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As election year campaigns ramp up again, we are already hearing the mounting attacks against the immigrant peoples living in our midst. In our rush to find scapegoats for all that ails our country we so quickly blame the current wave of immigrants.
As candidates for President debate various national issues it’s amazing that one of the new electability standard is whether an unauthorized worker was ever on one’s property doing any kind of work. It seems that being untouched by an immigrant in any way is the new litmus test to serve in elected office.
But why did the current wave of immigrants come here? For the same reasons every group of immigrants came: to find a better life for themselves and their families, to become better educated, and to contribute to making the American dream come true for everyone. We have 11 million unauthorized immigrants for one reason: we need them to do all of the monotonous, dirty, and hard work that the rest of us don’t want to do, regardless of the salary.
As one Alabama sweet potato farmer said recently, “If you all stop eating, the immigrants will leave.” He and countless others have tried to attract documented people to do the dirty, long, and difficult work in the fields. And as this farmer pointed out, “They last about an hour, sometimes two hours. Then they just leave."
Every time our national economy is increasing and unemployment falls down to 5% or less, we need every immigrant to take those jobs which are often behind-the-scenes, but essential to make our country run. Agriculture, the poultry and meat industries, hotels and motels, construction, clothing makers, restaurants, tourism, home care workers—these are just a few places where the millions of workers will be found.
Just look back a few years and you’ll find the same pattern over and over:immigrants come when they are needed, and once jobs are scarce, we blame them and try to distance ourselves from them. But that’s an impossible task. It would be far more helpful to our national discussion if we could set aside the harsh rhetoric blaming immigrants, and begin to address this issue in a rational and civil way.
You and I need and use the labor and services our unauthorized immigrants do day after day. These are real people with names and faces. Our brothers and sisters are not “those people” in some global and demeaning fashion.
I long to hear candidates for elected office buck the trend and point to our immigrant roots and history. Please remind us that we have so many unauthorized immigrants because our immigration laws have not balanced our need for workers at the lowest paying jobs with the availability of workers to do those jobs. Our broken immigration system was not caused by the immigrants.
It would be so helpful to our national discussion if candidates for elected office would set aside hurtful rhetoric against immigrants, acknowledge our dependence upon these workers in the lowest paying and more difficult service jobs, and offer ways in which we can bring these people out of the shadows and bring them into the mainstream of our nation’s life.
If we review our history as a nation and recognize the various waves of immigrants who built up our country, and if we look down the road into future years as we witness millions of baby-boomers retiring, we begin to get a better understanding of how today’s immigrants living in our midst without legal documents can be the key to our future labor needs.
I believe deeply that once the average American understands all the parameters of the role of today’s immigrants for our nation, they will open their hearts and minds to them and help find a way to bring dignity and respect to them. I firmly believe this because every poll taken supports this approach. When Americans are asked if they favor massive searches and deportations for all unauthorized immigrants, or whether they favor an earned path to legal residency, the vast majority always choose the earned path to legal residency.
The polls taken by by USA Today, the Pew Research Institute, and the Pacific Institute of Public Policy, even those people who agree with the new strict State laws also believe that it is totally impractical to locate, detain, and deport some 11 million people from our country.
The American spirit of welcome for immigrants seems to trump harsh and unrealistic solutions in dealing with undocumented people here.
27 Haziran 2012 Çarşamba
GOOD NEWS for IMMIGRATION REFORM!
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Ronald Brownstein reported recently on encouraging polling results about what steps our nation should take with the 11 million undocumented peoples living in our midst:
"As the debate over immigration continues to roil the Republican presidential field, a substantial majority of Americans say they would prefer to allow some or all illegal immigrants to remain in the United States, the latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll has found."
"When asked what should be done with the roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, just 25 percent of those polled said that they should all be deported “no matter how long they have been in the U.S.”
"Another 28 percent of those surveyed said that all illegal immigrants should be allowed “to stay, provided they have broken no other laws and commit to learning English and U.S. history.”
"The largest group, at 39 percent, said that the United States should “deport some, but allow those who have been here for many years and have broken no other laws to stay here legally.”
I am greatly encouraged by these results since some 67% of Americans polled favor some form of path to legal residency for the 11 million. Only 25% believe that all should be found and deported--an impossible task, of course.
These poll numbers reflect the great American spirit, an appreciation of the contributions of all immigrants down through the centuries here, and a realization that so many of our recent immigrants share our values and want to work hard for their families and for the country.
Immigration reform has now surfaced far more visibly in the past two months with the Presidential election campaigns underway. The presence of 11 million people living in the shadows of our society and contributing to our society cannot be ignored--not morally, ethically, or politically.
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from the draconian Arizona immigration law, and hopefully, its decision will help bring more clarity to the discussion in the coming months.
All of us need to press our members of the U.S. Congress to discuss this issue, and to challenge them to respect and work for the position of the 67% majority who favor an earned path towards legal residency.
Let's keep our discussion focused upon the human dignity of our immigrant brothers and sisters, their hard work for their families and all of us, and for our need for workers in so many employment opportunities as the economy improves and as Baby Boomers retire.
Our position as Catholics is based on God's mandates to Moses, as well as the urging by Jesus Christ to see him in all peoples, especially in the strangers in our midst.
Let's keep up our prayers and broad efforts to help influence the current public discussion around this issue, and let's thank the 67% for their enlightened reasoning.
[The United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International from Dec. 1 to 4; it interviewed 1,008 adults by landline and cell phone. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.]
"As the debate over immigration continues to roil the Republican presidential field, a substantial majority of Americans say they would prefer to allow some or all illegal immigrants to remain in the United States, the latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll has found."
"When asked what should be done with the roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, just 25 percent of those polled said that they should all be deported “no matter how long they have been in the U.S.”
"Another 28 percent of those surveyed said that all illegal immigrants should be allowed “to stay, provided they have broken no other laws and commit to learning English and U.S. history.”
"The largest group, at 39 percent, said that the United States should “deport some, but allow those who have been here for many years and have broken no other laws to stay here legally.”
I am greatly encouraged by these results since some 67% of Americans polled favor some form of path to legal residency for the 11 million. Only 25% believe that all should be found and deported--an impossible task, of course.
These poll numbers reflect the great American spirit, an appreciation of the contributions of all immigrants down through the centuries here, and a realization that so many of our recent immigrants share our values and want to work hard for their families and for the country.
Immigration reform has now surfaced far more visibly in the past two months with the Presidential election campaigns underway. The presence of 11 million people living in the shadows of our society and contributing to our society cannot be ignored--not morally, ethically, or politically.
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from the draconian Arizona immigration law, and hopefully, its decision will help bring more clarity to the discussion in the coming months.
All of us need to press our members of the U.S. Congress to discuss this issue, and to challenge them to respect and work for the position of the 67% majority who favor an earned path towards legal residency.
Let's keep our discussion focused upon the human dignity of our immigrant brothers and sisters, their hard work for their families and all of us, and for our need for workers in so many employment opportunities as the economy improves and as Baby Boomers retire.
Our position as Catholics is based on God's mandates to Moses, as well as the urging by Jesus Christ to see him in all peoples, especially in the strangers in our midst.
Let's keep up our prayers and broad efforts to help influence the current public discussion around this issue, and let's thank the 67% for their enlightened reasoning.
[The United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International from Dec. 1 to 4; it interviewed 1,008 adults by landline and cell phone. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.]
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT MANDATE FOR CONTRACEPTIVE/STERILIZATION COVERAGE
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In probably the most expansive decision on the part of the US Federal government ever, the Department of Health and Human Services has issued an "interim final rule" to require virtually all private health plans to include coverage for all FDA-approved prescription contraceptives, female sterilization procedures, and related "patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity."
These are listed among "preventive services for women" that all health plans will have to include without co-pays or other cost sharing--even if the insurer, the employer or other plan sponsor, or the woman herself object to such coverage.
This decision from the Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] is from the highest level of Federal government, and I cannot imagine that this decision was released without the explicit knowledge and approval of President Barack Obama.
And I cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on freedom of conscience than this ruling today. This decision must be fought against with all the energies the Catholic Community can muster.
For full information on this issue, please go to the website of the U.S. Catholic Bishops: http://www.usccb.org/news/2012/12-013.cfm
For me there is no other fundamental issue as important as this one as we enter into the Presidential and Congressional campaigns. Every candidate must be pressed to declare his/her position on all of the fundamental life issues, especially the role of government to determine what conscience decision must be followed: either the person's own moral and conscience decision, or that dictated/enforced by the Federal government. For me the answer is clear: we stand with our moral principles and heritage over the centuries, not what a particular Federal government agency determines.
As Bishops we do not recommend candidates for any elected office. My vote on November 6 will be for the candidate for President of the United States and members of Congress who intend to recognize the full spectrum of rights under the many conscience clauses of morality and public policy. If any candidate refuses to acknowledge and to promote those rights, then that candidate will not receive my vote.
This is a sad moment in the life of our country where religious freedom and freedom of conscience led to the formation of this new Nation under God.
Let us all pray that the power of the Holy Spirit will come upon all elected officials of our country, and that all will make decisions based upon God's revealed truth.
These are listed among "preventive services for women" that all health plans will have to include without co-pays or other cost sharing--even if the insurer, the employer or other plan sponsor, or the woman herself object to such coverage.This decision from the Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] is from the highest level of Federal government, and I cannot imagine that this decision was released without the explicit knowledge and approval of President Barack Obama.
And I cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on freedom of conscience than this ruling today. This decision must be fought against with all the energies the Catholic Community can muster.
For full information on this issue, please go to the website of the U.S. Catholic Bishops: http://www.usccb.org/news/2012/12-013.cfm
For me there is no other fundamental issue as important as this one as we enter into the Presidential and Congressional campaigns. Every candidate must be pressed to declare his/her position on all of the fundamental life issues, especially the role of government to determine what conscience decision must be followed: either the person's own moral and conscience decision, or that dictated/enforced by the Federal government. For me the answer is clear: we stand with our moral principles and heritage over the centuries, not what a particular Federal government agency determines.
