Thousands of union members rallied Monday to support Mexican migrants working in the United States and call for a boycott of American goods in what was dubbed “A Day Without Gringos”.
At least a half-dozen state governors in Mexico endorsed the boycott of McDonald’s, Wal-Mart and hundreds of other U.S. companies — an action timed to coincide with a call for immigrants to boycott work, school and shopping in the United States to show their importance to the country.
At the U.S. Embassy on Mexico City’s central Paseo de la Reforma boulevard, about 50 police officers — many of them carrying helmets, batons and plastic shields — massed behind 15-foot barricades as supporters of the Zapatista rebel movement prepared to welcome their leader, Subcomandante Marcos, who has supported the boycott and U.S. work stoppages.
President Vicente Fox on Sunday urged Mexican protesters to be prudent. “They shouldn’t be an element of provocation or one that promotes xenophobia or opposition” to immigration reform in the United States, Fox said.
Fox said he was convinced legislation benefiting undocumented Mexican migrants living and working north of the border likely would be passed by U.S. lawmakers soon.
Since taking office in 2000, Fox repeatedly has called for a migration accord that would legalize the millions of undocumented Mexican workers living in the United States.
He also has criticized as “stupid” a U.S. House of Representatives bill calling for the construction of 700 miles of fence along the 1,952-mile U.S.-Mexican border.
So, did your local newspaper and TV news support the “Day without Mexicans”? And did they also support the “Day without Gringos”?
Any insightful analysis from your mayor or governor, congressional representative?
I’m Mexican, today I ate Subway with family and friends who visited, opposed to #11 who ate Mexican. I lived in the US for one year, and this Washington freshman college girl will come to Queretaro this summer in an exchange program with a host family, because she wants to learn about Mexican culture.
My dad’s brother is a high rank officer with the US Army serving in Iraq right this moment. I have blood related family who is American, completely, hardware and software. Can’t you see? We’re far too intertwined and won’t be able to avoid each other.
Yes, there’s a real problem in the border. Yes, it’s wrong to break the law, in any country. It’s wrong for poor Mexicans to leave all behind and head north for “better” chances. But it’s also wrong for US companies to profit using cheap labor hand at the expense of US workers. No easy solution in sight, someone will have to lose something.
For #25 and #27, about invading Mexico… If it makes you feel better, you already have! The US OWNS Mexico, or at least has it by the “cojones”. Not that it makes me proud, but it’s a fact we can’t deny. So when the dollar goes caput later this year, we’re going down too!
Good luck with that
For me, the immigration system (or lack of it) has two main problems:
1) There are not enough legal work visas to meet demand.
2) Immigration is too dominated by one culture (Mexican/Latin obviously)
I blame our do-nothing, no-good congress who saw this coming years ago and just sat on their butts.
Kick the bums out!
I think that most of us agree that it isn’t really legal immigration that concerns us but rather ILLEGAL immigration. The problem with the illegals is that they think this is a game where once you cross the border you have won the race. Kind of like baseball where they think that since they have gotten to home base they are “home free”. The is the fault of a piss poor INS department. They haven’t really been actively pursuing illegals for years.
The only way to stop this is NOT to build a fence at all, but rather pass to laws. One that makes felons out of those that employ them, and two NO child born on US soil automatically makes them a citizen.
The first stops the motive for coming and the second stops the family splits when you deport them. Simple and too the point.
Illegal immigrants don’t pay that much in taxes. This is because employers aren’t allowed to hire illegal immigrants, and they are required to see work papers before hiring(SSN). So instead they hire them as independent contractors, and the workers are required to pay their own taxes, which they can’t. So no taxes paid except by those who manage to get sufficient forgeries to work.
>what you get because you voted for the Republicans decades ago.
It was Eisenhower who last did a massive illegal roundup. It was Clinton who did a massive illegal naturalization(so they would vote for him.) As for Latin America, that was more IMF failures than anything else, helped along by the bankers in the US that wanted their loans paid up.
