Local Immigrant Rights Rally - this MONDAY

Why Siler City?

You are right, it's been years since I was in Siler City. And, even then I was just driving through on the way to the zoo in Asheboro.

The GOP is gung ho on the criminalization of anyone who entered the US illegally, even if they got all the legalities at some point along the way.

This is a great idea -- IF it is retroactive to the Mayflower.

Otherwise, it's just common spite, and directed at children, women and working fathers.

This is a nation of immigrants.

There's a local event in Carrboro this afternoon, 4-10 at the Town Hall.

Ya know, I'm as liberal as it gets on lots and lots of issues, but is it so wrong to ask people to follow the law in regards to immigration procedures? I understand the manpower is wanting in regards to processing new citizens, but aren't we sending a terrible message to not only the poeple who DID go through proper channels but also our young people in general? In other words, it's ok to break the law if you don't agree with it? Even if you're not legally entitled to be here?

Help me out here, Midge.

And what is "terrible anti-immigrant legislation"? And why?

Someone comes here from Canada and starts committing felonies and whatnot, if enough people start doing likewise, that makes it ok?

Gilbert--There is a saying 'you make your bed, you lie in it.' The US pressured Mexico into passing NAFTA, undoubtedly well aware it would accelerate the jobs crisis in both countries and lead to more immigration, 'illegal' or no (by the way, writing laws that depend on who you are rather than what you do (i.e. immigration laws) strikes me as UnAmerican). Free trade between countries with more freedom for workers to pursue high wage opportunities sounds like the European Union; free trade with fewer legal opportunities to do so sounds to me like South Africa.

I hear what you say, Steven, and NAFTA was a big mistake from the get-go.

I guess I'm thinking that we're not merely exporting our way of life now---we're now importing theirs.

No one has yet convinced me that the people from Ellis Island or the legal immigrants we have welcomed afterwards should be on an even playing field with people who have simply not taken the same legal steps to taking part in our society. As difficult as those steps may appear.

I'm open to suggestions as to where the devil in the details resides.

Gilbert--I'd be more inclined to support your position if the EXISTING LAWS pertaining to the employment of illegal aliens were being enforced.

They aren't. Obviously.

Until that time--I have no sympathy with the Republican position/proposition. The Republicans can't have it both ways.

I'd like to see some laws that make the CEO of a company or corporation responsible if they (or someone that works for the company)hire undocumented workers...and I think it should be a felony. Put the CEO of Wal Mart or AGMart away--maybe the market for illegal workers would dry up.

Those folk come here because there is WORK for them.

And lets not talk about a "guest worker" program. That's been tried before--ever heard of the Bracero program?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5213540

And guest worker programs are working so VERY well in Europe (scroll down)...http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/06/international/europe/06paris.html?ex=1...

Finally: "I guess I'm thinking that we're not merely exporting our way of life now—we're now importing theirs."

The Latino people I know are hard-working, family oriented people, who value education. Seems to me the US could stand some more of that way of life.

melanie

"Gilbert–I'd be more inclined to support your position if the EXISTING LAWS pertaining to the employment of illegal aliens were being enforced.

They aren't. Obviously."

Yes. I do see that. If the existing laws for this, gun control, etc.etc. were enforced fairly, yes, this would not be a problem.

I do believe that big business (agricultural, in partiular) has tainted the process for their own advantage. The book "Reefer Madness" by Eric Schlosser is an excellent tome on this very subject.

Ah well.

I guess if the republicans (I'm not one by any means) REALLY wanted to stop immigration of an illegal variety, they'd haul all the protesters onto the paddy wagon and sort it all out later.

Then they'd have an excuse to build more jails.

Really makes you think.

"No one has yet convinced me that the people from Ellis Island or the legal immigrants we have welcomed afterwards should be on an even playing field with people who have simply not taken the same legal steps to taking part in our society. As difficult as those steps may appear."