As Bishops we do not recommend candidates for any elected office. My vote on November 6 will be for the candidate for President of the United States and members of Congress who intend to recognize the full spectrum of rights under the many conscience clauses of morality and public policy. If any candidate refuses to acknowledge and to promote those rights, then that candidate will not receive my vote.
This is a sad moment in the life of our country where religious freedom and freedom of conscience led to the formation of this new Nation under God.
Let us all pray that the power of the Holy Spirit will come upon all elected officials of our country, and that all will make decisions based upon God's revealed truth.
JUST A MINUTE, MR. PRESIDENT!
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Mr. President, you are trying to resolve the wrong problem. Your HHS new federal rule governing mandated health care services is not just about women's services and who pays for them.
Rather, the real question is what protections and guarantees are afforded Americans and our various institutions by the Constitution. Your ill-placed focus should be frightening to all Americans.
Freedom of conscience and religious liberty are not concessions grudgingly granted by the Federal Government--either directly, or by way of exemption or exception. Our nation was founded on those basic and inalienable rights as the bedrock of who we are as Americans. Our Constitution was written precisely to reject and to avoid the dreadful English model whereby the king and the government are the granter of all rights, including religious rights--as well as the single power to withdraw, limit, or negate those rights.
As a Catholic American, I am outraged not only by your incredulous contortions to justify your untenable position, I am insulted that you would think that Americans who value and treasure our Constitutional freedoms would even question your overreaching infringement on individual freedom of religion and freedom of conscience.
Your "accommodation" actually makes the entire matter far worse. Every effort must be undertaken to reverse your ill-conceived revocation of our Constitutional rights.
I encourage all Catholics and millions of others of good will in our country to challenge candidates for election to Congress and to the presidency to take a strong stance in favor of guaranteeing and protecting our nation's Constitutional rights.
I fear, Mr. President, that you are knowingly and intentionally trampling upon and reversing our Constitutional rights.
Mr. President, you are trying to resolve the wrong problem. Your HHS new federal rule governing mandated health care services is not just about women's services and who pays for them.Rather, the real question is what protections and guarantees are afforded Americans and our various institutions by the Constitution. Your ill-placed focus should be frightening to all Americans.
Freedom of conscience and religious liberty are not concessions grudgingly granted by the Federal Government--either directly, or by way of exemption or exception. Our nation was founded on those basic and inalienable rights as the bedrock of who we are as Americans. Our Constitution was written precisely to reject and to avoid the dreadful English model whereby the king and the government are the granter of all rights, including religious rights--as well as the single power to withdraw, limit, or negate those rights.
As a Catholic American, I am outraged not only by your incredulous contortions to justify your untenable position, I am insulted that you would think that Americans who value and treasure our Constitutional freedoms would even question your overreaching infringement on individual freedom of religion and freedom of conscience.
Your "accommodation" actually makes the entire matter far worse. Every effort must be undertaken to reverse your ill-conceived revocation of our Constitutional rights.
I encourage all Catholics and millions of others of good will in our country to challenge candidates for election to Congress and to the presidency to take a strong stance in favor of guaranteeing and protecting our nation's Constitutional rights.
I fear, Mr. President, that you are knowingly and intentionally trampling upon and reversing our Constitutional rights.
IMMIGRANTS STILL AT RISK
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Today's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on four provisions of Arizona's immigration law [S.B. 1070] gives some measure of relief for immigtrants in our country, but still leaves them at risk because one section of 1070 remains in place--at least for now.
The three sections of 1070 struck down by the Supreme Court are the folllowing:
Section 3: "makes failure to comply with federal alien-registration requirements a state misdemeanor"
Section 5(C): "makes it a misdemeanor for an unauthorized alien to seek or engage in work in the State [Arizona]"
Section 6: "authorizes state and local officers to arrest without a warrant a person 'the officer has probably cause to believe...has committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the United States"
Upheld by the Court is section 2(B): "requires officers conducting a stop, detention, or arrest to make efforts, in some circumstances, to verify the person's immigration status with the Federal Government"
Why should immigrants across the nation still be concerned? Because the very real threat of racial profiling of immigrants remains. The decision leaves enormous discretion in the hands of the law enforcement officers who are making a stop of a person. How is an officer to make a clear and unbiased determination in the Arizona law: "Section 2(B) of S.B. 1070 requires state officers to make a 'reasonable attempt...to determine the immigration status' of any person they stop, detain, or arrest on some other legitimate basis if 'reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien and is unlawfully present in the United States."
How is "reasonable suspicion" to be interpreted? Color of skin? Primary language? Certain physical features? How long can a person be detained while state officers seek immigration status reports from the Federal Government?
This is at the heart of the challenge to S.B. 1070 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in our Amicus Curiae Brief.
Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized these inherent dangers, and has agreed to allow Section 2(B) to go forward while implementation takes place: "This opinion does not foreclose other preemption and constitutinal challenges to the law as interpreted and applied after it goes into effect."
I am hopeful that the Church and various immigration rights organizations will monitor the implementation of this law across Arizona--as well as in other States where the same provision is enacted. Specific examples of the suspicion of racial profiling need to be documented so that any needed preemption and constitutional challenges can take place.
If I were a person of dark skin who spoke another language as my primary language, I would still be fearful of being stopped and detained because of what some might term "reasonable suspicion."
This U.S. Supreme Court decision continues to underline our need for comprehensive immigration reform so that these piecemeal approaches can be avoided, and at long last, all immigrants in our country will be clear about their status and about their options to obtain legal status.
Today's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court on four provisions of Arizona's immigration law [S.B. 1070] gives some measure of relief for immigtrants in our country, but still leaves them at risk because one section of 1070 remains in place--at least for now.The three sections of 1070 struck down by the Supreme Court are the folllowing:
Section 3: "makes failure to comply with federal alien-registration requirements a state misdemeanor"
Section 5(C): "makes it a misdemeanor for an unauthorized alien to seek or engage in work in the State [Arizona]"
Section 6: "authorizes state and local officers to arrest without a warrant a person 'the officer has probably cause to believe...has committed any public offense that makes the person removable from the United States"
Upheld by the Court is section 2(B): "requires officers conducting a stop, detention, or arrest to make efforts, in some circumstances, to verify the person's immigration status with the Federal Government"
Why should immigrants across the nation still be concerned? Because the very real threat of racial profiling of immigrants remains. The decision leaves enormous discretion in the hands of the law enforcement officers who are making a stop of a person. How is an officer to make a clear and unbiased determination in the Arizona law: "Section 2(B) of S.B. 1070 requires state officers to make a 'reasonable attempt...to determine the immigration status' of any person they stop, detain, or arrest on some other legitimate basis if 'reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien and is unlawfully present in the United States."
How is "reasonable suspicion" to be interpreted? Color of skin? Primary language? Certain physical features? How long can a person be detained while state officers seek immigration status reports from the Federal Government?
This is at the heart of the challenge to S.B. 1070 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in our Amicus Curiae Brief.
Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized these inherent dangers, and has agreed to allow Section 2(B) to go forward while implementation takes place: "This opinion does not foreclose other preemption and constitutinal challenges to the law as interpreted and applied after it goes into effect."
I am hopeful that the Church and various immigration rights organizations will monitor the implementation of this law across Arizona--as well as in other States where the same provision is enacted. Specific examples of the suspicion of racial profiling need to be documented so that any needed preemption and constitutional challenges can take place.
If I were a person of dark skin who spoke another language as my primary language, I would still be fearful of being stopped and detained because of what some might term "reasonable suspicion."
This U.S. Supreme Court decision continues to underline our need for comprehensive immigration reform so that these piecemeal approaches can be avoided, and at long last, all immigrants in our country will be clear about their status and about their options to obtain legal status.
25 Haziran 2012 Pazartesi
Immigration Experiment Under the Microscope: Very Costly, Unintended Consequences
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Another community reports that its effort to rid itself of immigrants, ends up costing dearly. For some the goal is to GET RID OF both legal and undocumented immigrants. (It's pretty easy to call this Racism.) For others it is an unintended consequence. Either way, the community pays, both financially and through lost enrichment of life.
“The Hispanic businesses and malls are empty. You used to see 100 people at the shopping center, and after the resolution, you'd see five. You noticed the difference."
This quote describes the fallout from Prince William County’s polarizing local immigration law which was passed in 2007 and modified in 2008. A three-year, $385,000 University of Virginia study of the policy released this week found that it drove out a significant number of immigrants—both legal and undocumented.See more of this article: http://www.dmiblog.com/archives/2010/11/under_the_microscope_one_count.html
Under the original policy, local police were directed to check the immigration status of any individual they had probable cause to believe was in the country without authorization. After much controversy, Prince William limited the measure in 2008 to require police officers to check the immigration status of all arrestees.
Clearly, Prince William’s immigration actions cost the county the contributions of thousands of immigrant taxpayers, workers and consumers. From 2006 to 2008, Prince William’s non-citizen Hispanic population dropped by 22 percent, or by 7,700 people. During the same period, the undocumented population decreased by an estimated 3,000 to 6,000 people.
Immigration hawks are quick to separate legal from undocumented immigrants; we’re told harsh laws aren’t anti-immigrant because they only target undocumented immigrants. The UVA study shows us that this is a naïve assumption. Too often, restrictive immigration enforcement and the corresponding policy debates also impact legal immigrants and the broader Hispanic community.
Whether UVA’s findings are indicators of the policy’s success or troubling evidence of collateral damage depends on who you ask. For county supervisors, driving out legal immigrants and Hispanics was never a goal of the measure, but an “unintended consequence.” For others, this was a victory. From the report:Some actors in the drama of the resolution’s passage had quite different goals. Some in the community who advocated the policy made clear…that they were hoping to “take back the County” by reversing the tide of rapid in-migration of Hispanics to Prince William County.Immigration restrictionists also counted this as a win for “attrition through enforcement,” a strategy that calls for crafting harsh laws to make life so untenable for undocumented immigrants they choose to leave—an approach best described as “a product of delusion and cruelty.”
