Second-class society
Facing the immigration issue with integrity is needed.
We need cheap labor from honest, hardworking immigrants who just want, and I believe deserve, a better life for themselves and their families. It is disgraceful for politicians to allow and promote a second class of humans who aren’t allowed access to opportunity and have to live on the shadow edge of American society. What is more un-American than that? And it doesn’t solve the problem.
We need to do these things without rewarding those who entered the country illegally while assuring that they can work here.
•Control the border and enforce penalties for “cutting in line” and crossing it ahead of those who cross legally. Cutting in line at the border only hurts Mexicans’ fellow countrymen. It does not effect our labor supply. It only changes the order they enter the country and limits their opportunities. Those who enter legally are currently penalized by having to wait while those who enter illegally are penalized by not having access to full opportunities here.
Make a guest-worker program to continue the supply of labor that is needed, but put the signup offices exclusively in Mexico and other countries where the labor comes from.
Orange
Lessons from Mexico
Citizens of Mexico must provide an official Mexican birth certificate before their children can begin attending school. One must also prove they are in that country legally before a driver’s license can be obtained. Absolutely no government services can be used by anyone who is illegally in the country. And anyone caught sneaking into Mexico illegally, such as from Central or South America is jailed and sometimes tortured or even killed.
Yet Vicente Fox, this columnist Ruben Navarrette, and other brown supremacists on both sides of our border insist that they are above our similar laws when people sneak over here. They come here without legal approval and fill our jails, overwhelm and close our hospitals, take our jobs and welfare money, join gangs and demonstrate or riot in our streets. Instead of burning crosses, they wave Mexican flags and dishonor the American flag.
A boycott is being discussed by non-Americans on May 1 who will stop all work, buying, school and everything else these people came here illegally to do. I say we support this effort 100 percent. For the entire month of May, all Americans should refuse to hire, employ, teach, rent to, buy from, contribute to or assist in any way, anyone who can’t prove that they are here legally and speak English. Additionally, if our own ruling class wants to criminalize and penalize those who hire these people, let’s also provide some fines and jail time for those who open bank accounts, lend money, supply mortgages, sell them cars or rent property to them.
Finally, these reconquistassay that California was once theirs, and they are just taking it back. Well let’s make them this deal: We will return all the land of California that they once owned by taking it from the Indians, if they return Mexico to the Aztecs and Mayans from whom they took it.
Oh yeah, that’s not possible since they conquered, robbed, pillaged and totally exterminated both those peoples through brutal genocide so efficiently that those races are completely wiped out.
La Habra
Immigrants in transition
This country, even before it was a country, was the result of immigration. Even the very first natives actually immigrated across a land bridge into North America all the way down to the tip of South America. For 500 years people have come to this continent for a better life and to this country for over 200 years. These immigrants left their homeland to become citizens of America and said goodbye to their country of birth. They wanted to become citizens with all the benefits and responsibilities that went with it.
Today’s huge illegal immigration has to be dealt with, the question is how. Here’s my suggestion:
– Not all illegal immigrants want to become citizens. If they are employed and are sponsored let them register, apply for a work permit, perhaps valid for five years, which can be renewed. They pay U.S. taxes and are eligible for benefits like all of us, nothing special.
– Those who wish to become citizens and are sponsored by an employer may register and apply, but must return temporarily to their home country before they can legally return. They then must go through all the same requirements that other legal immigrants go through.
– All immigrants must enroll in an English class and citizenship class to become a citizen
This country needs immigration and we welcome it. We also have to have control over our boarders and those that come here. This country must maintain its cohesiveness as one nation, undivided, and that means we can all communicate with each other with a common language.
Bill Ring
Mission Viejo
Some protests weren’t peaceful
I, like many, am furious at our elected officials’ inability to address the crisis caused by the illegal immigration of millions into our country. Even more so after the protests, when I found that my daughter her husband and three young children, the youngest being only 5 weeks old, were surrounded by a group of “peaceful protesters” while driving in Oceanside. They were sworn at, given the finger, their car jumped and spit upon, and made to feel threatened by the presence of this gang of thugs who were protesting in support of the continued influx of lawbreakers into our country.
