You don't have to, this is not about your wifes grandmother. I clarified I was not speaking in general terms. So I really don't care about what she did or did not do, it has nothing at all to do with her. Stop taking it personal.
There's nothing personal about it. You made a completely false comment about the contributions these people make to society. That story is a personal, anecdotal way of demonstrating by example how patently false your statement was and how it is based not on fact, but gross generalization.
Boo hoo. My grandfather and his brother were French and had nothing but a boat ticket. They landed in the US back in the early 1900's. They both married black women, so don't you can't tell me **** about what I do or do not know. They did however learn English even though they did not have to as allot of people spoke creole or French in Louisiana.
Excellent. Good for them on learning English
even though they didn't have to ( I put that in Italics to point out that this is not a new phenomenon). You do realize, however, that having a grandfather and grand-uncle who immigrated to Louisiana in the 1900's is a far cray from growing up inside of the immigrant community in Chicago?
You've demonstrated that you did not grow up in the immigrant community in Chicago by your statements. That's not an assumption, it's a fact. One I'm sure you can admit to when you aren't being emotional about perceived slights against you caused by my noting of this fact. Your parents were not immigrants and only one of your grandparents was. If you think that gives you some great insight into what it means to be an immigrant, then disabuse yourself of that notion, because it doesn't That'd be like me saying that I had a black relative a few generations back and therefore I know what it is like to grow up in the black community or as a black man, despite the fact that I'm as white as snow.
I'm sure you realize how absurd that is.
I made no assumptions. You have demonstrated that you did not grow up in the immigrant community in Chicago.
This is not about your grandmother.
I never said it was. I'm demonstrating the flaws in your assumptions by virtue of providing examples.
So again, who is playing the victim here?
The person claiming that things that do not affect them negatively in any way affect them negatively in many ways. I did not do that in any way shape or form, so I guess that leaves you?
None of that entire diatribe does anything at all to negate anything I said.
It absolutely negates our claim of "The problem is some people come here and instead of wanting to be part of our society, they want to reap the befits give nothing back. Then they have the nerve to thumb there noses at our society and system."
First, the reaping the benefits part is pretty absurd. It implies that one simply has to get here and magically their life is better. It takes hard work and sacrifice. It took hard work and sacrifice for my father, it took hard work and sacrifice for your grandfather and his brother. You denigrate their struggles by expressing such a cavalier attitude about what it takes to make it in the US. That's
why I told the story of my father's efforts. Not to create a sob story, as you seem to have taken it, but to demonstrate that this is not a magical thing that happens over night.
Next, the "give nothing back" comment is absurd. Even those who "suck from the government teat" so to say, contribute to our society in some way
most of the time. It might simply be a matter of providing opportunity for their children to become valuable members of society, or their grandchildren, or their great grandchildren, but they do contribute in some meaningful way.
That is the biggest load. Please post some evidence to prove this? I have proof to support mine...
The USA remains one of the most popular countries in the world as an immigration destination. Let us help you on the road to getting your USA visa.
The US has over 60 types of non-immigrant (meaning non-permanent) US visas. workpermit.com offers you full US immigration services if you need help, as well as many USA visa guides to get you started if you want to handle your US immigration on your own. The US immigration process can be confusing and bureaucratic, but our experts are here to help. -
US immigration
Are you under the bizarre impression that the benefits of immigration is a one-way street? The Us doesn't have to put forth any effort to get an immigrant (and they benefit form immigrants), whereas the immigrant has to put forth
tremendous effort in order to succeed here. The government doesn't coax them along or anything.
Of course, the important thing to note here is that the "evidence" you just put forth does NOTHING to support your claim of the "government bending over backwards to help
illegals". I mean, how absurd is it to put up evidence of methods for becoming a
legal immigrant to support a comment about the government helping illegal immigrants?
If you want to support your claim with evidence, I suggest using evidence which actually supports the claim instead of totally unrelated evidence which does nothign to suppor tthe claim and is, indeeed, utterly unrelated to that claim in any discernible way.
Over the past two years, as U.S. unemployment remained near double-digit levels and the economy shed jobs in the wake of the financial crisis, over a million foreign-born arrivals to America found work, many illegally. -
Exclusive: Over a million immigrants land U.S. jobs in 2008-10 | Reuters
Not sure what, if anything, this has to do with the comment of "
government bending over backwards to help illegals". The govenrment is not employing these people, private businesses are. Is your problem with the government bending over backwards, or is ti with companies hiring illegal immigrants? These are very different things.