Should other localities follow Prince William’s approach to immigration enforcement? The authors conclude that their results should be only applied to other jurisdictions with “great caution.” ..... Moreover, these less-than-stellar results cost Prince William almost $3 million to implement. One author of the study advises would-be copycats: “This not a free policy…Don’t try this if you don’t want to spend some money.”
What Have We Learned About Immigration? Is it time for Comprehensive Reform?
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Recently, a friend asked us what we really thought about immigration. With some reflection, we put our thoughts together in the following reply: A few years ago we began trying to educate ourselves on the issue, visiting our local immigration prison, which is owned and operated by a private corporation, the GEO Group. We were bothered by the idea of people making a profit from rounding up and incarcerating others. This seemed to us like something that should only be done by the government, if it had to be done at all. We had a vague idea that somehow the profit motive likely would creep into the mix in a way that was not good. Some investigation turned up that the GEO Group and the Corrections Corporation of America, both privately owned corporations, were spending mega bucks lobbying to get anti-immigration laws passed in several states including Arizona, Utah and Alabama and So. Carolina. Why would they do this? Because they want to fill their rooms at close to $200 per nite, just like any good business. With more stringent laws against immigrants, more customers would come. Of course, they couldn't come out and say this. What we have seen is an increase in messages about immigrants taking our jobs, not paying taxes, depleting social services, adding to our crime rates etc. So, we started reading more on the issue, spent some time working with a local Latino service organization, took workshops, and finally started this blog last May with the idea of looking at the problem from several points of view.Through all of this we have drawn some conclusions: 1. Anti-immigrant sentiment is nothing new nor limited to our current affairs or just the U.S.: all over the world immigrants are shunned and the outside ethnic group is always seen as inferior. Just a few which come to mind: Shiite and Sunni, Japanese and Chinese, Kurds and Turks, Slavs and Croats, Romanians in Spain ( the Spanish gov. recently was offering them money to go back to Romania, if they promised to stay there for 5 yrs ! ), Catholic Irish vs. English Protestants, the Algerians in France etc. In the US we have historically found groups that were easy to discriminate against: Native Americans, Italians, Germans, Irish, Chinese, Japanese, Africans, and now Latinos. 2. There is always an element of "otherness" commonly based on religion or skin color or language in the "outside" group. 3. Those in a position of influence ( talk show hosts, politicians, religious leaders, and in some cases even teachers) tend to take sides. Those who exacerbate the dislike of the scapegoat, usually focus on the "otherness" and try to foment fear of the unknown. Most people naturally have certain fears of that which is outside their comfort zone, their realm of familiarity. So, this is an easy way to persuade the populace of the demons in "those people." We hear terms like "the axis of evil," and "They are either for us, or against us." or "They are taking away our jobs." This is a common one in our current financially stressful world. 4. With the passage of time, at least in the US, our "social mind-set" or popular image softens toward many of our formerly disliked groups. Think of the changes we have seen in attitudes in our lifetime toward, say, African Americans, Japanese, and the Vietnamese. These changes come slowly, with influence makers and moms in sneakers speaking out. 
5. Seeing the above pattern repeat itself several times in our lives, we now are much more skeptical of accepting the initial demagoguery. 6. Based on our own experiences and observations, we have found the Mexicans we have met here in the US and Mexico, mostly genuine, generous, hard-working people, who are trying to make the best of their lives. The newly emigrated are leaving poverty, violence and corruption, looking for a new beginning, a second chance. When we recently read in an internet forum a comment from a woman who described herself as a conservative, born again Christian who thought that all Mexicans should be deported, what came to mind was that the essence of both Christianity and immigration is a second chance, a new beginning, an opportunity to start fresh. She obviously saw life differently from us.
7. Attempts to force immigrants out of our communities has proven repeatedly unworkable. The resulting economic impact is disastrous to those who pass such legislation. The immigrants, both legal and illegal, have their lives and families thrown into chaos. For some, this may be the goal. For us, it is unfathomable. 8. So, indeed, we would favor changing our laws to provide a path to citizenship. Perhaps fines may be a part of the equation, but few will be able to pay them. If it is found that back taxes are owed, certainly employers would be required to pay their portions, along with penalties and interest. We think that it will be nearly impossible to find small business employers who have relied in the past on undocumented workers, now willing to step up and pay these back taxes, fines and interest. Hence, "making up for the past" is a difficult part of the solution. Criminal records should be examined and not allowed for violent crimes. Service to the country (USA) in the form of work in the Peace Corps, Americore etc would be a good thing. Basic English proficiency should be required, as well as knowledge of our governmental system. We see this not as amnesty. Rather it represents a means of earning a way into our system. In the early days of our country, many people earned their way in - as indentured servants. When they could not pay for their passage across the ocean, they "borrowed" the money from a landowner already living in this country, then worked for that owner for five to seven years without pay.
HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION IN USA
(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_immigration_to_the_United_States )
1630 to 1830
The peak New England settlement occurred from about 1629 to about 1641 when about 20,000 Puritan settlers arrived. In the next 150 years, their descendants largely filled in the New England states and parts of upstate New York.
While the 13 colonies had differences in detail, they had many things in common. Nearly all were settled and financed by privately organized groups of English settlers or families using private free enterprise without any significant English Royal or Parliamentary government support or input.
They nearly all established their own popularly elected governments and courts on as many levels as they could and were nearly all, within a few years, mostly armed, self governing, self supporting and self replicating. This self ruling pattern became so ingrained that almost all new settlements by one or more groups of settlers would have their own government up and running shortly after they settled down for the next 200 years. Nearly all, after a hundred years plus of living together, had learned to tolerate other religions than their own.
Nearly all colonies and later, states in the United States, were settled by migration from another colony or state, as foreign immigration usually only played a minor role after the initial settlements were started. Many new immigrants did end up on the frontiers as that was where the land was usually the cheapest.
Although Spain set up a few forts in Florida, notably San AgustÃn (present-day Saint Augustine) in 1565, they sent few settlers. Spaniards moving north from Mexico founded the San Juan on the Rio Grande in 1598, and Santa Fe in 1607-1608.
There was relatively little immigration from 1770 to 1830; indeed there was significant outmigration to Canada, including about 75,000 Loyalists as well as Germans and other looking for better farms in what is now Ontario. Nearly all population growth up to 1830 was by internal increase; about 98.5% of the population was native-born. Large scale immigration resumed in the 1830s from Britain, Ireland, Germany and other parts of western Europe.
1830
Between 1831 and 1840, immigration more than quadrupled to a total of 599,000. These included about 207,000 Irish, starting to emigrate in large numbers following Britain's easing of travel restrictions, and about 152,000 Germans, 76,000 British, and 46,000 French, constituting the next largest immigrant groups of the decade.
Between 1841 and 1850, immigration nearly tripled again , totaling 1,713,000 immigrants, including at least 781,000 Irish, 435,000 Germans, 267,000 British and 77,000 French immigrants.
By 1850, this had shifted to about 90% native-born. The first significant Catholic immigration started in the mid 1840s, shifting the population from about 95% Protestant down to about 90% by 1850.
In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, concluding the Mexican War, extended U.S. citizenship to approximately 60,000 Mexican residents of the New Mexico Territory and 10,000 living in California. An additional approximate 2,500 foreign born California residents also become U.S. citizens.
In 1849, the California Gold Rush brought in over 100,000 would-be miners from the eastern U.S., Latin America, China, Australia, and Europe.
1870After 1870 steam powered larger and faster ships, with lower fares. Meanwhile farming improvements in southern and eastern Europe created surplus populations that needed to move on. As usual, young people age 15 to 30 predominated among the newcomers. This wave of migration, which constituted the third episode in the history of U.S. immigration, could better be referred to as a flood of immigrants, as nearly 25 million Europeans made the voyage. Italians, Greeks, Hungarians, Poles, and others speaking Slavic languages constituted the bulk of this migration. Included among them were 2.5 to 4 million Jews.
Anti Immigration
Their urban destinations, their numbers, and perhaps an antipathy towards foreigners led to the emergence of a second wave of organized xenophobia. By the 1890s, many Americans, particularly from the ranks of the well-off, white, native-born, considered immigration to pose a serious danger to the nation’s health and security. In 1893 a group of them formed the Immigration Restriction League, and it, along with other similarly inclined organizations, began to press Congress for severe curtailment of foreign immigration.
Irish and German Catholic immigration was opposed in the 1850s by the Nativist/Know Nothing movement, originating in New York in 1843 as the American Republican Party. It was empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by Catholic immigrants , who were often regarded as hostile to American values and controlled by the Pope in Rome.Shortly after the U.S. Civil War, some states started to pass their own immigration laws, which prompted the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in 1875 that immigration was a federal responsibility.[26] In 1875, the nation passed its first immigration law, the Page Act of 1875, also known as the Asian Exclusion Act, outlawing the importation of unwilling Chinese women for sex slavery.[27]
The Dillingham Commission was instituted by the United States Congress in 1907 to investigate the effects of immigration on the country. The Commission's analysis of American immigration during the previous three decades led it to conclude that the major source of immigration had shifted from northern and western Europeans to southern and eastern Europeans. The 1910s marked the high point of Italian immigration to the United States. Over two million Italians immigrated in those years, with a total of 5.3 million between 1880 and 1920.
About 1.5 million Swedes and Norwegians immigrated to the United States within this period, due to opportunity in America and poverty and religious oppression in united Sweden-Norway.
Over two million Eastern Europeans, mainly Catholics and Jews, immigrated between 1880 and 1924. People of Polish ancestry are the largest Eastern European ancestry group in the United States.
Congress passed a literacy requirement in 1917 to curb the influx of low-skilled immigrants from entering the country.
Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act in 1921, followed by the Immigration Act of 1924, which was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s. In 1924 quotas were set for European immigrants so that no more than 2% of the 1890 immigrant stocks were allowed into America.
