals" makes it sound like everyone who breaks the law should be thrown in a dank concrete cell.Illegals usually just get deported on a plane when caught and processed,that doesn't seem that bad to me. Everyone has broken rules/laws most of us have done so Unintentionally,but we all take our punishment when caught. They/We all just want our laws enforced.We are trying to preserve our country and it seems like it is being broken apart by non-enforcement. It is true what you are saying about the problems with our country aren't solely the illegals fault but this is what This forum was set up for.

Originally Posted by Spin

portaltotx,

Heehee. That's cute. Simple, straightforward, easy to understand logic. Would that the world was that simple. But it just isn't. And neither are immigration issues - they are about complex creatures with complex social, civil and economic structures.

Sorry, but if you want it bad enough, one will work for it. I work for a foreign company where management has to go through so much to stay here. I also have relatives wanting to immigrate to the US legally (from formerly communist countries) but can't because of the backlog. I further have a SIL who immigrated from Mexico and became a citizen. I have heard and hear all the why nots...don't use the 'poor me' or 'complex society' card. I want to hear hear the 'why's' to coming to the United States of America. If one is willing to break so many laws to live here, why?

Originally Posted by wolfbaby

I have yet to hear Gogo,Greyrider or any of the others say they want to have anyone treated as" criminals".

Really wolfbaby? Then I guess you're reading a different thread then I am.

Yes, I want our laws enforced too. But I'd also like to see foreign nationals treated like human beings in our country. I am ashamed at the way humans are treated here simply because they are "illegal".

I jumped into this thread originally to respond to a broad-stroke, demeaning generalization about illegal residents. The writer posted "Most of them don't [want to become citizens and/or permanent residents]- they're here to make money to send money back to relatives, open their own businesses or build houses in their home countries."

I have a problem with broad generalizations like that. My exposure to illegal aliens is with Eastern Europeans and Asians. I have personally met and talked with over 100 of them, and I know of many more, and I don't know even one of them who could be described that way.

Thus, my point about "complex creatures with complex social, civil and economic structures." Remember, we're human first - American second.

Originally Posted by portaltotx

If one is willing to break so many laws to live here, why?

We Americans with our silver spoons stuck in our mouths will never even begin to appreciate why. We could talk about the why's until doomsday, but until someone actually lived the why's, they could not appreciate them.

But you, with all of your relatives from former communist countries wanting to immigrate to the US, might have a chance of understanding why.

I understand for the same reason that you have a chance to understand. My wife grew up under Soviet domination. We also have many relatives from former communist countries who would like to immigrate to the US.

Originally Posted by Debby

...The important thing is that this forum is for legal immigration and against illegal immigration. It doesn't matter what country the illegal immigrant is from. They are in the country illegally and are breaking our laws.

Conversely it shouldn't matter what country the legal immigrant is from. They are in our country legally and are complying with our laws. But I often see *legal* Latin American immigrants demonized in the same way as their illegal countrymen (a video of the Hazleton rally that ALIPAC poster "Ruthiness" put on YouTube shows some of the crowd shouting down a Hispanic U.S. citizen newspaper editor).

Why does it start to be about lumping all Hispanics in the same category of being illegal immigrants instead of about illegal immigrants of *all* ethnic groups? I see it reoccur on ALIPAC.US over and over. Statements that even minimalize the steps Hispanic legal immigrants have to go through to give an impression of "since they're not doing it truly in a legal way like other immigrants then they are no better than illegals".

Illegal immigrants from European countries or visa overstays are minimalized as well. "At least they work hard and speak English, better than those [legal] Hispanic immigrants on the next block over". Even on this thread the advice is given to report all illegal aliens because if you don't your neighborhood will be like his, with four families to a house (if all of those families were truly illegal the author could take his own advice).