Nothing simple about it it, Gilbert. It's clear you've never had dealings with the INS. Sounds like you think undocumented workers have just not bothered to file some paperwork. Those steps are not "difficult". They are, by design, actually impossible for most of the population in question, and a lot of people in this country like it that way. And yet the country needs their labor. Strip away all the rhetoric and the reality is the right wants them here and wants them illegal, i.e. outside labor and civil rights protection, vulnerable and cheap. Meanwhile, the left seems unclear just how far it wants to extend the benefits of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" to folks who happened not to have been born in the U.S.A.

Amen James. Beautifully put.

melanie/in the 26% that thinks immigrants have helped our state

Good story about the Siler City protest here with some great pictures if you follow the links.

Well, the steps are what they are. yes, illegal immigrants are the new slavery. I'm aware. Still, you haven't addressed the issue of how this plays for the people who ARE legal, who DID take the steps necessary to be that way.

If the steps were 'impossible', literally nobody would be immigrating from Mexico, South America, etc.etc. Care to rescind your hyperbole? React with your gut all you want, but I am right. They HAVEN'T taken the steps. They ARE illegal. Whether or not you agree with the results (for the record, I realize our economy would falter without this new slavery, but if the US government can't even take care of their own veterans, why do people thing illegal workers are going to do any better?) which “terrible anti-immigrant legislation” are you folks referring to? And should that read "ILLEGAL immigration" instead of just "Immigration"?

Dealings with the INS or no, it is what it is. These folks are not here legally. Hold the big corporations responsible for soliciting. Hold W responsible for waffling on the restrictions/enforcement. But there are lots of folks who are here after going through the proper procedures. Daunting or not.

Should they all be granted amnesty? Yes? Good. So how about amnsty for other crimes?

I really don't claim to know the answers. I just find that when people are held to the strictest letter of the law, things tend to be less confusing.

I just find that when people are held to the strictest letter of the law, things tend to be less confusing.

I'm not ready to surrender the New Colossus for "less confusing", myself. It has become harder to get into the US by following "the steps" since my grandparents came here.

Gilbert--when did your natal familiy come into the country? Or are you Native American?

melanie

Gilbert, I have some very current and relevant experience with the immigration system, and I can tell you right now that it is virtually impossible for someone to legally immigrate to this country unless he/she is

1. an entertainer or athlete
2. marrying an American citizen
3. sponsored (to the tune of about 6-10K per year ) for a specific job, after the company has jumped through a thousand hoops to prove that there is no American who can do it?
4. sponsored by direct family members who are already citizens and living in this country.
5. investing many thousands of dollars to open a business that will employ x number of people.
6. winning the green card lottery in their home country

We have spent thousands of dollars trying to help an international student who is living with us find a legal way to stay here after he graduates from college in May. We've hired immigration lawyers out the wazoo, and they all have told him the same thing---marry an American citizen.

Is this really how we want our immigration policy to work? This young man has complied with every possible legal requirement---he has paid for health insurance so that he isn't a burden on the Medicaid system, he paid for an Interpol criminal check to prove he wasn't a criminal in his own country, he has paid auto insurance in case he has an accident, he has reported his whereabouts every time he's left the state.

The guy wants to live in America. He's honest, hardworking, but doesn't have a job skill that is in such short supply that he can get sponsored by a company. He would be happy to work construction, flip burgers, or do landscaping if he could stay here--but that would require him to knowingly break the law and lie to an employer about his status---and he isn't willing to do that.

Tell me how our immigration policy is "working" or is protecting us when a guy like him--who wants to work, pay taxes, buy his own health insurance, and even enlist in the military---is not welcome through our official immigration procedures? What kind of immigration policy is fair when Nicole Kidman or Yao Ming can go to the front of the line and someone who is willing to care for our elderly and fix our cars gets kicked out?