Restriction proceeded piecemeal over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but immediately after the end of World War I (1914-1918) and into the early 1920s, Congress did change the nation’s basic policy about immigration. The National Origins Formula of 1921 (and its final form in 1924) not only restricted the number of immigrants who might enter the United States but also assigned slots according to quotas based on national origins. A complicated piece of legislation, it essentially gave preference to immigrants from northern and western Europe, severely limited the numbers from eastern and southern Europe, and declared all potential immigrants from Asia to be unworthy of entry into the United States.
The legislation excluded the Western Hemisphere from the quota system, and the 1920s ushered in the penultimate era in U.S. immigration history. Immigrants could and did move quite freely from Mexico, the Caribbean (including Jamaica, Barbados, and Haiti), and other parts of Central and South America. This era, which reflected the application of the 1924 legislation, lasted until 1965.
In 1952, the McCarran Walter Immigration Act affirmed the national-origins quota system of 1924 and limited total annual immigration to one-sixth of one percent of the population of the continental United States in 1920, or 175,455. The act exempted spouses and children of U.S. citizens and people born in the Western Hemisphere from the quota.
In 1954, Operation Wetback forced the return of thousands of illegal immigrants to Mexico. [4]. Between 1944 and 1954, "the decade of the wetback," the number of illegal immigrants coming from Mexico increased by 6,000 percent. It is estimated that, in 1954, before Operation Wetback got under way, more than a million workers had crossed the Rio Grande illegally.
It is difficult to estimate the number of illegal immigrants that left due to the operation—most voluntarily. The INS claimed as many as 1,300,000, though the number officially apprehended did not come anywhere near this total. The program was ultimately abandoned due to questions surrounding the ethics of its implementation. Citizens of Mexican descent complained of police stopping all "Mexican looking" people and utilizing extreme “police-state” methods including deportation of American-born children who by law were citizens.[40]
In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was passed, creating, for the first time, penalties for employers who hired illegal immigrants. IRCA, as proposed in Congress, was projected to give amnesty to about 1,000,000 workers in the country illegally. In practice, amnesty for about 3,000,000 immigrants already in the United States was granted. Most were from Mexico. Legal Mexican immigrant family numbers were 2,198,000 in 1980, 4,289,000 in 1990 (includes IRCA) and 7,841,000 in 2000.
SOME CURRENT ARGUMENTS ABOUT IMMIGRATION
(Source: Immigration Policy Center:
According to the anti-immigration group NumbersUSA, immigration to the United States is all about arithmetic: immigration increases the U.S. population, and more people presumably means more pollution, more urban sprawl, more competition for jobs, and higher taxes for Americans who must shoulder the costs of “over-population.” At first glance, this argument is attractive in its simplicity: less immigration, fewer people, a better environment, more jobs, lower taxes. However, as with so many simple arguments about complex topics, it is fundamentally flawed and misses the point. “Over-population” is not the primary cause of the environmental or economic woes facing the United States, so arbitrary restrictions on immigration will not create a cleaner environment or a healthier economy.
Environment
Taxes and State Services. 1. I have a friend who is an employer, currently looking to hire someone. 2. If he hires someone “above board,” paying all taxes, it will cost him $ 15 per hour after collecting the taxes from the employee, adding the employer's portion of the taxes and sending them to the government. ( This is the only legal way to do it.) 3. If he hires a legal citizen “under the table” without sending any taxes to the government, he might get the same work done for $ 11 per hour. For various reasons many citizens prefer this. 4. If he hires an illegal immigrant he might get the work done for $ 8 per hour.
5. What then is the value of the work? Those who argue that illegals are “stealing our jobs” would have to say that the value is $15 per hour since that is what they see as the loss to their income. The government would agree. 6. In a quid pro quo equation there are two parts: the worker gives an hour of time; the employer gives $15. 7. BUT when an illegal gives his hour of time and the employer only gives up $8, who is shorting the system (State of Calif., for instance) causing the state to go bankrupt? It's not the immigrant and his kids who are draining the system dry. Now, if all the farmers, business owners and homeowners who have hired someone to do their gardening would just pay back all the money they have pocketed by paying immigrants below the prevailing wages, plus interest and penalties, the state system would be solvent. The real moral question is, "Who has stolen the money from the state?" 8. For a good book that illustrates this concept of thinking deeper, asking the right questions, look at the #1 best seller Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner.
7. Attempts to force immigrants out of our communities has proven repeatedly unworkable. The resulting economic impact is disastrous to those who pass such legislation. The immigrants, both legal and illegal, have their lives and families thrown into chaos. For some, this may be the goal. For us, it is unfathomable. 8. So, indeed, we would favor changing our laws to provide a path to citizenship. Perhaps fines may be a part of the equation, but few will be able to pay them. If it is found that back taxes are owed, certainly employers would be required to pay their portions, along with penalties and interest. We think that it will be nearly impossible to find small business employers who have relied in the past on undocumented workers, now willing to step up and pay these back taxes, fines and interest. Hence, "making up for the past" is a difficult part of the solution. Criminal records should be examined and not allowed for violent crimes. Service to the country (USA) in the form of work in the Peace Corps, Americore etc would be a good thing. Basic English proficiency should be required, as well as knowledge of our governmental system. We see this not as amnesty. Rather it represents a means of earning a way into our system. In the early days of our country, many people earned their way in - as indentured servants. When they could not pay for their passage across the ocean, they "borrowed" the money from a landowner already living in this country, then worked for that owner for five to seven years without pay.
HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION IN USA
(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_immigration_to_the_United_States )
1630 to 1830
The peak New England settlement occurred from about 1629 to about 1641 when about 20,000 Puritan settlers arrived. In the next 150 years, their descendants largely filled in the New England states and parts of upstate New York.
While the 13 colonies had differences in detail, they had many things in common. Nearly all were settled and financed by privately organized groups of English settlers or families using private free enterprise without any significant English Royal or Parliamentary government support or input.
They nearly all established their own popularly elected governments and courts on as many levels as they could and were nearly all, within a few years, mostly armed, self governing, self supporting and self replicating. This self ruling pattern became so ingrained that almost all new settlements by one or more groups of settlers would have their own government up and running shortly after they settled down for the next 200 years. Nearly all, after a hundred years plus of living together, had learned to tolerate other religions than their own.
Nearly all colonies and later, states in the United States, were settled by migration from another colony or state, as foreign immigration usually only played a minor role after the initial settlements were started. Many new immigrants did end up on the frontiers as that was where the land was usually the cheapest.
Although Spain set up a few forts in Florida, notably San AgustÃn (present-day Saint Augustine) in 1565, they sent few settlers. Spaniards moving north from Mexico founded the San Juan on the Rio Grande in 1598, and Santa Fe in 1607-1608.
There was relatively little immigration from 1770 to 1830; indeed there was significant outmigration to Canada, including about 75,000 Loyalists as well as Germans and other looking for better farms in what is now Ontario. Nearly all population growth up to 1830 was by internal increase; about 98.5% of the population was native-born. Large scale immigration resumed in the 1830s from Britain, Ireland, Germany and other parts of western Europe.
1830
Between 1831 and 1840, immigration more than quadrupled to a total of 599,000. These included about 207,000 Irish, starting to emigrate in large numbers following Britain's easing of travel restrictions, and about 152,000 Germans, 76,000 British, and 46,000 French, constituting the next largest immigrant groups of the decade.
Between 1841 and 1850, immigration nearly tripled again , totaling 1,713,000 immigrants, including at least 781,000 Irish, 435,000 Germans, 267,000 British and 77,000 French immigrants.
By 1850, this had shifted to about 90% native-born. The first significant Catholic immigration started in the mid 1840s, shifting the population from about 95% Protestant down to about 90% by 1850.
In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, concluding the Mexican War, extended U.S. citizenship to approximately 60,000 Mexican residents of the New Mexico Territory and 10,000 living in California. An additional approximate 2,500 foreign born California residents also become U.S. citizens.
In 1849, the California Gold Rush brought in over 100,000 would-be miners from the eastern U.S., Latin America, China, Australia, and Europe.
1870After 1870 steam powered larger and faster ships, with lower fares. Meanwhile farming improvements in southern and eastern Europe created surplus populations that needed to move on. As usual, young people age 15 to 30 predominated among the newcomers. This wave of migration, which constituted the third episode in the history of U.S. immigration, could better be referred to as a flood of immigrants, as nearly 25 million Europeans made the voyage. Italians, Greeks, Hungarians, Poles, and others speaking Slavic languages constituted the bulk of this migration. Included among them were 2.5 to 4 million Jews.
Anti Immigration
Their urban destinations, their numbers, and perhaps an antipathy towards foreigners led to the emergence of a second wave of organized xenophobia. By the 1890s, many Americans, particularly from the ranks of the well-off, white, native-born, considered immigration to pose a serious danger to the nation’s health and security. In 1893 a group of them formed the Immigration Restriction League, and it, along with other similarly inclined organizations, began to press Congress for severe curtailment of foreign immigration.
The Dillingham Commission was instituted by the United States Congress in 1907 to investigate the effects of immigration on the country. The Commission's analysis of American immigration during the previous three decades led it to conclude that the major source of immigration had shifted from northern and western Europeans to southern and eastern Europeans. The 1910s marked the high point of Italian immigration to the United States. Over two million Italians immigrated in those years, with a total of 5.3 million between 1880 and 1920.
About 1.5 million Swedes and Norwegians immigrated to the United States within this period, due to opportunity in America and poverty and religious oppression in united Sweden-Norway.
Over two million Eastern Europeans, mainly Catholics and Jews, immigrated between 1880 and 1924. People of Polish ancestry are the largest Eastern European ancestry group in the United States.
Congress passed a literacy requirement in 1917 to curb the influx of low-skilled immigrants from entering the country.
Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act in 1921, followed by the Immigration Act of 1924, which was aimed at further restricting the Southern and Eastern Europeans who had begun to enter the country in large numbers beginning in the 1890s. In 1924 quotas were set for European immigrants so that no more than 2% of the 1890 immigrant stocks were allowed into America.
