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Edited on Mon Apr-26-10 03:52 PM by SoCalDem
Immigration hits at the very core of tribalistic urges of humanity.
Each side has a seemingly benign central issue:
1) people already here who are legal & doing well see immigration from more than one aspect.
....some see it as a way to populate their businesses with cheap, eager labor that does no harm to anyone, because (theoretically) they can charge less for products made cheaper
....some see it as their right to use cheaper labor as long as there is someone there who wants to do the work, and is willing to work for less money to do the task..i.e. housekeeping, childcare, lawn care, car washing, etc.
....many who are here legally and whose families came here too long ago to remember, often have no problem with newer (cheaper) people coming here, as long as they "know their place", and do not "mix" with their children. (these are the folks who can ..and do.. send their children to pricey schools where they are "protected" from riff-raff of all sorts.)
2) people already here who are legal and NOT doing well, see it another way
....some see it as a drain on resources THEY need desperately and are having to share already
....some see it as a challenge to their job-getting chances in a tight job-market, because they are undercut by recent immigrants who will work for less
....some see it as a cause for ever-increasing taxation to pay for the services needed by poor recent immigrants
....people at the "bottom" of the economic ladder who have been "working their way up" may be upset at the fact that there seems to always be someone else coming along, just below them..someone who will try to leapfrog their way ahead.
3) people here who happen to be racist/xenophobic/bigoted people see "newcomers" as a danger to their "way of life". Throughout history, every "new" group has been pretty unwelcome, according to this sliver of society.
4) politicians are equally "mixed" in their response:
....some see newcomers as potential supporters/voters
....some see them as pawns being used by "the other side", and fear a weakening of support from their current supporters, if they offer services & acceptance to new people.
....politicians of all "flavors" see immigration as a dangerous issue because so many groups hold multiple stances within the groups, and it's hard to gauge support for most proposals until they have stuck their neck out..ans that's something pols hate to do.
5) many people here see immigration as a way to allow their family members from "the home country" to join them.
....some already here see family unification as a good thing (as long as they don't have to "pay" for OTHER people's families to be reunited, and the newly united families do not ask for or get services/benefits that their families cannot)
....some see uniting far-flung relatives with people already here, as a bad thing, since every group that becomes more populous, puts pressure on smaller family units who have been here for a long time.
6) people who emigrate, tend to be younger (fertile childbearing years), poor, and if from a third world country, often have cultures that favor large families.
....Large poor families take a lot of nurturing in the early years, and for a cash-strapped older culture, this can be a scary thing.
....Older people who are entering their declining years with a lot less than they anticipated, can see ANY government money spent on anyone BUT themselves, as wasted/pilfered/unearned.
7) Europeans ("white-folks") do not NEED to emigrate as much as in the past, and often their home-base has services & opportunities they like, so why leave?
The facts are what they are:
Immigration from mexico/central america will always be with us. We "touch".
People from other places who have to arrive by boat or plane will face scrutiny that makes it easier to thwart mass-immigration.
People who "visit", and then "over-stay" visas will always be with us because the manpower necessary to oversee and enforce laws will never be funded in a large way.
When immigration touches individual families, it will always be a front-burner issue, but to politicians it will always be another 'election issue"..and then it goes away..until next time.:(
The times when our country has had hard core policies that were followed, have always brought turmoil, and politicians try to avoid repeats of those times.
Look back to some of those :
....Chinese men who "built the west" were often forbidden to being wives, and female Chinese were not allowed to emigrate..
white" women were pretty much off-limits and the language/cultural boundaries made for a pretty miserable existence for most of these young men
....During WWI, people with German surnames were treated with suspicion
....During WWII, we all know what happened to people with Japanese lineage, and again the people with German surnames had problems
....Eisenhower rounded up Mexicans and did deportation.
Humankind survived because people were able to group together. They had internal squabbles & power-struggles , but when "others" threatened the way of life, they banded together to repel the "outsiders". We have evolved somewhat, but the innate fear remains. "Strangers" may plan to do us harm, and the one who struck first had a better chance to prevail. That's the core issue that's been used by politicians forever.
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