T1B

A too long rant. I've never chimed in on the illegal alien debate, because I can't form my thoughts in a coherent, intelligent manner, but since it's Sunday, I'm just going to ramble.

I'm with you.
And feel like a stranger on Daily Kos for the first time since it's inception with my views on this.
I'm used to being asked by the right wing nuts "why do you hate America".
Now I read diary after diary literally asking me "Why do you hate Mexicans? Why are you a racist? A bigot?"

I subscribe to approximately five liberal magazines. They all tell me the same thing. That if I don't support illegal immigration I'm with the White Supremacist. I read that in the Rec Diary on DK two days ago too.

I am more far to the left than most of DK. I've marched in protests against the war and against Bush. I'm for affirmative action, living wages, helping the poor, training the uneducated so they can try to survive in the country. I'm a member of Green Peace, The Sierra Club, Emily's List, the ACLU, the NAACP. Blah blah blah. Boring. One of those "my best friends is an African American" litanies. (but actaully, she is.)

I'm a first generation American. My parents came here and waited in line to do so. They filled out the papers. They came over on a piece of shit boat. They could not speak a word of English, and my Dad earned two dollars an hour working his three jobs. The first thing they both did was learn English and begin the assimilation. The second thing they did was hold onto their heritage, their language, and proudly passed that down to me and my brother. Both flags flew at our house. Both flags were on their cars. I learned the language my parents speak, fluently, but they made sure I learned English first. And there wasn't a "Press One" for Spanish for my parents, or any other nationality that came here. I just don't get most of this.

I don't know if this makes me take a harder line or what. Instead of emphasizing with illegal immigration, I am completely against it. And I know from my Mom and Dad, what it means to have nothing, nothing but a small suitcase and the clothes on your back. When it comes to war, I follow in my parents footstep, who lived through a horrific war and are now total utter peacenik pacifists. The Gulf War, and the bullshit Iraqi War had my Mom crying almost every other day. So I think, shouldn't I be crying for the illegal aliens too?

But when I see the videos of people just walking in this country, and then hear the Hispanic pundits telling me to deal with it, I do a slow burn, and it hardens me. The diaries I read telling me I'm wrong and I don't care harden me. Why the hell should anyone have to "wait in line", if you can just come in because you're poor? Why do we even have an immigration policy if that's the case? One sector of the world's population who needs a job just blatantly says screw that, and the rest of the world doesn't get that caveat? How many people can we take in? Or am living in the dreamworld and the United States is really doing okay and Bush is so right and dk and the left is so wrong. Jobs everywhere I look. No one hurting. We can afford to take this on. What national debt? What fifty million Americans here legally who have no health care? George W. Bush wants to grant amnesty to help big business get cheap ass labor. The Right loves big business but is fractured on this because of their...well. That's all over the map. Progressives and Liberals hate what big business has done to the poor and agree with Nadar's view on this matter. But now progressives and big business and GW all want the same thing. And Lou Dobbs was okay when he turned against big business (and W) and lambasted them for what they are doing to the workers of this country, but now he's a racist and a bigot. And..christ. It never. Ends.

I'm so damn sick and tired of hearing that Americans won't do the job. I'm one the lucky ones. I'm not a predicament that pits me against outsourcing or insourcing. And I won't be for a long time. But for god's sake, pay those Americans a decent living wage, and they'll do whatever they have to do to take care of their families. Unless it's now selfish on an American to want to own a house to raise their children in - how dare they demand something over minimum wage? It's not just the menial work that's being affected, it's construction jobs too. Why should a contractor hire a Father of two with a mortgage for 15 dollars an hour, and they'll do it for five dollars an hour and think they hit pay dirt.

Progressives and Liberals like to jump on underdog causes. I'm a part of that. But what a strange alliance this has become for so many. Lining up one hundred percent with Big Business to get cheap labor. Between outsourcing high tech jobs up our wazoo, and now making sure all the other jobs in this country pay shit wages, we're just helping make sure the GOP takes this country back to the days of McKinley quicker than anyone could have envisioned.
The rich. And the poor. And nothing in-between.

What I don't understand is why we don't take to the streets to help those who come here legally, who get screwed royally every single day. We don't take to the streets to help the Middle Class, who pay for all the services needed for illegal aliens, and get nothing back except for potholes being patched up. Unless this board honestly buys into the thought that those earning 20,000 dollars a year pay enough in taxes for the use of those services? Why don't I see front page posts on the cause for living wages as much as I do for granting amnesty to illegal aliens. Instead of jumping on that feeble bandwagon to fix that first, we add to it. And what I don't see is helping Native Americans once and for all considering the act of mass genocide we subjected them to, along with sticking them in literal prisons called reservations. What I don't see is trying to figure out what the hell is going on when more reports come out saying that African American men are further falling through the cracks.