#39 – Illegals are illegals regardless of color. The visible portion of the problem that’s forcing the issue is the Mexicans since they can simply walk acroiss the border (by the millions). I doubt there are many Europeans (or Asians) walking here, and certainly not in those numbers.
I really hate to think of anything the French doing as right however: http://www.eitb24.com/portal/eitb24/noticia/en/international-news/integration-five-facts-about-frances-new-immigration-law?itemId=D28622&cl=%2Feitb24%2Finternacional&idioma=en
Excerpt: “Immigrants must prove they are able to support themselves and show they are making an effort to integrate. Newcomers would be forced to take French lessons.”
#41
Ronnie Regan was the last whole sale amnisty. Clinton presided over a partial one supported by the neocons.
Wow, I never thought that putting for the opposite side of the spectrum would get me so much criticism.
It makes me wonder if how many of you in your offices in your Ivory towers have actually talked to the immigrants and even dared to ask them why are they in your country?
Before you denigrate them just go and talk to them, listen to them and try to understand their situation, they are not living there with the malice of stealing someone else’s job.
Besides, I’d like to see any of you working in the fields for 12 hours in the scorching sun with worn clothing as the only protection against pesticides and all of that for one dollar.
smartalix……it would actually be nice to see what this country would be like without *ILLEGAL ALIENS*, they are NOT immigrants. If all of Ireland came here and took bar jobs there wouldn’t be as much of them as the illegals that come here.(hyperbole) Where do you get your facts??? If we rounded up every non-hispanic that overstayed their work or student visa’s it wouldn’t come to 100,000 people…..how does that compare to 11 million plus??
It’s not just the public services that they use that costs us so much money, it’s something I have been saying for a year now, a fact that the MSM and our wonderful President dosen’t like to mention…..it that 11 million UNSKILLED laborer’s drag down the wages of American citizens. I like to use the construction and meat packing industries as examples…..well, yesterday Lou Dobbs an eminient economist/investment person wrote an article showing what has happened to the meat packers……here’s the link….read it and think….especially when you see what has happened to the wages of those jobs.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/01/dobbs.immigrantprotests/index.html
The construction industry has been destroyed as a good paying job thanks to illegals, and so have many other jobs.
To me the real issue is education level. I’m all for letting educated legals in the country. They are usually literate both in their language and in ours, will get higher wages and pay higher taxes. Also those I have encountered are eager to learn about their new country and attempt to fit in.
The present set of largely Hispanic illegals are not very literate and although they work harder than I do, will not support themselves in the long run when you factor social services (health, school, gov services, etc). The real deal breaker for me is they want to make the country into a little Hispaniola. If Mexico (or other parts south) are so great a culture – why are they here in the first place?
Now I know that the big argument is the tax revenue that illegals supposedly generate – and when it comes to sales and like taxes – they do pay as we all do. But their wages are so low that they wouldn’t pay much if any income tax and precious little FICA (social security & Medicaid) and other, like taxes. And this assumes they actually pay those taxes – the reality is they don’t pay any taxes because the employers don’t report them. Those that do pay squat.
So I would like to know where all this tax money is suppose to come from. I mean if just 1 in 10 have a serious illness (7 days ~ 20,000), that alone will wipe clear any money paid in taxes for 10 of them for 20 years.
Again I have no doubt they are all hard working – but the cost of keeping them to me is just too high.
The Mexicans providing an economic bonanza because they spend some money here is pretty weak since they pay no taxes and absorb a lot of services for a genuine net loss. Worse is the fact that what money they do make is commonly sent back to Mexico. People should familiarize themselves with the following post from last year:
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=1528
Smar… excuse me? You didn’t read my post did you?