My family experienced firsthand the meaning of “peaceful protest” as practiced by this group. Our view of free speech does not include the hostile environment experienced by a young family on their way to the market. Our votes will be for the courageous, who enforce the law, not those who continue to make excuses for not protecting the sovereignty of the U.S. I am sure we are not alone in our anger and frustration; hopefully our elected officials will get the message.
Robert Swanson
Mission Viejo
2 changes for the better
Two changes should be made that would go a long way to help both countries with immigration.
The U.S. should no longer grant citizenship to children born in this country to parents that are not already or in the process of becoming legal citizens.
The Mexican government should allow American and other noncitizens (as we allow their citizens) to own property (not 99-year leases or threat of confiscation) in their country, thereby creating tremendous property development, job opportunity and future economic development for their citizens.
Americans have bent over backwards to the demands of Mexican citizens and turned a blind eye to their embarrassing treatment by their own government for decades. It is time for the citizens of Mexico the hold their own government accountable.
Suzi Andersen
Costa Mesa
The ‘English only’ clause
I know a very easy, inexpensive, sensible way to curtail illegal immigration. Since no one else is really serious about it, perhaps my ideas will catch on. Walls are not going to work, and it will cost a fortune. We’re not going to deport millions of illegals, either. Here is all we need to do: Stop accommodating them and make it undesirable for them to come here or remain.
This is how we do it. Print nothing and record nothing in a language other than English. Make it against the law to do so. No more bilingual education.
English-only at the Department of Motor Vehicles, English-only when you call a utility, the phone company, etc. Make it impossible and illegal to open a bank account without being able to read, write and speak English and without being able to present a valid driver’s license and Social Security card.
These folks would start leaving on their own and not wish to come here if we employed these measures. Until then, nothing will stop them.
Roger Hawkes
Irvine
Unite and recall!
In light of the recent immigrant protests, I think it’s time that hardworking American citizens everywhere unite and protest. Let’s not walk the streets, break the laws by marching onto the freeways or waste the taxpayers’ dollars by having the already-drained resources of our men and women in blue wasted by having to stand out and watch the lawlessness.
No, let us unite and start recalling all the politicians who support illegal immigration and blanket amnesty for those who have broken the law when they stepped foot on American soil. Do we not expect our leaders to obey the laws? It’s time we fire those we hired for not doing the job they were hired for. At the very least, these men and women should not be re-elected.
Thank God, Minuteman Project members have the guts to do what needs to be done. Perhaps these are the men and women we should have in office – not the gutless wonders who are currently “serving.” Immigrants are welcome in this country if they come here legally.
What is so difficult to understand? When you don’t love this country enough to do things legally, that is when you are no longer welcome. No one should be allowed to reap all the benefits when they are not helping with the sowing.
Debbie Baker
Yorba Linda
The right to sovereignty
Any country has the right to protect its sovereignty. Currently my son teaches English in Bangkok where he lives with his Thai wife and Thai-born daughter. Even with an international business degree and related work experience, his chances of landing a job as a financial analyst are slim. The Thai government restricts any company from having more than eight non-nationals in their organization. That is Thailand’s way of protecting the jobs of its people – and a law that my son must abide by in order to live in that country. Other countries have similar protections.
No one should expect that they may enjoy the benefits of living in the U.S. without following the protocols that provide a way for immigrants to become citizens. No one in the Latino sector is being denied that opportunity. Work hard, study hard, become an American citizen, and we welcome you. But do not assume to take what must be earned.
The current efforts from the Latino immigrant community to liken itself to the African-American protestors of the 1960s borders on blasphemy. May I remind that black citizens fought for the ability to attend schools. Latino students show how little they value a free U.S. education and the fact that they live in the greatest country in the world by ditching them.
Robin Lindsay
Chino Hills
Simple solution
America’s “leaders” wring their hands and argue over the problem of illegal immigration when there’s an obvious solution: simply adopt the same immigration policies that Mexico enforces. Problem solved.
Alex Coalson
Huntington Beach
School privileges
I find it quite ironic that these school-age protesters, who are also illegal immigrants, have the gall to protest the immigration bill currently being debated in the Senate. Are they really that ignorant that they do not understand who provides them with the free schooling that they’re thumbing their noses at?
