May 24, 2010

A Touchy Subject and I Make No Apologies for My Opinion

At the risk of pissing off all of my leftie friends, and violating my own policy about not discussing politics or religion, I feel I must speak out about the illegal immigration problem in the USA.

I am catching holy hell from people who I thought were friends, because I happen to support the new law in Arizona. One guy unfriended me from Facebook, then refriended me, then forced an anti-Arizona law email down my throat, and when I tried to enlighten him about the problems in South Africa, not even the illegal immigration issue, he requested that I remove him from my email list. Fine. Removed. And blocked. From both email and Facebook. Fuck off and die asshole. But I digress.

I was having an email chat a couple of weeks ago w/ BBG1, and I told her why I support the new Arizona law. She very astutely pointed out that I'm looking at the issue from a viewpoint that most Americans don't have because I am a first generation American on my dad's side, and a second generation American on my mom's. My family entered through the front door, legally and with appropriate papers and sponsors. OK I know we really can't compare the Immigration Wave of the early 1900's who passed through Ellis Island to the scores of illegals jumping the USA/Mexico border, but I am doing it anyway.

My Italian family came here in 1911, learned to speak English, assimilated quickly to their community in Yonkers, became citizens, worked damn hard and paid taxes. They didn't sneak in and have baby after baby, and then suck off the government year after year. They didn't even want to take handouts during the Great Depression, but did so out of necessity.

My father came from British Guiana, South America. He arrived at age 19, legally, and the first thing he did after receiving his citizenship was join the army and fight with the Allies in WW2, where he was badly injured in Italy and received a Purple Heart. My dad was proud to serve his new country.
___
My dad, his brother and sister were orphans in BG. Dad was able to sponsor Uncle Frank to come to the USA, where he also became a very successful businessman, in Wisconsin. My Aunt Stella, the eldest, moved from Georgetown, BG to London in the 50's, and then to Windsor, Ontario, Canada in the 60's. The plan was for her to get permission to come to the USA, become a citizen and live with Uncle Frank in Wisconsin. That's why she chose Windsor, because it's right across the river from Detroit, Michigan, and only a day's drive to Milwaukee. Her application for citizenship languished in limbo for a long time. My dad did plumbing work for people who had connections in Washington DC, but despite their best efforts, Aunt Stella was never granted permission to move here as a citizen. She was allowed to visit us of course, but had to return to Canada each time. She met a man in Windsor, and they enjoyed a few years of marital bliss before he died from cancer in the early 70's.
___
Aunt Stella was diagnosed with colon cancer in the mid-70's. She came to visit us for about 3 weeks in the spring of 1976, but sick as she was, she returned home. Do you know how easy it would have been for Uncle Frank or my dad to have said, "Just stay! Who cares? We were going to take care of you anyway, so just move here and don't worry about it." She could have lived in Uncle Frank's large home, or at my house. However, that was never an option, nor was it ever brought up as a possible option. My father and uncle would not break the law, and my aunt would never ask them to either. Aunt Stella died in early 1977, as a citizen of Canada.
___

So am I pissed off about the illegals? You bet your bippy I am!! Why should everything be in both English AND Spanish? Why do we allow non-citizens to have babies here and grant the babies citizenship? We have to close that loophole ASAP! Last week, the Everett Police caught a man in the middle of raping a woman. He had been deported back to Mexico FOUR TIMES. What the fuck is he doing here? Now that woman has to go through psychological and emotional trauma, both from being raped (as if that isn't bad enough) and also because the bastard should never have been here. The Mexican gang problems are on the rise, esp. in the border states. Why are illegal immigrants able to have access to welfare? Or have their health care visits paid by the state when my husband can't even get fucking health insurance? And he's an American? I received an email last week from one of my friends, that talked about how Bank of America is giving credit cards to illegal immigrants by waiving the requirement of having a Social Security Number. When an American calls, they request your SSN as additional ID. When an illegal calls and opts for the Spanish language person, no SSN request is made. Um, WHAT THE FUCK? So when those illegal fuckers default on their balances, MY rates go up?


