Rally ’Round Reform

The reform should be arresting the illegals who have committed a crime in getting here. The immigrants who actually play by the rules and migrate legally are frustrated with so many people just breaking the law and reaping more benefits than the ones who did it properly.

"Many families have been broken because of deportation"

This is not the reason families are broken. Families are separated because people choose to brake the law by entering our country illegally. These people have chosen to risk being separated from their families when they break our laws.

BREAK THE LAW AND SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCE!

Our country must secure our borders first; then enact resonable guest worker programs that will allow the needed workers to come here for employment. We should not reward those that have broken the law with legal status. This only encourages furthur disregard of the laws of the United States. We already tried this and look where it has gotten us.

I am an American citizen who believes in the principle that LAWS matter. The organizations like Pueblo can continue to pull the heartstrings of the American people, but this American will always look to the LAW, history, and common sense.

The underlying issue is that both major poltical parties in the U.S. encourage mass migration from Mexico. As long as this continues, Mexico will have no incentive to look within itself and improve conditions so that those who live there will want to stay there.

I fail to see this issue being addressed on any orginized level.

Another point: While RiveraMom makes some good points, I disagree with the whole concept of a guest worker problem because the very concept of it implies that Americans shouldn't do certain types of labor.

This concept--while supported by many people who are not in any way racist--nonetheless reenforces the idea that certain ethnicities are different from others which contributes to racial tensions. I would also submit that countries such as Japan, New Zealand, and Norway do very well by creating a society where their own people are willing to work these jobs. I would also point out that traditionally, the Great Plains states/U.S. interior have gotten by just fine without imported labor.

The companies which have been going to Mexico for years and years, since the Braceros program of the '50s and '60s, are not penalized from recruiting central american residents to work in the US illegally. A comprehensive reform would include controlling illegal activities of companies who employ undocumented workers. The entire situation is bad for workers here and bad for immigrant workers, which is why it needs to be fixed and fixed NOW. These practices have been going on way, way too long.

stop breaking the law
the illegal immigrants are killing our social services
they are takeing jobs away from American citizens and legal immigrants
we have immigration laws in place already we must inforce them,maybe after you send enough of them home
they will start to fix their own country and make Mexico
the proud country that it should be instead of the Taco stand to the south

All of you sicken me. I suppose you think you're good Christians too.

I'm an immigrant from Australia. I've never felt shafted by "illegal" immigrants. On the contrary. They risk their lives to get here, maybe just like your forebears when they came to America. I got in the easy way; by filing forms.

Americans, not the immigrants, create the demand that brings them here. We lure them, then we steal from them - we pay parents and grandparents awful wages and they and their children live in squalid conditions among the greatest wealth in the world. For shame!

You are all illegal immigrants too. It's stolen Native American land you're living on. Whole civilizations were eradicated for you to have what you have as Americans. The people from the south of the border are much more native to America than you will ever be.

Oh, and I'll sign off with my real name.

Simcha Udwin

"It's stolen Native American land you're living on."

Palmsierra: If this is the case, why are you here? Don't you feel guilty about living on stolen land?

Either this is a joke, or you are a hypocrite. If you feel so bad, why don't you give back the land you are living on to the natives?

Let's try to NOT stoop to the level of bashing people's religious beliefs,OK?

Yes, Simcha, I AM a Christian. And I have done no harm to anyone, thus I do not accept your insistence that I feel shame. I have stolen nothing from anyone, and find your accusation deeply offensive as well as completely inaccurate.

I am a second generation American; my ancestors fled unspeakable religious and ethnic persecution in their countries of origin. They came here, learned English, became part of the scenery, worked, started businesses, sent their kids to college, and lived the American Dream via their own determination and hard work.

I was lucky enough to have been born here in the US, and believe me, I am grateful on a daily basis for that. When I think of where I could have been born had my grandparents not had the courage to come here (legally, by the way), I get chills..and NOT good ones.

If I go to someone else's country, I start by obeying the laws of that country, by entering legally, and respecting that country's customs and doing my utmost best to speak their language. When I visit Mexico, for example, I trot out my very basic Spanish. When in certain parts of Canada, I dust off my High-School French. It's THEIR house.

I am most assuredly not an illegal alien here, nor anywhere else, and lobbing that tired chestnut is the mark of someone who has no argument and is resorting to shock value and self-generated outrage in order to get attention.

I agree that illegals ARE taken advantage of and that there IS a demand that brings them here; we hold the gate open with one hand, while protesting with our mouths, and happily sucking up the work these people do at a pittance of what it's really worth.

Then we defend that by claiming: "They do the work that Americans won't" which is nonsense. Americans will do and HAVE done that work, but they want a fair day's wage for their efforts. And we as a society are unwilling to pay it...so the illegals pour over the border to provide it, because any wage is better than what they are trying to live on in their home countries.

And no, this is not just people with children, as you claim, but everyone. Just saying.

It is made sure they never really learn a good command of English, treating them as if they were mentally defective, serving up everything in their native tongues, because like in the slave times, if they ever really learned how to speak, read, write and assimilate into American society, they would never be content to earn a few dollars a day for backbreaking work at dead-end jobs with no benefits.

And so it goes. And so it goes.

Re Australia; unless you are Aboriginal, I suppose you could levy the same accusations at yourself, yes?

Palmsierra: I would also add that it's ironic that as someone who has such a low opinion of those who live in your adopted country there must be something good about this place since you've traveled all the way around the world to be here.

The behavior you describe that "we" do, may be behavior of which you are guilty, but not behavior in which I participate. Furthermore, to all that feel so guilty about living on land that people stole before we were born, (To wit: We had nothing to do with this crime) why don't you all self-deport to your lands of ancestral origin and if you are of multiple ancestry...hmm, that could get dicey. Imagine that: 200 million people self-deporting.

One more point: I find it quite annoying and hypocritical when non Spanish-speaking people say it's racist not to provide Spanish-language services (which anyone can see is what keeps people from learning English) yet many of these people have no intention of learning Spanish so clearly they have no desire to communicate with these people.

Hay veces cuando no puedo creer la hipocresía de estes presuntos sabios.