It definitely isn’t being subsidized by their parent, who might be working, and if so, is working under the table, and not putting a penny towards their many children’s education. Waving Mexican flags and burning our own further demonstrate how little regard these “students” have for the country who is giving them everything from free schooling to health benefits, obviously none of which was provided by their home country.
It is a sad state of affairs when we have to encounter this behavior after all of the tax dollars we submit (unwillingly, for most of us) to keep them in the lifestyle that they have become so accustomed to and taken for granted.
Julie Nevins-Gabrion
Huntington Beach
What’s the big news?
So what does the illegal Latino march in Los Angeles prove? Only that there are enough illegal immigrants in Southern California to overflow our streets. Big deal, we already know that, and we missed an opportunity to arrest a few of them.
Tom Britton
Villa Park
Legal entrance only
Our forefathers came to America legally – most via Ellis Island, N.Y. They learned and spoke the English language and encouraged their children to excel at a good education. These immigrants were hard-working citizens and yet they still preserved their homeland cultures.
My maiden name is O’Gorman, but my dear great-grandfather dropped the “O” because the Irish were not easily accepted in Boston at that time.
He secured a job as a whaler and melded into the local society and was a proud American citizen. As a nation we need to help President Vicente Fox in Mexico repair the corrupt police departments and build up a work environment for their people. Our borders all around our nation need to be protected and secured.
Too bad President Bush didn’t look to the South rather than over the seas to Iraq to clean up a country. Seeing so many protestors recently marching with the Mexican flag tells me they love their own country. Let’s work as a nation to help them improve their economy, so that they can live happily and successfully in their native land.
Mary-Ellen Manning
Orange
Abusing the flag
I wonder what I should do with the U.S. flag I picked up out of the mud. It was in the middle of the driveway entrance to Carl’s Jr. and McDonald’s restaurants at Euclid and Katella. Some teenagers were watching cars drive over it. Other older people were walking around the intersection with Mexican flags draped over their shoulders.
I know, I’ll ask our friend who will become an Eagle Scout in a few weeks, just as soon as he gets out of Loara High School that is in lock-down because of the nonstudent protesters.
Pedro and Elisa Fuertes, my grandparents, are crying in their graves for the ugly hateful actions of ignorant protesters.
Roberta Webb
Anaheim
An untidy arrangement
Below is a paragraph describing the recent march protesting legal actions against illegal immigrants and their law-breaking employers.
“Wearing white shirts to symbolize peace, marchers chanted, ‘Mexico!’ ‘USA!’ and ‘Si se puede,’ an old Mexican-American civil-rights shout that means, ‘Yes, we can.’ They waved the flags of the U.S., Mexico and other countries, and some wore them as capes.”
When my wife was going to USC in the 1960s there was a saying among the Brown Power advocates proclaiming “Sal si puedes” or “escape (the barrio) if you can,” meaning leave and make a better life for yourself. Sal si Puedes was the name of the barrio in San Jose where Cesar Chavez lived.
Of course, the barrio exists because of the untidy arrangement of illegal immigrant workers and a collusion between government and business to ignore the negative effects of allowing the surplus of illegal immigrants to work at subpar wages. The effects are classrooms where the majority are not proficient in English and housing that is over-crowded and poorly maintained and in violation of health laws. Another effect is bankrupting emergency services used improperly as non-emergency general medical care.
You may be able to make a case for some areas of employment but the proliferation of fast-food restaurants, or even restaurants in general is no particular benefit to society. We used to eat in our homes a lot more and never suffered. A lot of people might benefit from a little exercise around the house mowing the lawn. If, in the long run, labor prices rise for construction or farm labor because we’re controlling illegal immigration where is the harm there. Nothing is free. The great bargain you got on that house, well, you’re paying for it in services for those same illegal workers and their families. The only one who definitely benefits is the builder. He may claim he has to compete and only by hiring illegals at the same labor rate can he do this but that doesn’t change things, it’s only an excuse.
Too bad, “Si se puede” didn’t mean, “Yes, we can” to these illegal immigrants when they were living in Mexico. Why should our laws be ignored? Why not the laws in Mexico that oppress these people? Why could they not march on their own government, rather than break the law to come here and then try and tell us what to do?
