Most "legal" immigrants oppose crackdown on "illegals".

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

The myth of "legal" immigrants supporting a crackdown on "illegals" is exploded.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5306123

[ugarte]

1. It's a Republican wedge issue, like gay marriage and abortion

all set up to divert attention from Democratic domestic issues and Iraq. Just another example of Karl Rove setting America's agenda.

(The fact that this issue is now biting Republicans in the ass shows Rove is losing his touch, however.}

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

2. I'm not surprised

I'm sure many legal immigrants have friends and family that are illegal. Also, I think there's a basic misunderstanding that they're going to crackdown on legal immigrants as well. I catch a lot of non-immigrants with the same notion, even though it's untrue.

[misternormal]

3. The repukes are imploding on this issue...

This could get interesting, or ugly, depending on your point of view.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

4. I'm surprised about that

I am a legal immigrant and I work with legal immigrants everyday; I am personally and professionally aware of the time and money spent to acquire a visa or permanent residence and the legal hurdles one must go through.

This being said, I do not know of anyone who feels that entering the U.S. illegally or without proper documentation should not be in some way penalized for violating U.S. immigration law, especially considering the 'unfairness' of having undocumented people jump ahead in line to obtain immigration benefits, ahead of those who take years and spend thousands of dollars to do the same.

Since the only people who immigrated to the U.S. are myself, a sibling and my parents, I do not have any other family illegally in the U.S. Of course, since I am an immigration paralegal, I only work with those who seek to follow the laws of the U.S., so again I do not know of anyone who does not have (or seeks to procure) the right visas to live and work in the U.S.

[Jim Warren]

5. Frankly, this is not the case in my experience.

My wife is Mexican, because of that we are constantly in touch with lots Mexican immigrants, legal and not. She is often dismayed that legal immigrants or those who have been here long enough, established and out of the target zone, or children of immigrants born here all pretty much to the person disdain more illegals coming. They don't want the competition for work.

Our experiences on the street don't bear out this NPR story.

[sadiesworld]

6. Heaven knows...

NPR is a bastion of truth these days. :eyes:

[woodsprite]

7. Yes, I sat in a meeting the other day

where a legal immigrant that I work with and who is working with me on a project, sat and listed to an admin person talk about what wording to call the "undocumented aliens" on a drop down list for an application. We decided on "other". Another term mentioned was "asylum seekers". My friend suggested illegal alien and was told "Oh no, we can't do that". He was a little more than ticked off to know that our business knowingly accepts and doesn't report these people, but that he came thru legal channels all the way and wasn't offered the "protection" that illegals are.

[kurth]

8. Thomas Sowell is a brown-nosing Bushbot but I agree with him on this:

Thomas Sowell is a brown-nosing Bushbot but I agree with him on this:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GUESTS OR GATE CRASHERS?
by Thomas Sowell / March 27, 2006

.... How often have we heard that illegal immigrants "take jobs that Americans will not do"? What is missing in this argument is what is crucial in any economic argument: price. Americans will not take many jobs at their current pay levels -- and those pay levels will not rise so long as poverty-stricken immigrants are willing to take those jobs. If Mexican journalists were flooding into the United States and taking jobs as reporters and editors at half the pay being earned by American reporters and editors, maybe people in the media would understand why the argument about "taking jobs that Americans don't want" is such nonsense.

Another variation on the same theme is that we "need" the millions of illegal aliens already in the United States. "Need" is another word that blithely ignores prices. If jet planes were on sale for a thousand dollars each, I would probably "need" a couple of them -- an extra one to fly when the first one needed repair or maintenance. But since these planes cost millions of dollars, I don't even "need" one. There is no fixed amount of "need," independently of prices, whether with planes or workers.

None of the rhetoric and sophistry that we hear about immigration deals with the plain and ugly reality: Politicians are afraid of losing the Hispanic vote and businesses want cheap labor. What millions of other Americans want has been brushed aside, as if they don't count, and they have been soothed with pious words. But now the voters are getting fed up, which is why there are immigration bills in Congress.

The old inevitability ploy is often trotted out in immigration debates: It is not possible to either keep out illegal immigrants or to expel the ones already here. If you mean stopping every single illegal immigrant from getting in or expelling every single illegal immigrant who is already here, that may well be true. But does the fact that we cannot prevent every single murder cause us to stop enforcing the laws against murder? ....

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[BooScout]

9. I call Bullshit.......

I'm an American now living in the UK. My husband, when we were living in the States was a legal immigrant and because of having to deal day in and day out with the INS on immigration issues, I kept in touch (and still do) with many other legal immigrants living in the US.....down to a man and a woman........almost all do not support illegal immigration, if for no other reason than all the pain, heartache and money it took for us(and them) to go through the system legally. Most do however, realize the system is broken.........and the reason why is America simply won't go after the real cause of why it is broke........American Employers who hire illegal immigrants. Until the government decides to crack down on them and accept the economic consequences......the system will never be "fixed". Bush can holler ammnesty all he wants, but it won't solve the ongoing problem at all nor will it keep the problem from continuing.