Restriction proceeded piecemeal over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but immediately after the end of World War I (1914-1918) and into the early 1920s, Congress did change the nation’s basic policy about immigration. The National Origins Formula of 1921 (and its final form in 1924) not only restricted the number of immigrants who might enter the United States but also assigned slots according to quotas based on national origins. A complicated piece of legislation, it essentially gave preference to immigrants from northern and western Europe, severely limited the numbers from eastern and southern Europe, and declared all potential immigrants from Asia to be unworthy of entry into the United States.
The legislation excluded the Western Hemisphere from the quota system, and the 1920s ushered in the penultimate era in U.S. immigration history. Immigrants could and did move quite freely from Mexico, the Caribbean (including Jamaica, Barbados, and Haiti), and other parts of Central and South America. This era, which reflected the application of the 1924 legislation, lasted until 1965.
In 1952, the McCarran Walter Immigration Act affirmed the national-origins quota system of 1924 and limited total annual immigration to one-sixth of one percent of the population of the continental United States in 1920, or 175,455. The act exempted spouses and children of U.S. citizens and people born in the Western Hemisphere from the quota.
In 1954, Operation Wetback forced the return of thousands of illegal immigrants to Mexico. [4]. Between 1944 and 1954, "the decade of the wetback," the number of illegal immigrants coming from Mexico increased by 6,000 percent. It is estimated that, in 1954, before Operation Wetback got under way, more than a million workers had crossed the Rio Grande illegally.
It is difficult to estimate the number of illegal immigrants that left due to the operation—most voluntarily. The INS claimed as many as 1,300,000, though the number officially apprehended did not come anywhere near this total. The program was ultimately abandoned due to questions surrounding the ethics of its implementation. Citizens of Mexican descent complained of police stopping all "Mexican looking" people and utilizing extreme “police-state” methods including deportation of American-born children who by law were citizens.[40]
In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was passed, creating, for the first time, penalties for employers who hired illegal immigrants. IRCA, as proposed in Congress, was projected to give amnesty to about 1,000,000 workers in the country illegally. In practice, amnesty for about 3,000,000 immigrants already in the United States was granted. Most were from Mexico. Legal Mexican immigrant family numbers were 2,198,000 in 1980, 4,289,000 in 1990 (includes IRCA) and 7,841,000 in 2000.
SOME CURRENT ARGUMENTS ABOUT IMMIGRATION
(Source: Immigration Policy Center:
Fuzzy Math: The Anti-Immigration Arguments of NumbersUSA Don't Add Up |
Environment
- According to the World Resources Institute, the United States is home to 23% fewer people than the European nations of the EU-15, yet produced 70% more greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, as of 2000.
- Environmental degradation is caused by a host of factors unrelated to population size, such as the degree to which a society depends upon polluting and non-renewable fossil fuels; utilizes pollution-reduction technologies; develops systems of mass transit to minimize individual automobile use; uses plastics and other non-biodegradable materials in manufacturing and packaging consumer goods; recycles potentially recyclable materials; and controls agricultural run-off into waterways.
- A few people can pollute a lot, or a lot of people can pollute a little, depending on the systems of production and consumption within a society. The problem is less about how many people are in the United States, and more about how the United States produces and consumes.
Immigrants Don’t “Steal” Jobs
- NumbersUSA argues that immigration imposes a financial burden on U.S. taxpayers because most immigrants earn relatively low wages and therefore don’t pay enough in taxes to cover the cost of the public benefits and services they receive.
- This argument is based on a narrow and misleading fiscal snapshot of how much the health and educational services utilized by immigrants and their children—even those born in the United States—“cost” in comparison to the taxes they pay at a single point in time. In reality, the income levels and tax contributions of immigrants tend to increase over time, and all children are “costly” when they are still in school and not yet working, tax-paying adults. A more accurate fiscal analysis would estimate how much immigrants and their children pay in taxes and utilize in public services over their lifetimes.
- Even a lifetime fiscal accounting does not capture the many other economic contributions that workers—both immigrant and native-born—make through their consumer purchasing power and formation of new businesses, both of which increase the nation’s economic output, create jobs, and provide federal, state, and local governments with additional revenue through sales, income, business, and property taxes.
- Because it ignores the many economic contributions that workers make over their lifetimes, the one-year fiscal snapshot favored by NumbersUSA would also incorrectly portray the more than 32 million native-born Americans who live below the federal poverty line, as well as nearly all native-born retirees, as a net “burden” on U.S. taxpayers.
- NumbersUSA portrays immigrant workers as little more than job competition for native-born workers. In truth, most immigrants are not competing with most natives for the same jobs.
- Immigrants tend to have either very little education or a great deal of education, while most natives fall somewhere in the middle of the educational spectrum, which means they are filling different niches in the labor force. As a result, immigrants usually complement the native-born workforce—which increases the productivity, and therefore the wages, of natives.
- A 2006 study by economist Giovanni Peri of the University of California-Davis found that, between 1990 and 2004, the roughly 90% of native-born workers with at least a high-school diploma experienced wage gains because of immigration that ranged from 0.7% to 3.4%, depending on their level of education.
- A May 2009 report by Rob Paral & Associates demonstrates that, even in the midst of the current economic recession, there is no correlation between the presence of immigrants in the labor market of a particular locale and the unemployment rate among native-born whites, blacks, Latinos, or Asians.
- The reliance of the U.S. economy upon immigrant workers is unlikely to diminish in the coming decades given the seriousness of the “aging” crisis precipitated by the impending retirement of the Baby Boom generation.
- A 2008 report by demographer Dowell Myers of the University of Southern California estimates that the ratio of seniors (age 65 and older) to working-age adults (25 to 64) will increase by 67 percent between 2010 and 2030. Immigrants, who tend to be younger than natives, will be increasingly important as workers, taxpayers, and homebuyers.
Taxes and State Services. 1. I have a friend who is an employer, currently looking to hire someone. 2. If he hires someone “above board,” paying all taxes, it will cost him $ 15 per hour after collecting the taxes from the employee, adding the employer's portion of the taxes and sending them to the government. ( This is the only legal way to do it.) 3. If he hires a legal citizen “under the table” without sending any taxes to the government, he might get the same work done for $ 11 per hour. For various reasons many citizens prefer this. 4. If he hires an illegal immigrant he might get the work done for $ 8 per hour.
Where to Start: Working Toward Cooperation
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Many of you readers may be wondering "What can I do to start moving in the direction of cooperation and support with immigrants in my community? " Here is an organization that can help you get started. It works with grassroots efforts do build community relations across ethnic lines throughout the US. Oakley, California is just one such town that has decided to take a step in this direction.
The Story of Welcoming from Active Voice on Vimeo.
The Story of Welcoming from Active Voice on Vimeo.
Becoming Legal: An Immigrant's Path to Citizenship
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A short course on immigration in the USA:
1. Anti-immigrant sentiment is nothing new nor limited to our current affairs or just the U.S.: all over the world immigrants are shunned and the outside ethnic group is always seen as inferior. Just a few which come to mind: Shiite and Sunni, Japanese and Chinese, Kurds and Turks, Slavs and Croats, Romanians in Spain ( the Spanish gov. recently was offering them money to go back to Romania, if they promised to stay there for 5 yrs ! ), Catholic Irish vs. English Protestants, the Algerians in France etc. In the US we have historically found groups that were easy to discriminate against: Native Americans, Italians, Germans, Irish, Chinese, Japanese, Africans, and now Latinos.
2. There is always an element of "otherness" commonly based on religion or skin color or language in the "outside" group. 3. Those in a position of influence ( talk show hosts, politicians, religious leaders, and in some cases even teachers) tend to take sides. Those who exacerbate the dislike of the scapegoat, usually focus on the "otherness" and try to foment fear of the unknown. Most people naturally have certain fears of that which is outside their comfort zone, their realm of familiarity. So, this is an easy way to persuade the populace of the demons in "those people." We hear terms like "the axis of evil," and "They are either for us, or against us." or "They are taking away our jobs." This is a common one in our current financially stressful world. 4. With the passage of time, at least in the US, our "social mind-set" or popular image softens toward many of our formerly disliked groups. Think of the changes we have seen in attitudes in our lifetime toward, say, African Americans, Japanese, and the Vietnamese. These changes come slowly, with influence makers and moms in sneakers speaking out. 5. Seeing the above pattern repeat itself several times in our lives, we now are much more skeptical of accepting the initial demagoguery. 6. Based on our own experiences and observations, we have found the hispanics we have met here in the US and Latin America, mostly genuine, generous, hard-working people, who are trying to make the best of their lives. The newly emigrated are leaving poverty, violence and corruption, looking for a new beginning, a second chance. When we recently read in an internet forum a comment from a woman who described herself as a conservative, born again Christian who thought that all Mexicans should be deported, what came to mind was that the essence of both Christianity and immigration is a second chance, a new beginning, an opportunity to start fresh. She obviously saw life differently from us.
7. Attempts to force immigrants out of our communities have repeatedly proven unworkable. The resulting economic impact is disastrous to those on both sides of the tracks. The citizen farmers and small business owners find themselves without customers and workers. The immigrants, both legal and illegal, have their lives and families thrown into chaos. For some, this may be the goal. For us, it is unfathomable. 8. So, indeed, we would favor changing our laws to provide a path to citizenship. Perhaps fines may be a part of the equation, but few will be able to pay them. If it is found that back taxes are owed, certainly employers would be required to pay their portions, along with penalties and interest. We think that it will be nearly impossible to find small business employers who have relied in the past on undocumented workers, now willing to step up and pay these back taxes, fines and interest. Hence, "making up for the past" is a difficult part of the solution. Criminal records should be examined and not allowed for violent crimes. Service to the country (USA) in the form of work in the Peace Corps, Americorps etc would be a good thing. Basic English proficiency should be required, as well as knowledge of our governmental system. We see this not as amnesty. Rather it represents a means of earning a way into our system. In the early days of our country, many people earned their way in - as indentured servants. When they could not pay for their passage across the ocean, they "borrowed" the money from a landowner already living in this country, then worked for that owner for five to seven years without pay. Hence, working to achieve legal status and citizenship in the US is nothing new.