Gordon Langston
Huntington Beach
No sympathy here
The array of signs carried by the demonstrators who call all of us who disagree with them racist have slogans such as: “Brown is Beautiful.” Now I guess no one can call that racist. Other signs call for full rights and privileges. I guess it’s perfectly OK for them to vote. I understand that this did happen in the past with one of our O.C. elections. It seems nobody went to jail for that. The state or federal government picks up their health costs so that takes care of the health-care issue. The cities and state pick up the tab for their education, so that is taken care of. They have the protection of our police and fire departments. They can use our court system.
What more can they be seeking? Amnesty? Seems to me we had an amnesty program a few years back. What that did was just admit that the problem was out of control. I truly don’t think there will ever be any mass deportations of illegal immigrants in the future. If there are any deportations and they are reported in the press, please do not expect sympathy from me. Especially if it turns out that someone has been in this country for 10 or 15 years and has yet to acquire a green card.
Earl Hamilton
Anaheim
The looting of America
Yes, “legal” immigrants do have rights and are protected, as were my parents. Illegals are violators of the law and should have no rights whatsoever because they are illegal. Since when do we condone illegal activities and provide our legal taxpayers’ money to support their existence here when we can barely afford to take care of those who are here “legally” and have paid taxes. This is out of control and needs to dealt with swiftly and in a deliberate manor, otherwise just stop enforcing laws and let the flood gates open for what I would consider lawless abandon, and a complete disregard for the laws of this country. I guess the best term for these people and their agenda is looting of the American system and taxpayers
Drew Kovacs
Huntington Beach
Take the march to Mexico
Here’s an idea. Why don’t the hundreds of thousands of Mexican-flag-bearing, Spanish-speaking protesters who marched in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Chicago the past few days take their march south, to the streets of Mexico City, and demand change from Vicente Fox and their own elected officials?
I wonder what has become of America when we allow noncitizens to try to influence how our government representatives vote? It seems all you need in this country is an activist to have your way – even if it’s morally or legally wrong. My two teenagers recently told me they want an activist to fight for their “rights” when they break curfew and get punished.
Hmmm, I wonder where they got that idea? If those here illegally are allowed to stay and are rewarded with jobs, free health care, a free education, social services and, eventually, citizenship, what message are we sending to our children who have already witnessed too many law-breaking celebrities, sports figures, corporate executives and politicians go unpunished?
B. Miller
Rancho Santa Margarita
Wrong is wrong
The proposed immigration bill, HR4437, is a fine step in the right direction. It’s time that the bleeding-heart liberals were shut up and law prevails again in the U.S. Illegal is illegal. It should be a felony subject to mandatory imprisonment, and it’s a law that should not continue to be ignored or debated. Wrong is wrong. Get the illegals out of the U.S. and put their employers in jail or fine them 100 times the wages paid. That will do wonders to our health and welfare system.
James Miller
Anaheim
‘Reconquista’ politics
If any of my fellow Americans are still asleep and apathetic about how we are losing our country to illegal immigration, then the recent march in Los Angeles of half a million screaming illegal immigrants and their supporters carrying Mexican flags should at least start to wake them up.
Of course most Americans will still sit back and expect their politicians and the few patriotic Minuteman Project members to take care of the problem for them. Wake up, it won’t happen. Almost all of our politicians cater to those are active and voters, and the Minutemen are too few. At risk of life and limb, Minutemen have been sounding the alarm for some time but have just been subjected to ridicule by the biased press while the rest of us just sit back and watch TV.
Twelve Million illegals are here already and when President Bush gets done, they will have more than doubled that number. You will have lost our country to “reconquista” and our kids will live in a third world country. Its time to get mad and take action to protect your country and way of life.
Dave Connell
Laguna Beach
Enforce the law
How can it come to pass that we need a law to make illegal immigration illegal. The fact that it is called illegal immigration, which means prohibited by law, unlawful or not sanctioned by the rules, makes the need for a new law asinine. Five hundred thousand people in the streets protesting “proposed” legislation intended to make illegal that which already by definition is.
The fact that the protests are allowed to take place speaks volumes about why the need for the law to be actually enforced is so paramount to the continued existence of our society as it stands today. There are mechanisms in place to handle the influx of people who want to come to our country legally and adopt the American way of life. The system is not perfect. Nothing is perfect. No one is perfect. Well, actually, there was one guy but look what happened to him. We need to preserve the American way of life.