Gilbert, I hardly know where to start. Certainly I stand by my statement. It is indeed "impossible for most of the population in question". Absent the special circumstances that get you to the head of the line, the waiting period for quota-based immigration papers is measured in decades. I don't know how anyone would wait fifteen or twenty years for the chance of a job bent double in the hot sun in a field thousands of miles from home. The need is immediate, the poverty at home is desperate, the jobs are here right now, you "take the steps" you need to: across the blazing desert carrying only the clothes on your back, your family's net worth in the hands of a coyote you can barely trust. As a legal immigrant myself (had it easy - white-skinned, middle-class, educated, native English speaker, oh, and married to a U.S. citizen), I have nothing but respect for the folks who came the hard way - because there was no other way. I have met many who are great people, an asset to this country. If we know what's good for us we'll find a way to keep them.

Anita:

Nowhere here have I said or implied that the current policies are good or fair or even humane. I have talked to folks like you in the same boat. (poor choice of words?) However I must point out that the term "working" as in "effective or adequate" was not used by me. You folks are using your hearts and not your heads when you read what I'm writing. I guess we're both at fault for that so Ill try harder.

The law may be arcane and goofy (like drug laws are) but it is the law right now. I hope the current events force the political machine to deal with this issue once and for all instead of allowing both left and right to shuffle and look up in the air and pretend they don't benefit from what is now illegal behaviour. Good or bad. But it IS illegal acts that are putting these folks here.

Melanie, the answer to your facile attempt at drawing some quaint paralell between my right to be here and the legality of the guy trimming the bushes on Weston Ave. in Cary is the following: From Bremen (kingdom of Hannover) to Baltimore to Buffalo. When in Baltimore, all the approriate documentation and medical information was exchanged between my great great grandfather and the nice authorities on the shore. My GGG and his wife (my GGGm) immediately learned the language and assimilated into the glorious heyday of Buffalo NY circa 1850 as a mason.

Err. My first to be in America ancestor came to Jamestown in 1610-1620 because of some, well, legal problems involving money back in England. The local authorities were pretty much still Native Americans. As far as we know he didn't carry papers nor did he contact Powhatan once he got there. It's unlikely that Roger Silvester learned any language spoken in Amercian other than that of his home country.

I guess I can't claim to be from a line of law followers as Gilbert can. But we, my folks, made the laws for his folks to follow ;->

Gilbert, I wasn't being facile--I was being flippant.

facile:
ADJECTIVE: 1. Done or achieved with little effort or difficulty; easy. See synonyms at easy. 2. Working, acting, or speaking with effortless ease and fluency. 3. Arrived at without due care, effort, or examination; superficial: proposed a facile solution to a complex problem. 4. Readily manifested, together with an aura of insincerity and lack of depth: a facile slogan devised by politicians. 5. Archaic Pleasingly mild, as in disposition or manner.

flippant:
ADJECTIVE: 1. Marked by disrespectful levity or casualness; pert. 2. Archaic Talkative; voluble.

My POINT was--the rules were WAAAY easier back when your folks (and mine) came here. (Having debt issues used to get one a trip here--NOT keep one out.)

The people being facile are those that think building a fence and making immigrating illegal will solve the problems of illegal immigration. (See definitons three and four provided above.)

melanie

Melanie:

"Arrived at without due care, effort, or examination; superficial: proposed a facile solution to a complex problem..."

No, that's about right. ;-) Asking me if I'm native American as if not being so makes my points somehow less valid or sincere? Come on, that's old hat. And not really relevant to this discussion.

So , to stay on point, let me ask yet again:

There are legal immigrants in the USA. When an if we grant amnesty to the people who did not go through proper channels (whether you like those channels or not) to gain a foothold on the American dream, what are we telling the people who worked so hard to gain citizenship legally?

Gilbert, I say again. As one who did immigrate legally, blessed with advantages I did little to earn, nothing would make me happier than to see those who have trod a much, much harder path than I treated with respect and compassion. To an amnesty program for those who have put their lives on the line and worked so hard in and for this country I say yes, yes, yes.

SO what do you say to the people who actually legally immigrated here in the last, say 10 years?

Funny how no one seems to have an answer to that.