The
government has been deporting illegals at a higher rate than the previous administration did, I believe, so your evidence does nothing to support your claim, nor does it even really relate to your claim.
I'm getting confused here. Are you railing against the government bending over backwards to help illegal immigrants, or are you railing against illegal immigrants and companies that hire them in general and at random?
[/QUOTE]
Best line at 1:12 seconds: "But there is something that we do know with certainty about the illegal aliens living in this country. They work, for the most part, very hard, most of them. They have an affect on nearly every aspect of our society and our economy."
There's always something that is forgotten about in the calculations of the costs of illegal immigration: Illegal immigration is benefiting
somebody other than the illegal immigrants. Often much, much more than it benefits the illegal immigrants, to be perfectly honest,
especially in the financial sense.
US companies see increased profits from hiring illegal immigrants (and people like you and I often pay far less for certain goods and services because of it too). The increased profits that these companies see are,
presumably, taxed. These taxes certainly offset some of the
other costs associated with illegal immigrants. The lowered prices that we have for certain goods and services also defray the burden that these people place on society.
Furthermore, illegal immigrants often pay into the tax system, especially the social security and medicare pools (which they will never have access to). These contributions are in the billions of dollars each year. This is something else that is often overlooked in the "costs" calculations.
Not that this matters in any way, though, because the issue at hand is whether the government bends over backwards to help illegal immigrants (which is what your claim was, a claim you have STILL failed miserably to provide support for), not about the costs of illegal immigration. I only provide a counter argument because these are things which are often overlooked. It's actually why many people oppose amnesty so much: It would cost us a great deal more to legalize these immigrants rather than keep them illegal. I also like to point out that illegal immigration cannot
possibly be a one-way street that benefits illegal immigrants. It's just impossible because, if it
was a one-way street, it couldn't possibly exist. People do not hire illegal immigrants because they are being altruistic.
Ironically, we benefit less from bending over backwards to
prevent illegal immigration than we would to simply put forth less energy preventing it.
This is not the same country your grandmother or my grandfather etc came to.
My grandparents did not come here. My
parents did. Well, my maternal grandparents came here for a few years when my mother was born, but but my mom was raised in Ireland, not the US.
Anyway, it's pretty much the same country that they came to in the 70's, when the economy also sucked and people were looking to scapegoat immigrants. Not much has changed in all of these years.
My wife's parents came here as well (her father was 18 when he came here along with the aforementioned grandmother, her mother was in her late 20's when she came).
Times change and so do the situations we find ourselves in.
Not that much, the only thing that has changed all that much is that people
used to only need a boat ticket from France to be considered "legal" immigrants.
Again this has nothing to do with your relatives and I was NOT speaking in general terms.
Parents. When you say relatives, you make it seem like I am a multigenerational American like yourself, rather than the bi-cultural child of immigrants.
There's a big difference with regard to understanding the struggles and sacrifices of immigrants when you've
witnessed your parents going through it, rather than having heard stories about your relative going through it.
This also has little to do with legal immigration.
My father was an illegal immigrant when he came here, and he spoke English, whereas my wife's grandmother came here legally and didn't. :shrug:
I'm not sure why you think this issue has anything to do with illegal immigration versus legal immigration. It has more to do with some combination of age at immigration, level of education, language acquisition skill, whether or not you come from an English speaking country, and the size of the immigrant community form the culture you come from or that speaks the language of the country you come form than anything else.
Why do we see so many Polish people in Chicago who never learn to speak English well? Because there is a massive Polish community in Chicago which allows that to be possible. It has nothing to do with their legal status.
The biggest reason this issue is becoming such a big deal is not because it is something new, it is because it has spread outside of the urban environment, where everyone is already used to it because it's been that way here, and in New York, and in San Francisco, etc. for longer than anyone alive can remember.
I am pointing out illegals as the biggest part of the problem.
And I'm pointing out that your assumptions are not accurate.
Most legals do make an effort to learn English.
Most illegals do, too. :shrug: It has nothing to do with legal status, really.