I never once questioned where my tax money goes. We're by no means wealthy. Not even close. But I just always felt that if I can afford to buy a five dollar cup of Latte everyday, I'm okay. But I'm starting to get really ticked off (yeah, we're doing our Taxes today) seeing how much we pay in for this war, the debt etc etc. How little is going to really help those in need. And how we don't qualify to get anything back. We're not poor enough. And we're not rich enough. And now I have the host of TeleMundo telling me "10,000 a day cross over - and America is going to have to deal with it whether they like it or not.". Because it seems what little money is left over, it's going to pay for those services that they need.

I don't like it. I've never supported illegal acts, and I won't start. Okay. Except for people who smoke marijuana. I think they should suffer the safe fate as those who drink. Nothing. Oh. And Prostitution. Make it legal between two consenting adults. That's about it I think.

And that issue with the Mexican Flags being waved at all the demonstrations, with the American Flag barely visible? That got on my last nerve too. And I'm so anti-unjingoist it hurts. I cringed when I drove down our street and saw that every house but ours had the American Flag waving after 9/11 and the start of the war, except for ours. I cringed because I was waiting for my neighbors to come out and start chanting USA! USA! USA! I wanted to crawl under our rock garden for a year. But to come into this country illegally, because this is where you can make money, put food on your table, receive health care and an education for you and your children, courtesy of people like you and me paying into the system, ALL things you obviously could not get in your own country...and then to wave the flag of that country, with the signs in Spanish so we can't even read them, this is supposed to help the cause? I'm one those "bigots" who says, if that's the flag you insist on waving when you demand ammnesty, why did you come here? But, the demonstrators were told that this is bad PR. It's good to know that they'll carry the American flag now only because of that. That they had to be reminded. Great. Whatever.

I don't need lectures on taking care of the poor. We've both done more for the poor than many. I'm not bragging or trying to be a saint here, or put us up on some martyring shut the hell up soapbox - I just don't need the lectures from dk, The Nation, In These Times, or anyone else telling me I don't get it or I don't care and here's why. I've read up on this subject from all sides until my head hurts. LEGAL immigration is good for this country. Illegal immigration is not. I suggest some of you read the entire bill that stalled in the Senate. See what's buried in there. See how the American poor and downtrodden, the barely struggling middle class got even further screwed by those back slapping Senators on Thursday. Again. It's appalling.

44 percent of Hispanics voted for Bush in the last election. One the main reasons being that he was so "religious". Those numbers scare the crap out of me. More values voters. Does that have anything to do with the issue at hand? Kinda not. I just shake my head thinking of all the Liberals out there who actually want to help the downtrodden, only to get a kick in their collective asses. As always.

I keep hearing on this board how selfish we are - how we want cheap landscapers and cheap this and cheap that. Bullshit. Stop lumping us all together. And if there are people on this board who do want all that cheap shit, you are by no means a progressive.

And now I'll go back to hearing how I'm just not tolerant. I must hate the poor, and support the Minuteman and the wall and am a closet GOP'er.

I know this was too long for a comments thread. Sorry.

by Christin on Sun Apr 09, 2006 at 10:18:54 AM MST

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Illegal This and That by Christin, Sun Apr 09, 2006 at 10:18:54 AM MST (8+ / 0-)

Van wrote:Chowd, that one little tangent you dropped in there out of the blue sure was a bit startling. Laughed out loud over that one, I did...

chowd103 wrote:It's a good question, Risa.


Take some time and read this crap.

88 wrote:Christin is clearly an idiot. But she is right to understand that illegal immigration is bad for everyone.

http://www.borderlandnews.com/apps/pbcs ... /604060339

Bill would raise cost of wire transfers

Tax would touch senders, businesses

Louie Gilot
El Paso Times
Thursday, April 6, 2006

Sending money home to Mexico is not a cheap proposition. Immigrants pay for the service and also lose money on the exchange rate.

Now, legislators in several states are proposing to tax such transactions, called remesas, or remittances, to the tune of half a percent to 8 percent.

Fernando Garcia of El Paso regularly sends money to his niece who is studying social work in Mexico City. He used to do it through wire transfers with Western Union and other companies. Sending $100 would cost him $10, he said, and he would lose another $10 or so in the money exchange from dollars to pesos.

"So she would get $80 out of that $100. A few times, she had to pay a fee to receive the money," Garcia said.

People like Garcia and his niece would not be the only ones to lose if a new tax was imposed.
Wire transfer businesses would also be hit, the business owners said.

Amado Urbina, owner of Mr. Dollar, a chain of money exchange and lottery sales stores in El Paso, said fewer customers would use his services if the tax came to pass -- and not just undocumented immigrants.