Look, I see, you absolutely love the illegal immigrants, the swim-across the border kind. Okay, great. I guess that you don’t live in a “border state”. Whatever. You also don’t seem to understand the stress it’s doing to border states, nor the problems with drug lords and the amazingly brutal murders (hispanic on hispanic, weapon of choice…machete) that have been happening….try a google search on Mara Salvatrucha, or for you gringos…M-13, or Nortenos, or Sureños. You have no idea, do you? You just think of the nice taco truck guy, right? There are more than just “innocent” poor people coming across our open border. Gang graffiti is everywhere, even in “nice” neighborhoods…when the mow-and-blow crew come in, they also tag (if some of them are in the gang). It’s a warning to the black, asian, and other gangs to “watch out”.
But, regarding the drain on our country….unless you LIVE in a border state, you just won’t get it. It’s really hurting our country. It’s not about some Irish lad overstaying his visa…it’s about people flooding the borders.
Consider this:
1. 40% of all workers in Los Angeles County (Los Angeles County has 10 million people) are working for cash and not paying taxes. This was because they are predominantly illegal immigrants, working without a green card.
2. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.
3. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens.
4. Over 2/3’s of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal
alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal whose births were paid for by taxpayers.
5. Nearly 25% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.
6. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages.
7. The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border.
8. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal.
9. 21 radio stations in L.A. are Spanish speaking.
10. In L.A.County 5.1 million people speak English. 3.9 million speak Spanish (10.2 million people in Los Angeles County).
(All 10 of the above facts are from the Los Angeles Times)
Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops but 29% are on welfare. http://www.cis.org
Over 70% of the United States annual population growth (and over 90% of California, Florida, and New York) results from immigration.
source:
http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=20919&catcode=10
Angel,
I have scrubbed out toilets and been a motel maid. I’ve cleaned other peoples houses, and worked 5 jobs (all part time, but that made for 16 hour days, 7 days a week). I would have picked crops if I could have, but the potential was never open to me…I was too white. In fact, the whole market was not open to anyone who was NOT hispanic…because the laborers would rough-up anyone who wasn’t. Wish I was kidding, but I knew people who used to do the work, but in the late 70’s…stopped because of threats and violence.
NOW….the farmers are all having a huge problem because the farm workers don’t want to pick, they’d rather go work in construction, or at Walmart, or at Home Depot. 70% of the rasin crops were left in the field, due to lack of labor, last year. So, the “will do the work no one else wants to do” isn’t the issue…or so it seems.
Do we really want to lower the American standard of living, justice, and …well culture with a huge influx of immigrants who have no interest in assimilation? Do we want what is going on in Nuevo Laredo to happen in this country? (Google search: Nuevo Laredo)
Read this, it paints a pretty fair picture of what we can expect if all continues as it is going:
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/14468409.htm
The real core of the issue is our Government abdicating its responsibility to manage our borders and enforce the laws!
Here is an oversimplified way to fix the Problem…
1) Stop the flood of people across the borders
Any border! Doesn’t matter if it is by ocean in a freighter or on foot from South America. Build a fence if you have to! No visa, no entry!
2) Fix the wages and get ready to pay more for stuff
If the market demands that certain job categories require a sub-minimum wage to support market prices for products, legislate it! (It has been done before… Ask waiters in big cities like New York) At least the debate is out on the table and the public can decide if that is what they want and the worker knows what to expect for the work they perform. Then they get to participate in the safety net that being legal provides without being an excessive burden on the rest of the community!
Listen, If we can drive around in our SUV’s at $ 3.50+ a gallon then we can afford to pay half a buck more for a head of lettuce!
3) Fix the INS
If the immigration quota’s are too low to support the industries that need cheap labor, increase the quotas and bring more people in through the proper channels to fill the jobs! Then we at least have some control again!
4) Send Employers who violate the law to JAIL!!!
If an employer violates the law by hiring undocumented workers, send them to JAIL ! With a wage that should allow them to continue to run their business and a reasonable supply of legal immigrants that are willing to work for that wage, there is no excuse to continue to violate the laws of this country. If they continue… Jail them!
5) Try to clean up the current problem as best as we can!
