Thread: Students, faculty discuss immigration. One sided

Students, faculty discuss immigration

Morgan Pratt
Senior Staff Writer


As President George Bush pushes for immigration reform that would legalize illegal immigrants’ work status and put many undocumented Mexicans on a path to U.S. citizenship, people across the nation are weighing in on the immigration debate, and no one has any easy answers.

Alin Lopez, a radiology freshman, is close to the controversy. Lopez’s parents are U.S. citizens originally from Mexico, and many of her family members still live there. Lopez said she visits Mexico a few times a year and doesn’t blame Mexicans for wanting to work and live in the U.S.

“They have a better life here,” Lopez said. “There are more opportunities for everyone, especially in health care.

“In Mexico, medicine is so expensive and doctors are expensive, too, and their paycheck isn’t enough for them to buy what they need.”

She said the only people who have medical insurance in Mexico are those with high-paying jobs, and not many of those jobs exist. She said many people come to the U.S. to work so they can send money back to Mexico for family members who are sick and can’t afford prescriptions.

Lopez said most Mexican parents, like parents in the U.S., want good educations for their children; however, for Mexicans, the wish is more difficult to make a reality.

“It’s really hard to get scholarships in Mexico,” she said. “Even in kindergarten through 12th grade, kids have to buy their own school books. They don’t get to just borrow them like they do here.”

Claudia Vasquez, a human development and family science junior, said she also feels closer to the immigration issue because of her Hispanic background. She said many non-Hispanic people don’t evaluate both sides of the problem not because they are narrow-minded but because they are simply uninformed.

“Most people have not visited Mexico — the real Mexico, not Cancun. They haven’t witnessed firsthand the kind of lives people there live,” Vasquez said. “I have seen it, and I understand why many people come to the U.S. — our country has more to offer.”

She said although illegal immigration is a definite problem, she knows there is no easy solution.

“Our country does need to set limits, but the hard question that many people for many years have tried to answer is ‘How?’” Vasquez said. “If someone is in a desperate situation and is determined to get here, they will find a way.”

Visiting assistant Spanish professor Susana Perea-Fox said she doesn’t think the U.S. has an immigration problem.

“I really think all the noise going on right now is political,” she said. “Illegal immigration has always been a problem. It’s a political problem — someone’s trying to take attention away from the war and the economy.”

Perea-Fox, who grew up in Cuernavaca, Mexico, has been a U.S. citizen for about 20 years. She said illegal immigration is a two-way street and helps both immigrants and the U.S. economy.

Most Mexicans who stay illegally in the U.S. do so because of the dangers they face crossing the border back into Mexico, Perea-Fox said. She said if immigrants were allowed to do so legally, without danger, they would prefer to go back to Mexico after working in the U.S.

Perea-Fox said although she thinks any major decision about immigration reform will be pushed back until at least after the 2008 presidential election, she thinks Mexicans would be happy with a temporary worker program.

“Canada has a guest-worker program where immigrants can come and work for nine months,” she said. “Why can’t that work for the U.S.?”

Bob Darcy, regents professor and Faculty Council chairman, said the immigration debate is complex partly because most illegal immigrants in the U.S. have Native American heritages.

“These are people who for the past 20,000 years have been wandering across this continent in places seized from them in the 19th century,” Darcy said. “I see (illegal immigrants) as the descendants of people who have lived in this area for tens of thousands of years.”
The answer to the age-old immigration question is improving the economic and social situation in Mexico and Central America, he said, which includes getting rid of corruption in the Mexican government.

Darcy said he thinks Bush’s guest-worker program is a step toward curbing illegal immigration. He said he would like to see the U.S. treat Mexicans like many Irish immigrants who come to the U.S. as guest workers and are not required to have visas to do so.

Allison Ford, an international business and Spanish junior, said she became interested in U.S. and Mexico’s immigration issues while doing a high school assignment dealing with the subject.

“Human nature is to want to survive, and no additional border control or regulating policy is going to stop a person who is facing these conditions from attempting to enter our country by any means necessary,” Ford said.

Although she said she doesn’t think the debate over immigration will ever end, Ford said a good solution for the U.S. might be to train immigrants in a trade that would aid their survival in their native country.

“I think we need to be looking toward aiding those countries from which immigrants come — stop the problem at its source,” she said. “I believe that working with the governments who are losing their citizens to the United States would be much more beneficial than trying to simply stop our own problems.” Students, faculty discuss immigration


http://www.ocolly.com/read_story.php?a_id=29968

It's so terrible in Mexico....then fix it.

We made America work for its people, and it usually works well.

Fix your country to help your people. Don't come to mine and spend my tax $

This has to be my favorite part.

Most Mexicans who stay illegally in the U.S. do so because of the dangers they face crossing the border back into Mexico, Perea-Fox said.