7. Attempts to force immigrants out of our communities have repeatedly proven unworkable. The resulting economic impact is disastrous to those on both sides of the tracks. The citizen farmers and small business owners find themselves without customers and workers. The immigrants, both legal and illegal, have their lives and families thrown into chaos. For some, this may be the goal. For us, it is unfathomable. 8. So, indeed, we would favor changing our laws to provide a path to citizenship. Perhaps fines may be a part of the equation, but few will be able to pay them. If it is found that back taxes are owed, certainly employers would be required to pay their portions, along with penalties and interest. We think that it will be nearly impossible to find small business employers who have relied in the past on undocumented workers, now willing to step up and pay these back taxes, fines and interest. Hence, "making up for the past" is a difficult part of the solution. Criminal records should be examined and not allowed for violent crimes. Service to the country (USA) in the form of work in the Peace Corps, Americorps etc would be a good thing. Basic English proficiency should be required, as well as knowledge of our governmental system. We see this not as amnesty. Rather it represents a means of earning a way into our system. In the early days of our country, many people earned their way in - as indentured servants. When they could not pay for their passage across the ocean, they "borrowed" the money from a landowner already living in this country, then worked for that owner for five to seven years without pay. Hence, working to achieve legal status and citizenship in the US is nothing new.Alabama's Attorney General makes claims about "Illegal Aliens"
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Alabama Attorney General, Luther Strange, testifying before Congress. Photo by lutherstrange.
Excerpts from the Immigration Impact by Wendy Sefsaf
Oct 12, 2011
CLAIM: Yesterday, Alabama’s Attorney General claimed that “illegal aliens” make up a substantial portion of the state’s prison population.
FACT: Alabama's prison population: 31,000 -- 182 of which are currently subject to deportation based on holds placed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That is about 1/2 of one percent.
CLAIM: Yesterday, Alabama’s Attorney General claimed “many of these people are taking jobs away from United States citizens."
FACT: Alabamas unemployment rate hovers around 10%. To say that one undocumented worker fired is one documented worker hired might be politically expedient, but the research actually shows just the opposite. Undocumented workers tend to have different skills, education, and experience levels than native-born workers. In fact, if a 1 to 1 worker replacement was the answer, why is the Governor considering using the prison population to alleviate a severe worker shortage on Alabama farms? Where are all those unemployed Americans waiting to work in the fields?
CLAIM: The Alabama’s Attorney General claims there are "difficulties in collecting taxes from these persons ["illegal aliens"], many of whom work off the books, means that many of them are utilizing Alabama’s public resources without paying their fair share.”
FACT: According to the Institute on Tax and Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants in Alabama pay $25 million in income taxes, $5.8 million in property taxes, and $98 million in sales taxes, for a total contribution of more than $130 million.
The actual costs to Alabama’s economy have yet to be determined, and no real estimates have been provided by the lawmakers behind HB56. It has always been the case that estimating the costs and contributions of unauthorized immigrants is not an exact science. But Alabama is about to make it a bit easier. No longer will losing your undocumented population be an abstract proposition. In Alabama it’s about to be a reality, and with it the economic ramifications of a mass exodus of workers, consumers, and taxpayers from an already struggling state economy.
See more from the source: http://immigrationimpact.com/2011/10/12/the-facts-and-numbers-don%e2%80%99t-matter-in-alabama/
Alabama Attorney General, Luther Strange, testifying before Congress. Photo by lutherstrange.
Excerpts from the Immigration Impact by Wendy Sefsaf
Oct 12, 2011
CLAIM: Yesterday, Alabama’s Attorney General claimed that “illegal aliens” make up a substantial portion of the state’s prison population.
FACT: Alabama's prison population: 31,000 -- 182 of which are currently subject to deportation based on holds placed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That is about 1/2 of one percent.
CLAIM: Yesterday, Alabama’s Attorney General claimed “many of these people are taking jobs away from United States citizens."
FACT: Alabamas unemployment rate hovers around 10%. To say that one undocumented worker fired is one documented worker hired might be politically expedient, but the research actually shows just the opposite. Undocumented workers tend to have different skills, education, and experience levels than native-born workers. In fact, if a 1 to 1 worker replacement was the answer, why is the Governor considering using the prison population to alleviate a severe worker shortage on Alabama farms? Where are all those unemployed Americans waiting to work in the fields?
CLAIM: The Alabama’s Attorney General claims there are "difficulties in collecting taxes from these persons ["illegal aliens"], many of whom work off the books, means that many of them are utilizing Alabama’s public resources without paying their fair share.”
FACT: According to the Institute on Tax and Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants in Alabama pay $25 million in income taxes, $5.8 million in property taxes, and $98 million in sales taxes, for a total contribution of more than $130 million.
The actual costs to Alabama’s economy have yet to be determined, and no real estimates have been provided by the lawmakers behind HB56. It has always been the case that estimating the costs and contributions of unauthorized immigrants is not an exact science. But Alabama is about to make it a bit easier. No longer will losing your undocumented population be an abstract proposition. In Alabama it’s about to be a reality, and with it the economic ramifications of a mass exodus of workers, consumers, and taxpayers from an already struggling state economy.
See more from the source: http://immigrationimpact.com/2011/10/12/the-facts-and-numbers-don%e2%80%99t-matter-in-alabama/
24 Haziran 2012 Pazar
22 NEW CARDINALS
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On Saturday, February 18, Pope Benedict XVI created 22 new Cardinals for the service of the Church. Since Cardinals in the Church wear bright red vestments, both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict have emphasized the symbolism of the bright red color. It is not a color of distinction or privilege, rather, it is a color which designates the willingness to shed one's blood for Jesus Christ and His Church. The words of our Holy Father in his homily are poignant: "...the life and the death of Peter the Prince of the Apostles, who for love of Christ gave himself even unto the ultimate sacrifice, will be an example and a helpful witness of faith for the new Cardinals. It is with this meaning that the placing of the red biretta is also to be understood. The new Cardinals are entrusted with the service of love: love for God, love for his Church, an absolute and unconditional love for his brothers and sisters, even unto shedding their blood, if necessary, as expressed in the words of placing the biretta and as indicated by the color of their robes. Furthermore, they are asked to serve the Church with love and vigor, with the transparency and widom of teachers, with the energy and strength of shepherds, with the fidelity and courage of martyrs. They are to be eminent servants of the Church that finds in Peter the visible foundation of unity." The Gospel chosen for the Consistory of new Cardinals was Mark 10:35-45, the story about the ambition of James and John--their request to sit at the right and left of Jesus in the Kingdom of God. Our Holy Father stressed to the Cardinals the need to follow the example of Jesus who came, not to be served, but to serve and hand over his life for all. The words of Pope Benedict: "Dominion and service, egoism and altruism, possession and gift, self-interest and gratuitousness: these profoundly contrasting approaches confront each other in every age and place. There is no doubt about the path chosen by Jesus: he does not merely indicate it with words to the disciples of then and of today, but he lives it in his own flesh. He explains, in fact, 'For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.' These words shed light upon todays' public Consistory with a particular intensity. They resound in the depths of the soul and represent an invitation and a reminder, a commission and an encouragement especially for you, dear and venerable Brothers who are about to be enrolled in the College of Cardinals." This is the eighth Consistory of new Cardinals since my own Consistory back in 1991. A similar message has been proclaimed by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI over the years, a message both ancient but ever new. These words this year provide me a renewed opportuntiy to commit myself with renewed vigor to our Lord Jesus Christ and to His Church, and to offer myself in total service to God's plan of salvation--with a willingness to suffer as did Jesus, and a devotion to the service of others in His name.
HUNTED IN ALABAMA
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The state is driving out its illegal immigrants. Businesses want them back. Meet the men and women in the middle.
An article by Patrick Symmes. Appeared in the February 13, 2012 issue of Newsweek magazine.
The front door is locked on this brown-and-cream mobile home, an aluminum outpost at the end of a pine-tree trailer park beyond Birmingham, Ala. But the back door flaps open in a winter wind. Inside are a bag of red beans, some pet food, and a pair of high heels. Nothing else. Even the beds are gone. "Six people," a neighbor says in Spanish, struggling to recall something from the anonymity of immigrant life. "Men, women, children. The law came in, and one day they just didn't come home."
The law: that would be H.B. 56, Alabama's attempt at the nation's most rigorous crackdown on illegal immigrants. On Sept. 23, 2011, when H.B. 56 came into effect, it cut off all state and local services to the undocumented. No driver's licenses, no registration for cars, no scholarships, no hiring without a document check. Enrolling in one of Alabama's public colleges requires proof of legal residency in the United States. Hiring, renting property to, or simply "harboring" undocumented foreigners is illegal. H.B. 56's one-signature provision--deputizing local police officers to turn traffic stops into deportation proceedings--assumes powers long reserved to the federal government.
The law had its desired effect, sort of. Illegals did flee. Alabama reported a drop in school enrollment, especially in rural areas. This trailer and about 50 like it in a park of 300 were soon evacuated. Immigrants sold their possessions for cash and drove to Florida or California, wherever they felt safer.
But Alabama's crackdown hasn't played out quite as expected. A group of Mexican men unloading a pickup truck explain they fled the state, but after just a month in Florida, they came back. They pointed out an obvious irony: as H.G. 56 scared off some immigrants, others found that jobs were now going begging. And these men had now rented the same trailer for less than they paid in September.
"Alabama's a good place," said 51-year-old construction worker Javier Flores. "There's all types of people."
If Alabama is the GOP's latest front in the war on illegal immigration, then the battle is far from won. The tired and poor, the huddled masses, are still here, yearning to rent cheap and work hard. All the crackdown in Alabama has done is push people deeper into the woodwork. Yet immigrants remain everywhere in Alabama, hiding in plain sight, evading the crackdown with GPS strategies and shared text alerts. Family networks and the surprising kindness of strangers have given them camouflage.