I realize that the new Arizona law is a slippery slope, and reeks of 1930's era Germany, "YOU VILL SHOW US YOUR PAPERS!!" But I don't care. Other people are complaining that it opens the door for racial profiling. Again: Don't care. If you are in my country ILLEGALLY, get the fuck out. Do I care whenever a vanload of illegals perishes in the hot desert during the summer? Not even a teeny, tiny little bit. They want to come to America so bad, but the first thing they do is disrespect the USA by entering illegally??! GET THE FUCK OUT! Go back to Mexico and apply for legal citizenship and wait your turn. Besides, as I understand it, people cannot be asked to show their citizenship papers in Arizona unless and until they are stopped for good cause/reason. It's not like the cops are going to be stopping every person they see and demanding to see proof of citizenship. So if you are caught breaking the law, then I guess you need to pony up the proper ID. If you cannot do so, then your ass gets bounced back across the border where it belongs.
_____
Here are some photos of the Sonoran Desert National Monument in Arizona. I got these in an email from one of my friends, whose brother lives in Arizona and is as disgusted with the illegals as I am.

Nice garbage dump eh? This is an Illegal Immigrant Super Highway, in a dry wash, located south of Tucson, Arizona. Fortunately they don't get much rain because if they did, it would wash this shit right out to the Pacific Ocean.
Clothes, backpacks, thousands and thousands of used diapers....pails of human waste.

You may live like this in Mexico and treat your environment like this, but Americans do not.

Disrespectful pigs.


This is a quote, from the email:

"The trash left behind by people illegally crossing our border is another Environmental Disaster to hit the USA. If these actions had been done in one of our Northwest Forests or Seashore National Parks areas, there would be an uprising of the American people.....but this is the Arizona-Mexican border. You won't see these pictures on CNN, ABC, NBC..... Nor will they mention the disease that comes from the uncovered human waste left in our desert. However, with respect to CNN, ABC & NBC, they do offer us "Special Reports" on cheating celebrity spouses....This information needs to be seen by the rest of the country.

It's not about Right vs Left, Liberal vs. Conservative, Republican vs. Democrat. It's about supporting the US Constitution."

How about this picture? An illegal demanding Free Everything, or else they will shoot more Arizona police. "You owe us America!" We do? We owe them for what? I don't have free health insurance, I don't have a free home, I can't walk into Safeway and not pay for my groceries. GET THE FUCK OUT! Do you think that Mexico tolerates illegal immigration to their country? No, they most certainly do NOT. Their laws are way more strict and harsh than Arizona's new law. So it's OK to break our laws but not OK to break theirs?

I actually do have a solution for this problem. And I think it's a damn good one too. If people want to come to the USA and are unwilling or unable to wait their turn for legal citizenship, then they are more than welcome to enter the United States through the Military Recruitment Office. Come here, enlist immediately, go for English language immersion (I'm sure there are plenty of Spanish-speaking people in the military), go through basic training and put in the four years. Our poor troops are on their 3rd and 4th, or more, tours over in the Middle East. Military enlistment is way, way down. At the conclusion of their military service, they will be citizens of the USA. This goes for both men and women. I'd also like to see large fines levied upon those employers (mostly agricultural) who hire illegals to work for them under the table.
___

I make absolutely no apology for how I feel. I consider myself social liberally (but fiscally conservative), but this is one socially liberal issue on which I refuse to budge. My family, on both sides, came here through the front door, and that fact shapes how I feel on this issue. I support the US Constitution, not the rights of illegals who treat my country like a toilet and commit horrible crimes upon arrival. If you want to brand me a racist against illegal Mexicans, then that's fine too. If you are truly my friend, then you love & accept me, no matter how divergent our opinions might be. But I could not stay quiet on this issue any longer. When I got those photos in my email last week, I decided to blog them.
___

That said, if something realistic isn't done about this problem soon, I predict more and more of a divide in this country, which is something we can ill afford.

16 comments:

  1. Wow, no comments. Either everyone is mad at me or they don't want to start a firestorm.....

    ReplyDelete
  2. Don't agree with you. You're still my virtual friend, though.