She said the only people who have medical insurance in Mexico are those with high-paying jobs, and not many of those jobs exist. She said many people come to the U.S. to work so they can send money back to Mexico for family members who are sick and can’t afford prescriptions.

I'm one of the many who does not have either health insurance, or the money to buy prescriptions if I get sick. So, what am I supposed to do? I have no one else that will send me money, and there is no such thing as me getting free health care (don't qualify for any freebies).

So, my point is, these people coming here illegally have made the situation for many Americans, even harder. Not that I am not a caring person, but you all know that saying "charity begins at home", but in this case, charity took from the "home" and gave away what the "home" needed. Not right.

We have millions of Americans who can not afford health care and prescriptions. We have seniors who can not afford health care and prescriptions. But the illegals come here and send money back to Mexico so THEIR people can afford health care and prescriptions. Or they get it fOR FREE for THEM and at the expense ( taxes ) if many of those millions of Americans who can not afford what the illegals take for granted. Nothing like a free ride at our expense! Sorry, their little whiny sob stories are not something that I can give them any sympathy for.

You Illegal's come here and march in our streets, waving your mexican flag in our face while demanding your rights! How would you and your people feel about me if I did the same thing in your country? would I be shot? Jailed? I am sure I would not get a job to send money home,get free health care at the expense of hard working americans who cannot recieve that same free health care that they are forced to pay for you.Can't get free college tuition for my kids, so my kids have to do the jobs that even illegal aliens "won"t do.Do you care that you are taking advantage of our great country and it's people? I think not. Do you care about your beloved Mexico? Evidently not enough to protest in your own streets for the change that you so badly need there.Tell me why I should care about you when you step all over my country and its laws?Do you know what is going to happen to my country if we do not stop you from invading our country? Soon our great country will look just like Mexico! You say that is not true. Explain why you come here when your own country is rich in resources, so you can save yours and deplete ours?Stop calling me and my fellow countrymen racist simply because we want legal immigration only. What does that make people in your country who do not allow illegal immigrants at all? Racist, bigots?How do you like those names fostered upon you?You can call us what you like, your names are beneath us, what we really are is patriotic, this is our country and we will defend it to the death, just keep pushing us, it is coming!

wow nitty gritty great post, definitely how I'm feeling about the situation at hand.

Originally Posted by jonhaloi

It's so terrible in Mexico....then fix it.

We made America work for its people, and it usually works well.

Fix your country to help your people. Don't come to mine and spend my tax $

Thats exactly how I feel. They are obviously uneducated, untalented, and have a corrupt government that throws them out. Some, not all, immigrants from Mexico dont add anything to better our country. They are leeches that want to use up all our resources until there is none left, then they will move on to its next victim, which is probably Canada.

I think we need to be looking toward aiding those countries from which immigrants come — stop the problem at its source

We don't need to do anything. Here's a tip, if they would get past the sixth grade and don’t have more children then you can feed, it would go along way to solve alot of thier issues. Secondly, corrupt politicians in a democracy, is the fault of the people in it. Those are the problems. It's pretty much the same with all third world countries.

Now that they got that mexican meddling Ernesto Derbez out of the OAS(organization of American States)and replaced him with Chilean interior minister Miguel Insulza, there is progress being made in latin america. Now that latin america has got one of their own in charge of the OAS, progress is being made in that region. MExico was always the rift in between north and south america. Mexico is the only latin american nation still playing the race card. It is amazing how Mexico could not take care of their people but were able to invest over 1 billion dollars on iron and steel from Chile. There are jobs in Mexico however Mexico chooses to hire labor that is even cheaper than that of their own people-central american labor. South American nations have basically denounced Mexico. Whenever Foxy tries to suck up to the officials in South America in efforts to try and talk them into free trade(basically talking to the leaders as if they are stupid and dont know what nafta did to north american) S.A. leaders responded to Fox by saying,"You are not part of latin america, remember Nafta. Fox tries to woe them by saying as his intro,"we are bound together by a common culture and language(south american culture is way more civilized than that of mexico-that and mexican spanish is looked at as dirty spanish in spain and south american

Hopefully the OAS will be successful in their attempt to convince central american leaders to not enact CAFTA. T75%(at least) of the pro illegal alien protesters were mexican nationals and their anchor babies. I guarantee you their hardly any south american(maybe 10% of our primative communists who migrated to the U.S.)illegals. Yes, we know there are some south american illegals in the U.S. as well but I guarantee you that the ratio of them to the mexican illegal protesters was a lot less. Like I said, as a South american legal migrant from Chile, I can tell you that unlike the racist, communist, illegal alien invaders from Mexico, we at least have some pride and common sense and know that you will not make friends by protesting and demanding rights in a land that you in vaded .YOu would think that the anchor babies would at least know that or you would assume that pro-illegal alien lobbyists would have educatied them about.