Give the current batch of illegal immigrants the first shot at filling those new immigration quotas. If you can prove that you’ve been here for 5 years and have kept your nose clean, you get on the track for citizenship. Anyone who either doesn’t choose to apply or doesn’t make the quota goes home! (And it really doesn’t matter if they are from Europe, China, Africa or South America… It’s not a racial issue… Its about money so don’t turn it into something it isn’t!)
6) Fix the law
Change the laws so that only children born to a citizen are granted automatic citizenship. Otherwise the kid can get in line for a visa and green card with mom and dad!
7) Fix the Legislature (ALL OF THEM!)
Elect some politicians with integrity! From the Community School Board all the way up to the President of the United States ! Let’s try and pick some representatives who care about something other than getting elected again!
(And by the way… They are all bums and your guy isn’t OK… He/She sucks as badly as the rest of them!)
It all starts with a government that cares about defending the laws it creates and a populace that actually cares enough to get up off the couch and pay attention for a change!
I was going to say something but it dawned at me something hideous:
Have you guyys noticed that all these reverberations usually happen every two years? First it was during the 2004 year where there was a ton of gay marriages and the democrats fell for it, allowing Bush to be reelected.
And now that there are elections this year it happens again, it makes me wonder if there are ppl in the GOP stirring all of these in favour of distracting the people in order to get their own politicians elected.
Remember that just days after Bush won the reelection his support continued to fall steadily despite winning that.
My advise is: snap out of it, there are bigger issues that telling the INS that Consuelo is an illegal alien.
Besides, kicking 11 million illegal immigrants won’t change things because:
1.- it won’t make oil cheaper because what little is fuel is going to be saved it is going to be sold elsewhere.
2.- it won’t improve the grades of your children because if you are a deadbeat parent before that, you will be a deadbeat parent after that.
3.- it won’t increase salaries because what can be outsourced WILL be outsourced. You have to punish the companies that pay the illegal immigrants dirt cheap hunger wages instead of all of the companies that hire them.
4.- my solutions are too simple for a problem that big, and so are the solutions that everyone here has posted it, because being partially right doesn’t mean being right at all.
Angel, I live in Texas and we get to talk to plenty of Mexicans as to “why” they are here. I understand their plight of living in poverty and wanting something better in life.
However, the WORLD is FULL of people in such plights. From Central America to Africa, there are over a billion people who need help. Are you saying that AMERICA should just take in whoever, and whenever they decide to come regardless of the impact on our country? Should the weight of the worlds poor be dumped on the USA to see IF we can sustain them? And when we should fall under the weight of the poor who will be there to lift us up? Your argument that needy people need our help is admirable and true, but it has to be done orderly and in OUR time and way or we risk total economic collapse.
The truth is that will social security already strained you think these people will be able to sustain it on minimum wage (or even less) and then when they are granted amnesty be able to collect it themselves having paid in so little in the first place? Medical care? School? etc..
They will kill us with their low wage base staying here in this country. This is a matter of corporations making huge profits for stock holders on the backs of the poor because they are willing to do anything for just a little money.
You cannot help the poor when the poor have topled your government from within. The truth is that we need to make felons of employers that hire ILLEGALS and back it up with billions of dollars for enforcement and we need to stop naturalization just because you were born here. We then need to bite the bullet and naturalize the ones here that have any members that are legal under the current system because you cant deport the parents of kids who were born here.
Now then.. never again will another illegal be allowed to work in the USA and if a child is born here they will NOT be US citizens so deporting the entire family will be right.
Forget the fence on the border.. long as there is a reason to come, they will go over it, under it, around it, etc. Just make felons of those that hire them and a reward program for people that turn in the employer of them. That will stop ALL illegal immigration.
you people, dont worry, the owner of the this whole earth, will take care of you, and wha you call illegals alliens, he is the best!!!!!
sonia,
HE? You are a sexist with suspiciously Illegal last name.
Please visit HIM soon and see how he feels about Hondurans entering into Mexico illegally.
6 mos. in a Mexican jail or free healthcare?
Vincente is not answering his phone.
W