    :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks WR. Some people agree w/ me, some don't. My overseas friends tend to disagree w/ me, b/c they don't have to deal with this issue on the scale that we do. You might change your mind if you lived in the States, esp. in along the border. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous2:12 PM

    Not mad at you dear, I only just read this ;0)

    I thought it was only the UK that had this problem. In our case, people seem to forget the UK is a TINY island in the Atlantic Ocean. We have a finite amount of space, and finite resources to spend on the population, so nothing gets me madder faster than reading in the paper (about every other day) that someone is here from somewhere else, and, having never paid a fucking penny in tax (you can tell how much this winds me up!), or contributed to society in ANY way whatsoever, has hooked into the benefits system, and is living rent-free, being paid a salary by the British tax payer that's 10 times what my parents get for their pension, having spent a lifetime working and paying their dues. And don't even get me started on how we can't deport someone to their country of origin, after they've been arrested for being involved in a terrorist plot, and is still considered a 'threat' to national security, because it will 'infringe' his 'Human Rights' as we can't guarantee he won't be tortured in his own country....and I'd give a damn about that because...???!

    We've really lost the plot. If someones finds it, please return to......

    ReplyDelete
  5. I've been too frightened to comment, haha.

    ReplyDelete
  6. JoJo, the biggest environmental disaster waiting to hit the US - and the rest of the planet - is global warming, which the legal US citizenry is making worse in massive leaps and bounds.

    There is NO reason for English to be the lingua franca of the US. You are ALL illegal immigrants if you are not Native Americans. What right did the colonial powers (like the UK, guilty as charged) have to take the country from the indigenous population and impose its language and culture, its illnesses, not to mention death?

    I'm completely relaxed about immigration into the UK. The jobs our immigrants do are jobs that the natives will no longer consider. Without them, our food would be rotting in the fields, our hospitals would be even filthier than they are, and our old peoples' homes would be unable to run.

    In the UK, the gutter press scares ordinary people into thinking the country is overrun, and those who buy it tend to live in areas where there are hardly any immigrants. My cousins are rabidly anti-immigrant, yet they rarely see any, and believe the stories without evidence. I live in an area with a high immigrant population. Most have come legally from the eastern countries of the EU.

    AND THEY EAT OUR BLOODY SWANS!

    Other than that, we've interfered in enough countries in the past, and taken their wealth, to justify their wanting a bit of what we have, that their countries are now too impoverished to get, because of our theft.

    Still love you JoJo.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hey,

    Just got here. I don't agree with the AZ law for LOTS of reasons.

    I do agree that you are right, that something needs to be done, but the problem is systemic. Our economy depends on these people, and then we punish them whenever their presence is inconvenient. I'm oversimplifying but my thinking is that the band aid type thinking has got to go... this situation needs major surgery.

    Also I'm well acquainted with how police have a tendency to abuse their authority, and free license in most cases to do so. No need to give them any encouragement.

    Not sure what the answer is, just pretty sure what it isn't.

    Good for you for standing up for what you believe though. I would not kick you out of my life for that. I think many people on both sides are frustrated and experiencing high emotions and backlash reactions.

    See you soon,
    pf

    ReplyDelete
  8. PPS I am only second generation myself, and our backgrounds are strikingly similar! I forgot to mention that. A fun little side line.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous7:07 PM

    I am totally with you, Joanne! The entire culture of entitlement in America is sickening..

    ReplyDelete
  10. You all make great points, and I'm especially pleased to see that there were no 'attacks'. :D

    There is no easy solution, that's the problem. It's gotten to the point where we are so far gone w/ the amt of illegals streaming into our country that I'm not sure we'll ever get a handle on it.

    What's particularly troubling is that, in addition to the trash being left by the Mexicans, several Muslim prayer mats have also been found in the Desert Southwest. Our southern border is like a sieve and it scares me that radical Muslims are also breaching our borders.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I have mixed feelings about it...I will say the last time I was in a car accident, I was hit by an illegal alien. No drivers license, no insurance, she broke the law and just disappeared. If I had been driving without a license or insurance I can tell you where I would have landed...Jail.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I absolutely agree with you. And I don't give a fuck if some of your friends see the White Opressor in what I say, but you can just raname some parties in this blog, and it will be SOUTH AFRICA.