In this tense environment, immigrants drive slowly and stay low. "We couldn't be more hidden," one man says.
In short, the law is immensely popular--and it's not working very well. It has disrupted business in Alabama, and enforcement is proving costly. The state legislature last week began work on modifying the law.
But modify only. "It won't be repealed," says a confident Gov. Robert J. Bentley, a Republican from Tuscaloosa. In one poll, 73 percent of Alabamans supported H.B. 56; Bentley notes that the measure is almost as popular nationally. "I never go on television without getting asked about it," he says.
Bentley, a physician who began working at the state capital in his 20s, calls federal policy a "failure" that requires Alabama to step in and "uphold the state and federal constitutions."
Besides, there's not much percentage in a Republican letting up on the issue. When Newt Gingrich suggested in a November debate that "immigration policy which destroys families" was a bad thing, he walked into a buzz saw of retribution from some conservatives. Last year state legislatures weighed 1,600 bills against illegal immigrants, and passed 300 of them, a populist wave that predates Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party and has a powerful grip on both parties.
Like earlier attempts in Arizona and South Carolina, most of these state immigration laws were blocked by courts; the U.S. Constitution reserved enforcement of the borders to the feds. Alabama H.B. 56 has provoked suits by everyone from the Birmingham Catholic Diocese to the Justice Department.
H.B. 56's very success has stirred moral qualms among Alabamans that could weaken or even undo it. "Jesus Was an Anchor Baby," declared one sign at a recent march on the governor's mansion, and State Sen. Billy Beasley compared H.G. 56 to the racial segregation of Alabama's scarred past. "I know in my heart," told the protesters, "that Jesus Christ would not support what is happening in Alabama."
And then there is an even higher law--supply and demand. Whatever H.B. 56 says, picking tomatoes in Alabama pays about eight times as much as it does in Baja.
Most studies calculate that illegal immigration boosts the American economy. Many immigrants contribute to Social Security without being able to draw on it. But the net gain in jobs is an abstraction compared with Alabama's low wages and stubborn unemployment, which ran more than 9 percent before the bill. Sponsors of H.B. 56 took credit for a subsequent decline to 8.7 percent unemployment, saying legal workers were getting the jobs of departed illegals. But there has been an economic cost, with tomatoes rotting unpicked on the side of Chandler Mountain, and agriculture and the service sector "devastated," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Even Governor Bentley acknowledges "some pain, in the short term."
Deepak Bhargava, executive director for the Center for Community Change, says Alabama has only itself to blame. For years the state gave "a wink and a nod" to imported labor and "essentially offered an invitation to bring labor in, to work, and to build families. For them now to persecute the same families is the height of hypocrisy."
It's not just about tomatoes, either. Local police jailed a German executive from the Mercedes-Benz plant in Tuscaloosa, and another checkpoint snagged a Japanese worker at Honda's $1.4 billion plant. Both incidents "did grievous harm to Alabama's reputation," Bhargava notes. Governor Bentley has found himself assuring Chinese and other foreign investors that Alabama welcomes not just foreign investment but foreign investors.
Are the toilet cleaners welcome? Carla and Ruben hide behind drawn blinds every night. They are Costa Ricans who ask to be called by new names. The apartment is cozy; their three handsome sons sit patiently on a white sofa. The couple is educated and middle class but got stuck cleaning toilets for cash in an underground economy. They work to provide for their family, they say, but haven't seen their own parents in 16 years.
Survival in Alabama 2.0: one shopping trip a week, to minimize exposure to the police. A carpool to St. Francis Xavier for the 1 p.m. Mass in Spanish. {Parking at the church is easy since H.B. 56; one third of the lot is suddenly free.) When they set out in the morning, they remind their sons--the youngest a U.S. citizen--not to panic if they disappear. Move to your aunt's apartment, the parents say. Stay in school. We'll call you when we land in Costa Rica.
The couple recalls one of the houses they clean weekly. The owner is a "really important" figure in Alabama whom they won't identify. "He speaks against Latinos," Carla notes, "but hires Latinos to clean his house." The man threatened to fire them if they were illegals--then dropped the matter. If H.B. 56 sputters out, it may be because people in Alabama want a clean house more than they want to clean house.
An article by Patrick Symmes. Appeared in the February 13, 2012 issue of Newsweek magazine.
The front door is locked on this brown-and-cream mobile home, an aluminum outpost at the end of a pine-tree trailer park beyond Birmingham, Ala. But the back door flaps open in a winter wind. Inside are a bag of red beans, some pet food, and a pair of high heels. Nothing else. Even the beds are gone. "Six people," a neighbor says in Spanish, struggling to recall something from the anonymity of immigrant life. "Men, women, children. The law came in, and one day they just didn't come home."
The law: that would be H.B. 56, Alabama's attempt at the nation's most rigorous crackdown on illegal immigrants. On Sept. 23, 2011, when H.B. 56 came into effect, it cut off all state and local services to the undocumented. No driver's licenses, no registration for cars, no scholarships, no hiring without a document check. Enrolling in one of Alabama's public colleges requires proof of legal residency in the United States. Hiring, renting property to, or simply "harboring" undocumented foreigners is illegal. H.B. 56's one-signature provision--deputizing local police officers to turn traffic stops into deportation proceedings--assumes powers long reserved to the federal government.
The law had its desired effect, sort of. Illegals did flee. Alabama reported a drop in school enrollment, especially in rural areas. This trailer and about 50 like it in a park of 300 were soon evacuated. Immigrants sold their possessions for cash and drove to Florida or California, wherever they felt safer.
But Alabama's crackdown hasn't played out quite as expected. A group of Mexican men unloading a pickup truck explain they fled the state, but after just a month in Florida, they came back. They pointed out an obvious irony: as H.G. 56 scared off some immigrants, others found that jobs were now going begging. And these men had now rented the same trailer for less than they paid in September.
"Alabama's a good place," said 51-year-old construction worker Javier Flores. "There's all types of people."
If Alabama is the GOP's latest front in the war on illegal immigration, then the battle is far from won. The tired and poor, the huddled masses, are still here, yearning to rent cheap and work hard. All the crackdown in Alabama has done is push people deeper into the woodwork. Yet immigrants remain everywhere in Alabama, hiding in plain sight, evading the crackdown with GPS strategies and shared text alerts. Family networks and the surprising kindness of strangers have given them camouflage.
In this tense environment, immigrants drive slowly and stay low. "We couldn't be more hidden," one man says.
In short, the law is immensely popular--and it's not working very well. It has disrupted business in Alabama, and enforcement is proving costly. The state legislature last week began work on modifying the law.
But modify only. "It won't be repealed," says a confident Gov. Robert J. Bentley, a Republican from Tuscaloosa. In one poll, 73 percent of Alabamans supported H.B. 56; Bentley notes that the measure is almost as popular nationally. "I never go on television without getting asked about it," he says.
Bentley, a physician who began working at the state capital in his 20s, calls federal policy a "failure" that requires Alabama to step in and "uphold the state and federal constitutions."
Besides, there's not much percentage in a Republican letting up on the issue. When Newt Gingrich suggested in a November debate that "immigration policy which destroys families" was a bad thing, he walked into a buzz saw of retribution from some conservatives. Last year state legislatures weighed 1,600 bills against illegal immigrants, and passed 300 of them, a populist wave that predates Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party and has a powerful grip on both parties.
Like earlier attempts in Arizona and South Carolina, most of these state immigration laws were blocked by courts; the U.S. Constitution reserved enforcement of the borders to the feds. Alabama H.B. 56 has provoked suits by everyone from the Birmingham Catholic Diocese to the Justice Department.
H.B. 56's very success has stirred moral qualms among Alabamans that could weaken or even undo it. "Jesus Was an Anchor Baby," declared one sign at a recent march on the governor's mansion, and State Sen. Billy Beasley compared H.G. 56 to the racial segregation of Alabama's scarred past. "I know in my heart," told the protesters, "that Jesus Christ would not support what is happening in Alabama."
And then there is an even higher law--supply and demand. Whatever H.B. 56 says, picking tomatoes in Alabama pays about eight times as much as it does in Baja.
Most studies calculate that illegal immigration boosts the American economy. Many immigrants contribute to Social Security without being able to draw on it. But the net gain in jobs is an abstraction compared with Alabama's low wages and stubborn unemployment, which ran more than 9 percent before the bill. Sponsors of H.B. 56 took credit for a subsequent decline to 8.7 percent unemployment, saying legal workers were getting the jobs of departed illegals. But there has been an economic cost, with tomatoes rotting unpicked on the side of Chandler Mountain, and agriculture and the service sector "devastated," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Even Governor Bentley acknowledges "some pain, in the short term."
Deepak Bhargava, executive director for the Center for Community Change, says Alabama has only itself to blame. For years the state gave "a wink and a nod" to imported labor and "essentially offered an invitation to bring labor in, to work, and to build families. For them now to persecute the same families is the height of hypocrisy."
It's not just about tomatoes, either. Local police jailed a German executive from the Mercedes-Benz plant in Tuscaloosa, and another checkpoint snagged a Japanese worker at Honda's $1.4 billion plant. Both incidents "did grievous harm to Alabama's reputation," Bhargava notes. Governor Bentley has found himself assuring Chinese and other foreign investors that Alabama welcomes not just foreign investment but foreign investors.
Are the toilet cleaners welcome? Carla and Ruben hide behind drawn blinds every night. They are Costa Ricans who ask to be called by new names. The apartment is cozy; their three handsome sons sit patiently on a white sofa. The couple is educated and middle class but got stuck cleaning toilets for cash in an underground economy. They work to provide for their family, they say, but haven't seen their own parents in 16 years.
Survival in Alabama 2.0: one shopping trip a week, to minimize exposure to the police. A carpool to St. Francis Xavier for the 1 p.m. Mass in Spanish. {Parking at the church is easy since H.B. 56; one third of the lot is suddenly free.) When they set out in the morning, they remind their sons--the youngest a U.S. citizen--not to panic if they disappear. Move to your aunt's apartment, the parents say. Stay in school. We'll call you when we land in Costa Rica.
