What I don't get...

[misanthrope]

...I have a friend from New Zealand who is in the states on a work visa. Every so often, she has to return home to New Zealand to spend some time on her family's sheep farm before she can re-apply and come back again. It sucks because she has become a valued member of the community and made a decent life for herself. The real Catch-22 is that she has set-up house with an American and they're really happy together, but because she and her partner are both lesbians, they can't get married to ensure her citizenship.

However, that's the system and she works within it.

Why should some illegal immigrants be exempt from this due simply to their point of origin?

My fiancee and I know a local gentleman who is an Arabic immigrant. He's a good member of the community, runs F&B for a local Marriott hotel and has also opened a restaurant on the side. He works his ass off and has done it within the system. His wife is still in Lebanon and they are going through all the bureaucratic crap trying to get her over here. He told my fiancee that all this bitching from Mexican illegals is a slap in the face to him.

My fiancee's family is Lebanese. They came here under harsh circumstances and did what was required by the government to settle here. There are people all over our town who came from other locales, places every bit as dangerous as Beirut, like Cambodia, Vietnam, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. However, the vast majority of them did it within the system. They worked toward their citizenship and cherished it once that goal was reached.

So now, if someone longs to escape dreadful conditions in the Sudan or Chechnya they should have to go through official channels, but those from Mexico feel as if the same rules don't apply to them?

It doesn't seem fair in the least.

I don't dig illegal immigration. It's dangerous for everyone involved. I also think it hurts American citizens by keeping wages low. "There's just some jobs that Americans won't do?" Wrong. There's some jobs that Americans won't do FOR THE PITTANCE SOME EMPLOYERS WANT TO PAY. The massive exploitation of illegal immigrants is little more than "outsourcing" brought within our borders.

Ask a union guy what he thinks about illegal immigration and see what he says.

I don't give a damn where immigrants are from (we're all from Africa originally anyway, right?) but I do care when folks blatantly ignore the system and expect others to make special exemptions for them.

I don't see this as conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, but merely egalitarian.

[Inland]

1. Those that call for "open borders"

never quite say whether that means open to nationalities other than Mexican. Start asking if Bulgarians, Asians, and Guatemalans should be welcomed without limitation and there's more than a little evasion.

[misanthrope]

3. You mean like...

...the crickets chirping beneath this post while posters rush elsewhere to gratify obvious flamebait?

[Dave Reynolds]

2. I agree with you.

However, that must make me a horrible freeper racist (at least according to some here).

People should be welcome, but through LEGAL CHANNELS!

I'm sure everyone here will agree that the administration should be held to the rule of law. However, some of the same people want people who are in the country unlawfully to be granted amnesty. So, punish some and reward others for lawbreaking? Seems like a bad idea.

:patriot: