Us Immigrants

All of the irony of the racists claiming that immigrants wreck our country and ruin our economy, despite the statistics that show exactly the opposite, is only part of the whole incredible picture:

LOS ANGELES - They surprised the police, and maybe themselves, their T-shirts turning block after block of downtown Los Angeles streets white in a demonstration so massive that few causes in recent U.S. history have matched it.

Police said more than 500,000 people marched Saturday to protest a proposed federal crackdown on illegal immigration. Wearing white as a sign of peace, and waving flags from the U.S., Mexico, Guatemala and other countries, they came to show that illegal immigrants already are part of the American fabric, and want the chance to be legal, law-abiding citizens.—AP 3/25/06

The huge number of marchers is, again ironically, only a drop in the bucket compared to the 12 million estimated undocumented immigrants in the US (also called “illegal” by the legal citizens who don’t want them around.) The anti-immigration hounds are racist simply because they have no facts on which to base their annoyance of the influx of all of these foreigners. The immigrants are mostly Latino and mostly want to work in the US because they get paid the equivalent of nothing back home in their native countries where they generally live in squalor, and they heard there was a land of promise north of the Mexican/US border. So the racist citizens just don’t want anyone “strange” in their midst, and make up any of a number of excuses to prove they have a legitimate point.

The 12 million undocumented aliens will never be rounded up and sent home. There is not enough law enforcement and, frankly, zeal, to get that job done. The minority of aliens who are trouble-makers—criminals, drug runners, opportunists without scruples—probably runs the same percentage as in the general citizenship population, and that’s where the government and legislation needs to focus. There are many democrats, and some republicans, who are working along these lines to engineer laws to make the borders safer, for both those of us who live here, and those who are trying to get here from abroad. These congress people and senators are the unsung heroes, not the wild-eyed wolf-pack who would lead the ignorant sheep in their xenophobic rush to oppression and tyranny.

What were the marches around the country about?

The demonstrators oppose legislation passed by the U.S. House that would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally. It also would impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants, require churches to check the legal status of parishioners before helping them and erect fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border.-- AP 3/25/06

The Civil Rights Movement brought about riots due to a group of people whose recent ancestors had been taken against their will from their homeland, Africa, and brought to this country as slaves. Those rioters were the downtrodden, persecuted by white racist Americans because of the color of their skin. Are riots going to re-emerge because a huge plurality of people, Latinos, living in this country feels threatened after they came here on their own to make a better life and are persecuted by racists because of their national origin? Is this the beginning of a new violent revolution? Will republicans in congress give up their fearful notion of constructing an actual barrier to a perceived “Trojan Horse,” as Jim Gilchrist, leader of the inappropriately-named “minuteman” vigilante group, has called the influx of immigrants?

These questions have suddenly and realistically come to the forefront of American politics and society, and cooler heads better not just prevail, but they better also set an obvious example and proclaim to their fellow hot-headed racist citizens that there is not a place for a modern-day Nazi mentality in these United States of ours.

Those of us who see the melting pot of this country as the land of immigrants it always was better let all of our family and friends know how we view the future of the greatest society in the world—as one of mutual benefit and prosperity for any and all who want to make a positive contribution, excluding none.

And in case you harbor a doubt that there is "enough to go around" for everyone, I haven’t got the time or patience to explain why, but you need to know you’re wrong and not to worry. As soon as people stop fearing and start planning, everyone will benefit.

Immigration Petition PFAW
Common Sense on Immigration (From this blog Nov 2005)