My Two Cents

• There are currently about 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States, with the majority having come from Mexico.
• The number of illegal immigrants that enter the U.S. each year from any country is about 1.1 million.
• 10% of all births in the U.S. are to illegal immigrants.
• The average American wage exceeds the average Mexican wage by 10 times.
• Many American companies often hire workers for 3-month periods to avoid paying for benefits.

Ironies:

• Many of the large, U.S. owned companies that were boycotted on May 1 are the same ones that employ many immigrants and consistently lobby Congress in favor of changing immigration laws.
• The contents of this letter to the editor of The Fresno Bee:

The Mexican Constitution, the "Ley General de Poblacion," spells out in detail the country's immigration policy.

Immigration authorities have a record of each foreign visitor; foreign visitors do not violate their visa status; foreign visitors are banned from interfering in the country's internal politics; foreign visitors who enter under false pretenses are imprisoned or deported; foreign visitors violating the terms of their entry are imprisoned or deported; those who aid in illegal immigration will be sent to prison.

Yet, if the United States adopted such statutes, Mexico no doubt would denounce it as a manifestation of American racism and bigotry.

Why is our southern neighbor pushing us to gut our own immigration laws, when its own immigration restrictions are the harshest on the continent?

Stupidities:

“Above all, we want legalization, because many of them [immigrants] have lived up there for many years.”

--Nice logic.

“Hispanics are taking away our jobs. They are moving into our neighborhoods, so now where are we going to go?”

--Who says you have to go anywhere? Would it be so horrible to live in the same neighborhood as—gasp!—a Hispanic family?

(Sources: The Fresno Bee, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/)

# posted by KK @ 12:36 AM