"It doesn't look right. Not everybody is illegal," he said. "People send money to people on vacation there (in Mexico)."

Legislators in Texas, Arizona and Georgia who are drafting the bills want a piece of the record $20 billion the Inter-American Development Bank said Mexican workers sent back home from the United States in 2005.

Past estimates of remittances in El Paso found that immigrants are sending about $200 million annually back home from El Paso County.

In the Texas House of Representatives, H.B. 2345 would impose a half-percent fee on all currency transmissions from Texas to another country to collect money for indigent health care.

The bill, by Democrat Vilma Luna of Corpus Christi, did not make it out of committee last year.

A similar proposal in Arizona, HCR 2037, introduced by state Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, would impose an 8 percent tax on all electronic transfers of money into Arizona from a foreign country.

The money would be used to build a border wall, in addition to the one proposed by the U.S. House of Representatives.

State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, said he is staunchly against such proposals.

"In my community, no one I know favors taxing immigrants to build walls. Ours is the world's largest binational community. Chihuahua is our state's largest trading partner. We want to build bridges, not walls," he said.

The Arizona proposal still has to work its way through the state legislature.

In Georgia in February, the state House approved a bill to levy a 5 percent surcharge on wire transfers by undocumented immigrants to their native countries.

People who could show proof that they are in the United States legally, or that they pay taxes in Georgia, wouldn't have to pay the fee. The money would go for emergency room care. That bill is headed for the state Senate.

The rationale for these bills, which are light in workable details, is that undocumented immigrants are paid under the table and don't pay taxes.

But immigrants' rights advocates say it isn't so.

Many workers do pay taxes through the borrowed or fake Social Security numbers they use to find work. They don't benefit from some social services that are closed to undocumented immigrants.

But hospitals and schools are sites where providers are not allowed to ask for someone's immigration status.

A 2000 study estimated undocumented immigrants in El Paso rang up more than $30 million in unpaid medical bills that year, out of Thomason Hospital's annual budget of about $225 million.

In Mexico, remittances are the country's second-largest source of income, surpassed only by oil exports. Recipients use the money mostly for living expenses, studies by the Pew Hispanic Center have found.

To minimize the loss of hard-earned money during the transfers to their families, immigrants have used several creative strategies for years.

On the border, immigrants prefer to send money to the interior of Mexico from Juárez, where the fee is lower.

"Here they'll pay $40 to send $500. In Juárez, it'll be 150 pesos (about $13)," Mr. Dollar's Urbina said.

Mr. Dollar's three El Paso offices combined get only about 50 people a week sending money to Mexico, and Urbina predicted that a remittance tax would further lower that number.

Most of his business is made up of Juarenses who cross into El Paso to collect money sent from the interior of the United States by family members who want to avoid the costly fees of international wire transfers.

"They're going to do that on the border, but what about those who live in Mexico City?" Urbina said.

Garcia said he does not send money to his niece through wire transfer services anymore. Instead, he has opened a bank account for her in Mexico and has given her an ATM card.

Now, he simply deposits money to the bank in Juárez, and his niece can access the account from a Mexico City branch.

A Pew Hispanic Center study in 2004 found that 67 percent of remittance recipients still didn't have bank accounts.

Garcia's family members in Houston are trusting paid strangers with their money.

"They have family in San Luis Potosi. They send the money in vans that take people from Houston to Mexico. They give an envelope to the driver to deliver to the person's door in Mexico. They charge you for that," he said.

Remittances by Mexican, Brazilian and other Latin American and Caribbean workers living abroad rose 17 percent last year, from $48.1 billion in 2004 to a record $53.6 billion in 2005, the Inter-American Development Bank said.

About 25 million Latin America- and Caribbean-born adults live abroad, and their remittances are typically in amounts ranging from $100 to $300 at a time, the report said.

Mexico received $20 billion in remittances last year, an increase of 20 percent from $16.6 billion in 2004, the bank said.

Mexico received more than any other Latin American or Caribbean country.

Money sent by immigrants working as parking attendants, maids, gardeners and other positions accounted for most household income for their relatives living back home, the Washington-based lender said in the report.

For the fourth year in a row, remittances by expatriates exceeded the combined total of overseas aid, the bank said.

Louie Gilot may be reached at lgilot@elpasotimes.com; 546-6131.

Bloomberg News Service contributed to this story.

Goober McTuber wrote:We ‘lose’ every time you hit “Submit”.

mvscal wrote:We should just send Mexico a bill for these douchebags. They've got oil.

One barrel per day for each wetback sounds reasonable to me.

mvscal wrote:We should just send Mexico a bill for these douchebags. They've got oil.

One barrel per day for each wetback sounds reasonable to me.