What should our position regarding refugees be??

[Lipton64]

What do you think? I'm the grandson of refugees so I'm interested in this topic.

Obviously we have to Americanize them but how many should we take in before they begin to change us more than we change them? I mean we have so much money in this country we could feed scores of the world's poor many times over. Look at all the food people throw away at chain crap restaurants like Chili's or TGI Fridays.....

How many starving people in the 3rd world could survive off of our scraps? Hoards. Not to mention they would help allieviate any excess housing drag.

Immigrants and immigration are good for our economy but where do we cut the line and stop the spiggot?

Ideas?

[Erika]

1. Why do you think we are so wealthy?

I know many who may splurge on occassion and eat out but who get to go boxes and eat out of them for several days. Where did you get the idea we are so wealthy? We aren't. Just the upper crust.

Do you live in a different country than I do? I work less than a mile from the bus station and the homeless shelter. I see their suffering.

[Lipton64]

6. I live in a middle-class area....

Most of the people I know are middle-class with some upper-middle class permeating in there but not much. I know the poor's there but just go to Applebee's or Outback Steakhouse and look after the people next to you leave and look at all the food they don't finish. That's what I'm talking about.


I'm keenly aware we still have stinking, crushing, grinding poverty still here in this country. That hasn't eluded me, believe me. I see it every day going through the "projects" section of town.....

[moondust]

2. I don't know but

I favor strong border control so that immigration can be managed from within rather than imposed from without.

[Ken Burch]

3. We should welcome those who are clearly in danger...

Which includes those from Haiti, most of Latin America and at least parts of Mexico(such as Oaxaca), as well as women and girls escaping forced genital mutilation in the countries where it occurs. We should support the Mexican opposition in overthrowing the corrupt kleptocracy whose greed and incompetence drives Mexicans to go north in order to survive economically.

One thing that has always haunted me is that, the last time we had the kind of rigid immigration control the Minutemen/Official English/GOP/Lou Dobbs types want, the result was that refugees from Hitler, all of whom we could have accomodated in the wartime full-employment economy, were locked out and consigned to the ovens of the Holocaust. We could have saved all of them. This is what we should remember when we say "never again"-that as Americans we have a moral obligation to be a haven from persecution.

No good has ever come to this country from saying "go home-you aren't worth saving" to the dispossed of the Earth.

[Lipton64]

8. Damn fine rant my friend....

Excellent points....but keep in mind there is a world out there beyond Latin America and the Caribbean.....

What about those rotting in Chinese communist prisons or N. Korean communist prisons? Or those rotting in Burmese quasi-fascist prisons for opposing that dictator?

We must allow all in who can and are willing to come within limits.

From a pragmatic point of view I must differ though with the English issue. I don't really care for England much since it has a horrid racist and imperialist past but it is our national language is it not? And how is an immigrant to advance themselves or their families in this country if they can't even speak the language? There is a certain level of practicality that must be enforced in order for them to become productive members of society and to keep them from sinking the cesspool of crime and poverty.

[Ken Burch]

10. I'd include the groups yo mentioned, of course...

Although it is much less likely that people in those groups would actually manage to GET to our border in the first place, given the geography.

I put Latin America and the Caribbean first because that is where most immigrants are coming from and the ethnicity and languages of those immigrants are what the U.S. right most strenuously objects to.

Oh, and thank you SO much for calling my post a rant:eyes::sarcasm:.

I don't think I insulted YOUR original post, but I suppose I could be wrong.

[Lipton64]

11. Friend, I didn't mean offense....

"Oh, and thank you SO much for calling my post a rant .

I don't think I insulted YOUR original post, but I suppose I could be wrong."

I frequently self-depreciatingly admit that I ramble and rant as I do and so I frequently call other people's exchanges "rants" and "rambles" as well to fit my own personal definitions. I didn't mean to alter the meaning of your post. I guess my style is just un-orthodox and unhibited. I apologize if I caused offense.

[xchrom]

4. BUILD A WALL!

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. All refugees have to be taken in, by international law

not to mention basic decency. It's not clear, however, from your post that you understand the difference between a refugee or asylum seeker, and an immigrant.

Refugees are fleeing violence. You cannot send them back into danger (though if they have passed through another safe country, you may get into arguments with that country over who is responsible for them).

Immigrants are people who choose to move to a country, for economic or personal (eg marriage) reasons.

Why do you think it's obvious that "we have to Americanize them"? Can't you just let them pursue happiness in their own way?

[Lipton64]

7. Forgive me for not clarifying......

What is the difference between an asylum seeker and a refugee? I always though of them as basically the same thing with a different name.


As for "Americanizing" them. I think that's necessary if they are going to live in American society and stay here and eventually become citizens as most refugees do. After all, if a family of Afghans who still use wells for water and outhouses for taking care of that business come here poor, penniless, and dirty - don't we have to teach them English, job skills, American customs, where to go to the bathroom in America, how to drive a car(assuming they move out into suburbia or into the country), how to be polite, how to start a business in the United States, etc.

That's what I mean. People can live as they choose obviously but if they choose to live in 3rd-world squalor I think their prospectives of moving up the American economic ladder are slim to none - and I'm just talking about moving into the middle class. I'm not even talking about becoming wealthy.

Let them practice their customs and religious traditions and rituals as they see fit and let them speak their language at home - but without basic skills - how will they prosper in this country?

[Bluerthanblue]

9. we are all refugees of one kind or another- and

if we are going to turn people away for fear that the lifeboat won't stand up under the strain, then we're bound to drown regardless.

DNA in my body is linked back to the Mayflower- if there isn't enough room here- there isn't room enough anywhere.

just my 1 1/2 cents-

blu