The couple recalls one of the houses they clean weekly. The owner is a "really important" figure in Alabama whom they won't identify. "He speaks against Latinos," Carla notes, "but hires Latinos to clean his house." The man threatened to fire them if they were illegals--then dropped the matter. If H.B. 56 sputters out, it may be because people in Alabama want a clean house more than they want to clean house.
NEW IMMIGRATION RULE MAKES SENSE
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The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has proposed a more streamlined process to assist petitioners for legal residency in a more streamlined fashion.
Currently, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens who have accrued a certain period of unlawful presence in the United States are barred from returning to the U.S. for as long as 3 or 10 years if they leave the country.
Immediate relatives can obtain a waiver of the unlawful presence bar if they show that a U.S. citizen spouse or parent will experience extreme hardship if they are required to remain outside the U.S. But in order to obtain the waiver, these individuals must depart the U.S. and wait abroad while the waiver is processed.
As a result, long years of separation keep families divided waiting while the various government processes churn on slowly. This is particularly difficult when very young or very old members of the family are involved in the process.
Under the new proposed process, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens who would need a waiver of unlawful presence in order to obtain an immigrant visa could file a new form form before leaving the U.S. to obtain an immigrant visa at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate abroad.
All individuals eligible for this streamlined process are still required to depart the U.S. and must meet all legal requirements for issuance of an immigrant visa and admission to the U.S.
Those who claim that this new process is some type of new "amnesty" are plain wrong. This new process is intended to hasten the steps for those family members who are clearly eligible for more rapid consideration of their petition. None of the steps in the process are being waived; rather, all of the elements are moved forward in a more certain way.
I support this new Rule and pray that after the 60 days for public comment it will be in effect.
Some estimates are that one million of the current 11 million unauthorized immigrants may be able to secure a more rapid path to legal residency.
This new process will help bring a large number of our residents out of the shadows and to give them a new future in our midst.
Currently, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens who have accrued a certain period of unlawful presence in the United States are barred from returning to the U.S. for as long as 3 or 10 years if they leave the country.
Immediate relatives can obtain a waiver of the unlawful presence bar if they show that a U.S. citizen spouse or parent will experience extreme hardship if they are required to remain outside the U.S. But in order to obtain the waiver, these individuals must depart the U.S. and wait abroad while the waiver is processed.
As a result, long years of separation keep families divided waiting while the various government processes churn on slowly. This is particularly difficult when very young or very old members of the family are involved in the process.
Under the new proposed process, immediate relatives of U.S. citizens who would need a waiver of unlawful presence in order to obtain an immigrant visa could file a new form form before leaving the U.S. to obtain an immigrant visa at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate abroad.
All individuals eligible for this streamlined process are still required to depart the U.S. and must meet all legal requirements for issuance of an immigrant visa and admission to the U.S.
Those who claim that this new process is some type of new "amnesty" are plain wrong. This new process is intended to hasten the steps for those family members who are clearly eligible for more rapid consideration of their petition. None of the steps in the process are being waived; rather, all of the elements are moved forward in a more certain way.
I support this new Rule and pray that after the 60 days for public comment it will be in effect.
Some estimates are that one million of the current 11 million unauthorized immigrants may be able to secure a more rapid path to legal residency.
This new process will help bring a large number of our residents out of the shadows and to give them a new future in our midst.
HELP FOR YOUNG IMMIGRANTS: A GOOD FIRST STEP!
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The announcement today by Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security, granting assistance to young immigrants who were brought to this country as minors, is welcome news! I welcome this news because I have met and worked with countless young people who will benefit from this change.
Some 800,000 young men and women could qualify for the new policy which removes them from the fear of deportation and allows them to obtain work permits.
We are all winners with this new policy! The young people are encouraged to finish their high school education, go to college, or join the military services. Obviously, they must remain active and contributing members of society, avoid any criminal activity, and continue to help our nation grow and provide opportunity for everyone.
This policy shift to move these young people away from deportation to fuller assimilation in our society is taking place precisely because Congress has refused to deal with the plight of some 11.5 million immigrants living in our midst. Political partisanship has resulted in legislative stalemate. In a special way, our youngest immigrants have been made to suffer.
The best avenue forward for all of us would be for Congress to recognize the inherent dignity and worth of all our immigrant peoples and to develop a more comprehensive solution.
Some will object and say that this is amnesty. It is not. It is a special enforcement policy which recognizes our futile handcuffing of young immigrant men and women who are eager and anxious to participate fully in the life of our country, and whose only "failure" was in being brought to this country as minors.
I am hopeful that all eligible young immigrants will sign up for this new policy shift, will pursue their education with renewed vigor, will serve our country with new enthusiasm, and will prove once again that as a nation of immigrants we do not fear them, but we welcome them and walk with them on their journeys.
Some 800,000 young men and women could qualify for the new policy which removes them from the fear of deportation and allows them to obtain work permits.
We are all winners with this new policy! The young people are encouraged to finish their high school education, go to college, or join the military services. Obviously, they must remain active and contributing members of society, avoid any criminal activity, and continue to help our nation grow and provide opportunity for everyone.
This policy shift to move these young people away from deportation to fuller assimilation in our society is taking place precisely because Congress has refused to deal with the plight of some 11.5 million immigrants living in our midst. Political partisanship has resulted in legislative stalemate. In a special way, our youngest immigrants have been made to suffer.
 |
| Activists and Dreamers watch President Obama's speechFriday afternoon at the headquarters of the New York Immigration Coalition. (Photo: Justin Mitchell) |
Some will object and say that this is amnesty. It is not. It is a special enforcement policy which recognizes our futile handcuffing of young immigrant men and women who are eager and anxious to participate fully in the life of our country, and whose only "failure" was in being brought to this country as minors.
I am hopeful that all eligible young immigrants will sign up for this new policy shift, will pursue their education with renewed vigor, will serve our country with new enthusiasm, and will prove once again that as a nation of immigrants we do not fear them, but we welcome them and walk with them on their journeys.
San Antonio Military Base Used as Children's Shelter
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Due to an increase in the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the border into the U.S., a San Antonio Air Force base has been turned into a shelter to house the children. According to the article below, the majority of the children are from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. A smaller number of the children are from Mexico.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/18/immigrant-children-air-force-base-shelter_n_1431584.html?1334749309&ref=latino-voices
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/18/immigrant-children-air-force-base-shelter_n_1431584.html?1334749309&ref=latino-voices
23 Haziran 2012 Cumartesi
New Alabama Law: Crops rot in the field
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Nueva ley de inmigración de Alabama. Es el más severa de los EEUU. Los partidarios dicen que la norma debe producir más trabajo para los ciudadanos mientras que las voces criticas aseguran que saca los derechos civiles. Pero la cosecha se pudre en los campos y los agricultores no pueden encontrar trabajadores suficientes para cosechar, porque la mayorÃa de los trabajadores - legales y sin papeles - han salido los trabajos y han huido. Tambien, los administradores de cárceles se preocupan que no tienen espacio ni capacidad para detener más personas.
New immigration law in Alabama. It's the most severe in the US. Supporters say that the rule should produce more work for citizens while critics claim that it robs some of civil rights. But food is rotting in the fields and farmers are unable to find sufficient workers to harvest their crops, since most of the workers have left their jobs and departed from the area. Jail administrators are also concerned since they don't have the capacity to hold detainees.
New immigration law in Alabama. It's the most severe in the US. Supporters say that the rule should produce more work for citizens while critics claim that it robs some of civil rights. But food is rotting in the fields and farmers are unable to find sufficient workers to harvest their crops, since most of the workers have left their jobs and departed from the area. Jail administrators are also concerned since they don't have the capacity to hold detainees.
Repeal of New Immigration Law in Alabama
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State Senator Beasley from Alabama has introduced legislation to repeal the newly enacted laws against illegal immigrants. He claims most representatives did not understand the negative effects that the law would have on citizens of Alabama.
State Senator Beasley from Alabama has introduced legislation to repeal the newly enacted laws against illegal immigrants. He claims most representatives did not understand the negative effects that the law would have on citizens of Alabama.MONTGOMERY -- Alabama Sen. Billy Beasley has filed a bill to repeal Alabama's sweeping immigration law, saying it is causing severe workforce shortages and problems in state courthouses and schools.Read more from this source:
"The people in the agriculture community are not happy with it because they can't get workers. The folks in the courthouses are not happy with it. The folks in the school business are not happy with it," said the Democrat from Clayton.
Beasley said three other Democrats have signed on as co-sponsors of the proposed repeal, and he hopes more legislators will support the measure.
"I think there is a large contingent of folks who didn't realize what it was going to do," Beasley said.
However, Sen. Scott Beason, who sponsored the immigration law in the Senate, said he will fight attempts to undo or weaken the law.
"I can't imagine that anyone would want to repeal the bill," said Beason, R-Gardendale.
Beasley voted against the bill when it was before Alabama lawmakers. He said the new law has caused a "world of fear" for people in the Hispanic community.
"It's kind of a mean-spirited law," Beasley said.
Beasley said the law has caused workforce shortages in many industries, as legal and illegal immigrants leave the state. He said it also is causing long lines at courthouse and is putting an unfunded mandate on county jails to hold suspected illegal immigrants.
The Clayton senator said he also was doubtful the law would open up jobs for Alabamians because many people don't want the labor-intensive jobs the immigrants are performing.
But Beason said he believes the law is working.
"It's doing what it is supposed to be doing overall," Beason said.
He said the immigration law appeared to be moving an illegal workforce out of the state, and an adjustment period is to be expected. He pointed out the law has been in effect only six days.
He said he believes getting rid of illegal workers will create jobs for Alabamians. "Apparently a lot of people were working an illegal workforce," Beason said.
http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2011/10/state_sen_billy_beasley_files.html
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