    Especially hitting home, exact replica of our local disrespect for ummm...just about everything, was your statement on how they WANT EVERYTHING FOR FREE or they will kill.....but should WE do such a thing, we'd be kissing the wall of a jail cell, getting butt fucked wihtin a day!

    Good on you, Jojo! You have my backing 100%, and anyone who has a problem with it, can go live with the pests and see how they like it!

    ReplyDelete
  13. ....and there is another thing I'd like to make clear:
    I in no way call myself an AFRICAN and I don't care if anyone thinks I don't belong here. By all means, if you can help me get out of this AFRICAN SHIT HOLE that the BRITISH monarchy forced upon me and my children, I'd be happy to go. I'd be throwing a PARTY actually.

    And what about the Native Americans getting killed off in droves and nobody even talks about them anymore. They are virtually non-existent in anything "American", so do not for a moment call US opressors.....genocidal monarchies/ governments.

    Americans and the British are quick to jump on the Racial Pity Party bandwagon, when they have the honor of living in their own country of heritage.

    I'd be happy to live in Scotland, like my ancestors, but I have to endure racial discrimination every day because of the governments who put my family here in the first place.

    In closing: Do not act like you know anything about these problems, unless you are affected by them.

    *****
    When I refer to "YOU", I refer to all nations who oppose, and have opinions, when they are the very cause of the bastardization of nations.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Tess - See? That's my point exactly. Americans end up paying higher insurance premiums b/c of those bastards driving w/o insurance. It's bullshit.

    Axe - Well said. As Val points out, the white euros invaded this land and wiped out the native americans, which they did. it sucks. it happened, and it's ugly and it was wrong. the broken treaties, the near extinction of the buffalo, horrific massacres at Sand Creek and Wounded Knee, pox infected blankets. And now here are the white euros complaining that the mexicans are invading us.

    As it turns out, that illegal mexican guy who raped the woman in Everett last week had been deported NINE. not four, times. NINE FUCKING TIMES. And every time, he committed some horrible crime, then deported.

    And Americans are becoming more and more bitterly divided, angry, miserable, rude, pissy, and just generally assholes to each other. Obama was supposed to unite us and the rift just grows further and further apart.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I just read this tonight (behind on my blog updates) and I can totally see where you are coming from. I truly do not understand where these people get off saying they have a right to something when taking it illegally. I just doesn't make sense.

    I recently came into contact with a woman that was here legally from Mexico. Awesome. Unfortunately she has been here for over 20 years and does not speak one word of English. Really? How does that work?

    I have to acknowledge the comment that was made about Native Americans as well. My grandpa (not biological but been around since my mom was a teen) is half Chippewa. He has brought this up before with us and shouldn't we all speak some form of Native American? I've honestly never had a come back for that because in reality he does have a valid point. I do love this country and am proud to be an American but when I look back our founding fathers did push themselves in here and treated those already here like crap. To me it is a big black spot on history. That said, none of us can go back and change that at this point. All we can do now is to move ahead and grow and take care of those that are here, that were born here or moved here legally instead of handing out more welfare to people that will never pay a dime in taxes to reimburse the system that they are taking advantage of.

    ReplyDelete
  16. i have to concur with val - i don't have a problem with immigrants - it's natural for people to move around and to want to do their best for themselves and their families - even those who are not persecuted or refugees

    i also had a bump years ago with someone with no road tax or insurance - he was english, a yob who threatened us and the police did nothing - so it's not just illegals or immigrants, certainly not in this country


    sure some abuse the system, but so do the locals, the young girls who purposely have baby after baby to be housed by the council and to live on benefits

    i like living in a diverse cultural society and it's only the bad uns who are in the media

    tell me where do i stand as a jew - some would say go back to your own country - where would that be? my roots are spanish, portuguese, russian, polish, countries where jews are not welcome, or to israel, a country whose very existence is a fight for survival

    jojo, please don't take offense, but your country, as a generalisation, is paranoid and xenophobic - entering and leaving your airports is a nightmare!!!!

    ReplyDelete