How can you tell me that legal imigrants had to jump through hoops to be legalized and how hard it is and blah blah blah and yet, at the same time, tell me that the ILLEGAL immigrants had a harder path and that they desreve our respect, etc.etc..? So ANYONE who wants to be a citizen should just be given a pat on the back and keys to the kingdom? This is the greatest country the world has ever seen. Maybe it SHOULD be difficult to gain membership. Just a thought.

As I said before, I'm very liberal on other things (drugs, abortion, etc...) but how can you possibly hope to win this argument when you cannot answer the simple question of the new, legal American immigrant? What are you saying to them?

We need to decide what the desired outcome is for a logical immigration policy and design one that achieves the objective. Our current policy does not make sense.

Gilbert--

I still contend I was being flippant--not facile--since I was the person who WROTE what I wrote--I think I would know the tone better, but I'll let you have that one if it makes you feel better.

To answer your question:

I would say--you won the immigration lottery, you were from one of the "correct" countries (or had someone who could sponsor you, or had the right education and job possibilities)--congratualtions.

From what I have seen and heard of the folks protesting the protestors--they aren't the people who "did it right" in the last 10 years. They appear to be, primarily, people of European descent whose fanmilies have been here quite awhile.

And Gilbert, James Morgan DID answer your question--and I think his voice holds some moral authority here:
Gilbert, I say again. As one who did immigrate legally, blessed with advantages I did little to earn, nothing would make me happier than to see those who have trod a much, much harder path than I treated with respect and compassion. To an amnesty program for those who have put their lives on the line and worked so hard in and for this country I say yes, yes, yes.

melanie

I agree with Anita.

Melanie, what can I say? Perhaps the tone you intended wasn't the tone I got from it. Let me have that one? Why is it a contest?

James I misread your initial statement. Thanks for your input. I could be wrong, but that would imply that I had a strong, definite opinion one way or the other--but how do we solve the problem?

Amnesty for all? Really?

Amnesty for all means anyone anywhere can get into the US and achieve citizenship relatively painlessly. When you see who or what is driving this influx, and why, is that what you really want?

Thanks Anita for pointing us back to what should be our real focus here. It's time for an actual discussion of what a progressive immigration policy might look like. Personally I've got more questions than answers. Amnesty, for whom? What qualifiers? Guest worker programs: not necessarily a bad thing. But what happens when the work dries up? What benefits might be offered, promised, guaranteed? How do you reconcile with the traditionally protectionist labor left? Are there other, better ways to offer a fair deal to needed foreign workers? Can anyone point us to real information, research, policy proposals that might help us develop a coherent, ethically consistent, substantive progressive position on this complex issue?

I agree with Anita as well. And I asked a Latina acquaintance about the amnesty program. (She is an American citizen--born in the US of legal immigrant parents.) She is of the opinion that the illegal immigrants currently in the country should, if caught, have to leave the states and come back through proper channels, but they should NOT be classed as felons. She also believes that the laws should be changed so that immigreating legally isn't "nearly impossible."

Gilbert--it isn't a contest--I was thinking of debate club, and debate points, that's all.

melanie

On the other hand, who can blame a father or mother for doing whatever they can to feed their family? And if there were not a wealth of opportunity under the table in the good ol' USA, why make the journey?

So someone, somewhere, is double dealing, as it were. Is it any wonder both major parties are relatively bereft of real ideas on this issue?

We need to make it much easier for immigrants to come here legally, and harder for them to come here illegally. We need to accept that those who are already here are here for good, and offer amnesty. It's the humanitarian thing to do. It's also the rational thing to do.

They need the jobs, and we need the workers. Make no mistake, we need them. Business owners know this, but our politicians don't have the will to stand up to the popular immigrant bashing being done by those who perceive them as a threat to their jobs and wage levels. This perception is erroneous in almost all cases.

Do we need them? I've seen numbers both ways, some that say they contribute more than take, some that say they cost much more in education, health care, etc., than they bring in economic benefit. I don't know which to believe.

Well, let's start by saying what it is that we want this immigration policy to do for the country. The first thing is that I want it to do is to encourage and invite people here who can make a contribution economically, socially, spiritually, and morally. (and so on).