Mark Smith
Irvine
PR skills are lacking
Your editorial said it all: “Waving the Mexican flag is like waving a red flag in front of an angry bull” [“Immigration realities,” Opinion, March 28].
Clearly, all those on the street protesting the purposed shakeup in their illegal lifestyle should hire themselves a new public-relations firm. What they fail to see or advised to do to gain sympathy among Americans is to promote how much they love the U.S. and how grateful they are to be here. Instead of the American red, white and blue being waved in all of their hands, we see a foreign country’s colors. We hear the old tired explanation about working jobs that “Americans” won’t do. Get a new slogan because that one is yesterday’s news.
If you want to live in this country, tell us why you want to live here. Tell us why you think opportunities are better here. Just don’t put an “entitlement” statement with it. Let us know that you will love and defend the U.S. if allowed to become a citizen. Yes, we are a melting pot, but evidently the melting pot is poured into one bowl. That’s where the “United” in United States comes from.
If you want better jobs, then stay in school and work towards that dream. Just like everybody else. You don’t get into college unless you graduate from high school. And right now there is a huge recruitment for Hispanic students to enter college for free or basically nothing. That is something that my kids aren’t entitled to because, their ancestors floated over here from Ireland, Holland and England three centuries ago before the word “entitlement” had been invented.
If you risk dying in the desert to get here, then leave the red, green and white mentality behind you and start the new life you keep claiming you want. In the next walkout march, think about putting this country’s flag, which so many have died for so you could jabber on about “rights,” into your hands and convince the American public you want to remain here for better reasons than what you are now proclaiming.
Rosemary LaBonte
Irvine
Socialist underpinnings
I cannot understand why any citizen of this country would so demonstrate, but I suspect they are being lead by our socialist leaning public school system, the ACLU and some of the Mexican groups.
We should immediately round up all illegals and ship them to their country of origin.
By this action, we would free up enough tax money being used for the medical, schooling and other services given the illegals to more that pay for rebuilding our infrastructure (especially our roads and freeways) and lower our costs for welfare and medical needs.
As for the argument that we need illegal immigrants to fill jobs that legals will not take at the wages being paid, I will say that I would be happy to pay more for my food, entertainment and housing to cover the cost of paying enough to attract U.S. citizens to those jobs.
R. Dean
Monarch Beach
Illegal immigration as usual
I don’t understand why the supporters of illegal immigration found it necessary to muster a half million demonstrators in Los Angeles alone. After all, Democrats like Hillary Clinton will support them for votes, the Roman Catholic Church will support them for members, and the mayor of the second-largest city in America, Villaraigosa, spoke like he was still a member of “Mecha.” The Senate will water down the House bill, and it will be business, read: illegal immigration, as usual. Memo to demonstrators: If you want to show that you’re a part of this country and deserve to remain here, it might be wise to run around with the American flag, rather than the Mexican flag. Just a thought.
Bob Elliott
Anaheim Hills
Aggression toward U.S.
In the “Local voices on immigration” area of the Register, Ruben Martinez says that the thousands of students protesting immigration legislation, “are standing up because they feel like they are Americans.” These thoughtless young students would be proudly holding enormous “American” flags rather than numerous banner flags from Mexico if this were true.
These illegal immigrants are breaking our laws, then costing our schools money and creating chaos for our educators with their walkouts, while proudly wave giant Mexican flags. There is forethought in their choice of flag, and it is nothing but a hostile and aggressive act toward all the legal citizens of this country.
Danielle Arena Helms
Lake Forest
Anti-American rhetoric
If you want to be an American, get in line for a green card, learn English and become a citizen. If you want to be a Mexican, go back to Mexico. We need to build “the fence” and patrol it, enact strict laws on employers who hire illegals, and deal with this problem by enforcing the laws. In the 1800s, the south thought that they could not exist without slaves. They were wrong, and we will do just fine without illegal immigrants.
Mike Lach
Irvine
Under one flag
The real issue surrounding the immigration debate is not about illegal status. It is about what flag you want to wave. The U.S. has always welcomed immigrants. They came for opportunity, better life, a new beginning, and they took on there adopted country’s heritage. They did not give up the national heritage they came from but rather merged it with there new country’s.