I want it to keep out criminals, people who would try to overthrow our country or otherwise harm us, people who don't embrace our basic principles of freedom, and people who are trying to flee financial or criminal charges in their own countries.

I will also stick my neck out here and say that we should not think of American immigration policies as a way to wage war on poverty worldwide. It's not rational to think that we can offer every poor person in the world a job in the USA and voila---world hunger is gone. Immigration policy has to be anchored in sound social science and a good understanding of our country's needs and capabilities.

We help most people far better by allowing them to do better for themselves in their own countries than by bringing them all here. Many of them would rather stay in their own countries if they could. I would rather see us help other countries improve conditions for their people within their own borders and save the changes in immigration law for those foreign individuals who really want to be part of the American experience and who have skills and capabilities that will benefit our country.

I want immigration policy to offer several ways that someone can legally spend time here, from a time limited guest worker program to becoming a citizen.

And I want it to treat the applicants with some sense of decency. The way we treat immigrants now (both the legal and illegal ones) is atrocious. If you have never been with someone to an INS hearing, you have no idea how your country is being portrayed to the rest of the world! I have never been more embarassed to be an American than the day I went with my foreign born (and brand new) son-in-law to his first INS hearing---and he spoke English, was white, and well educated. How much worse is it for a person of color with no English skills and no middle class American mother in law to call out the rude interviewer?

Thanks for letting me vent.

Mark,

I was really thinking more about skill levels more than taxes. I'll try to rephrase the question. Even if they all paid taxes, does the average illegal immigrant earn so little, and pay so little in taxes, that they wind up costing more in social services than they bring in economic benefit? If the answer is yes, it's expensive for them to be here, then I have to agree with Anita...

“we should not think of American immigration policies as a way to wage war on poverty worldwide.”

The Kenan Flagler Business School just released a study of the economic impact of Hispanics on the economy in North Carolina.

Go to the following link

http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/ki/reports/2006_HispanicStudy/

As pointed out in the study, the short answer that Hispanics cost the state a net $102 per person annually when comparing taxes paid vs services rendered is deceptive.

As with many public studies of economic impact, the study does not take into account the mulitiplying effect that privately earned and privately spent dollars enjoy within the framework of an overall economy.

Top of the HIll will close for lunch on Monday, May 1st (someone has a good sense of history and symbolism) to allow employees to go to the event in Raleigh. Why hasn't there been a rally in Chapel Hill/Carrboro? Can we leverage off the one in Raleigh?

Cheers!

Scott

Thanks for finding that, Scott. I'm still not certain what to believe, as it's not difficult to find numbers that paint a more negative picture...

http://www.cis.org/topics/costs.html

Aren't statistics great! :-)

Charlie

Before we give too much credence to the statistics of the Center for Immigration Studies let's acknowledge that it's a lobbying organization, sorry, think-tank, with a clearly stated agenda: "The Center is animated by a pro-immigrant, low-immigration vision which seeks fewer immigrants but a warmer welcome for those admitted." http://www.cis.org/aboutcis.html
And let's review that part of the Kenan-Flagler study which comments on the positive impact of the Hispanic contribution beyond the tax/services equation: "The net cost to the state budget must be seen in the
broader context of the aggregate benefits Hispanics bring
to the state's economy. Above and beyond their direct and
indirect impacts on North Carolina business revenues, [previously stated at more than $9 billion] Hispanic workers contribute immensely to the state's economic output and cost competitiveness in a number
of key industries. Without Hispanic labor, for example,
the state's construction industry output would likely be
considerably lower and the state's total private-sector wage
bill as much as $1.9 billion higher."
Bottom line: according to the Kenan-Flagler study, significant net financial benefit to the North Carolina population deriving from its immigrant Hispanic population. This from a world class public university with impeccable academic credentials.

Does anyone have a link to the actual Kenan-Flagler study? Not just the press release, but the actual study where they give their methods, discussion, results etc...? I can't find it online. Thanks!