That does not appear to be what is happening now. I see protest and flag waving as if to say we are going to take back the west for Mexico, and indeed I have talked to some who have stated so much. I find this a very disturbing trend, for such a mentality would surly bring a dangerous polarization of cultures where we no longer meld together as of old but now distrust and hate one another. I truly hope this does not lead to violence but we seem to be on that path and a very perilous path indeed. Immigration reform is a must, and will be accomplished in one form or another through debate and discussion in our democratic system. As we find the demographics of our area changing let’s all please remember we are E Pluribus Unum.
Gerald Cleland
Yorba Linda
Make a positive difference
I am against amnesty. I am against walls across our southern border. I am against criminalizing good Samaritans who aid illegal immigrants. I am against benefits that reward illegals who manage to enter our country. We gave amnesty to some 5 million illegals in 1986. Now a new amnesty bill would cover 20 million illegals. In another 20 years, will it be another 80 million?
A 700-hundred mile wall could become a 2,000-mile wall, covering the whole American-Mexican border. How reminiscent of the 100-mile long Berlin wall which kept East Germans from escaping into the West. We made a great deal out of Ronald Reagan’s demand in 1987 to the Russian leader, Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin wall. How ironic that reactionary leaders want a wall seven time longer.
There is only one solution – a solution that isn’t in the immature, lobbyist-centric strategy book of our so-called leaders in Washington. It is simple. It is righteous. It will provide a long-lasting solution in the form of planned investments.
With the consensus and cooperation of the Mexican president to start with, set up a trust fund for a self-sustaining job program in Mexico. Begin with Mexico, and extend it to other poor countries. Invest the billions we spend for border patrol, walls, and services of all kinds for the illegal immigration problem. It is something healthy, something constructive, something that nurtures humans. Not something that shuts them out, alienates them, is an eyesore or burdens our own citizens for years to come.
Jim Hoover
Huntington Beach
Weasel words
Let’s examine Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s statement that he made at the immigration march: “We must not criminalize workers.” The mayor used the word “workers” in place of “illegal immigrants.” If the “workers” are in this country illegally, then they are breaking the law. Thus, they are criminals. The politicians seem to have a difficult time grasping the fact that if you enter this country illegally you have broken the law. If I break the law, will law enforcement look the other way and do nothing about it? No.
I would be dealt with by the authorities. I realize I will be viewed as just a stupid citizen, I’m not a fancy educated lawyer-politician, but at least I have common sense and know right from wrong.
Brian Wilkinson
Anaheim
Argument from hysteria
I was so moved by Art Guevara’s touching and heartfelt concern for Americans and the American economy [“We need each other,” Letters, March 29]. Guevara predicts that the “American economy will collapse … landlords will have no one to rent to … businesses that the Latino community use will stand empty … no one will baby-sit or cut lawns” should the “controversial immigration bill” become law.
These worn-out talking points are so much horse manure.
There is no way that America’s economy will “collapse” into ruin owing to an absence of Latino illegal immigrants working as hotel housekeepers, landscaping crews or T-shirt factory workers. Our education system is cranking out more than enough illiterate, uneducated, unskilled dropouts to fill these needs.
Landlords will have no one to rent to? Ha! We’ll see how they “will have no one to rent to” once rental prices drop from their current insanely high levels due to the reduction in supply-and-demand pressure. This is a bad thing?
Businesses that the Latino community use will continue to prosper from patronage of both the non-Latino and legal Latino communities, just as they do now.
And no one will baby-sit? Perhaps when housing prices don’t pressure mothers into having to work, they can stay home and take care of their own babies. Besides, my own 76-year-old non-Latino mother is in great demand as a baby sitter.
The point is that though I truly appreciate Guevara’s concern, I believe that as the nation that won World War II, ended the Cold War, put men on the moon, and is the envy of every other nation on the planet, we just might be capable of figuring out how to survive an absence of 20 plus million illegal immigrants
Besides, if Latino immigrants are so indispensably beneficial to an economy, wouldn’t their mass influx back into their home countries naturally spur eras of growth and prosperity for those countries?
Vincent Burke
Lake Forest
