Just back from the Indianapolis immigration march

[joemurphy]

I went because a lot of my friends I've met playing soccer are illegal. I've come to know them and their families and I wanted to be with them on this. The Indianapolis Star predicted 1,000 participants initially and then upped the estimate to 5,000. Well, there were a lot more than that. Anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000. No one knows.

The demonstration was peaceful, happy, and orderly. The only downers were the lines of police along the route who glared at the marchers. There was no trouble.

Personally, I like these people. Hard-working, ambitious, and strongly familial. I say give them a chance to be citizens. Treating them like dirt isn't the way we are. If Lou Dobbs doesn't like it, well, too bad.

Si, se puede!

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Sounds good to me.

[NNN0LHI]

2. The Indy march was shown on cable a little while ago

I used to live in Indy. Its a great city. I liked it there a lot.

Don

[democrat_patriot]

3. Why aren't they here legally?

[joemurphy]

4. Because under the current immigration laws it's next to

impossible for a Mexican to immigrate legally. They come because they want a better life for themselves and their kids. The alternatives are a life without hope in Mexico and a life with hope here.

[democrat_patriot]

6. They need to be sponsored?

What are the rules? A company needs to sponsor them?

[joemurphy]

10. The quotas for Latinos are very small while those for

Europeans are greater. Short of marrying an American or demonstrating a skill level and getting an employer to sponsor them (which indentures you to the same employer for the 4-5 years it takes to get a green card) the average Mexican has zero chance of becoming a legal permanent resident.

[democrat_patriot]

14. Doesn't give a person the right to break the law.

Sorry.

I want a better life, I'll go about getting it legally.

[joemurphy]

21. Jeez, if this were Les Miserables, you'd be pulling for

Javert to throw Jean Valjean into a prison for stealing a loaf of bread. I'm with Jean Valjean.

[philosophie_en_rose]

40. Civil Disobedience & Non-violent resistance are duties.

If the law is inherently unjust, there is a duty not contribute to injustice. (Note: That doesn't mean destructiveness].

It used to be a crime for some of us to sit in the front of the bus, you know.

In some places, it was a crime to save Jews from massacres.

In this country, we profit off of the sweat of illegal immigrants in so many ways. Yet, we wonder when they attempt to be part of the society that their sweatshop efforts (even in their own countries) support.

[BlooInBloo]

46. I love it when white folks say that.

[democrat_patriot]

47. Cool, I'll say it again.

ILLEGAL immigrants are here ILLEGALLY.

Don't care if their purple or orange.

Fill out the paperwork, and become legal. I'll buy them a beer. Otherwise buh-bye.

[StellaBlue]

27. Is that true?

My ex, who was British, and a stockbroker, couldn't get into the US unless we got married. At that time (we investigated it in 2001/02, and we broke up mid-2005), Brits were not eligible for the residence permit lottery, it was very difficult to get a work permit... the only way to get in was to marry an American. And vice versa. We managed, finally to get me a domestic partnership visa to stay in the UK, but they (the UK Home Office) kept my passport for a year and a half and I could neither leave the UK nor find decent work (having no long-term residence rights).

My whole experience was terrible. I feel for these people. They only want to live their lives, with their families. I for one never forget, that as a mostly-Anglo-descended American, my ancestors were the original illegal immigrants. Who are we to say shit?! I also think the media/government hacks are stirring this up at the moment to distract us from Iraq/War on Terra/Republican corruption leading up to 2006. Anyway... I say, the more Mexicans the better. I'll be happy when Texas is more Catholic than Southern Baptist.

Some wisdom from the Indigo Girls is in order here:

I go down to Chicano city park
'Cause it makes me feel so fine
When the weeds go down you can see up close
In the dead of the winter time
But when the summer comes everything's in bloom
And you wouldn't know it's there
And the white folks like to pretend it's not
But their music's in the air

And you can hear 'em singing, la la la, they say shame on you
And you can feel them dancing, la la la, they say shame on you

My friend Tanner she says, "You know me and Jesus
We're of the same heart
The only thing that keeps us distant
Is that I keep fuckin' up"
I said, "Come on down to Chicano city park
And wash your blues away"
The beautiful ladies walk on by
You know I never know what to say

And they'll be singing, oo la-la-la-la-la, shame on you
They'll be dancin', la la la, they say shame on you, shame on you

Let's go road block trippin' in the middle of the night
Up in Gainesville town
There'll be blue lights flashin' down the long dirt road
When they ask us to step out
They say, "We be looking for illegal immigrants
Can we check your car?"
I say, "You know it's funny I think we were on the same boat
Back in 1694"

[nonconformist]

42. That's not true, at least in practice

http://sorrel.humboldt.edu/~economic/econ104/immigrat/

22.6% of legal immigrants to the U.S. come from Mexico. 49.3% come from the American continent. 10.4% come from the European continent.

[AzDar]

5. I'm sure there are lots of nice families wishing to obtain U.S.

citizenship; it's a great Country we have (for the most part).
However, if they are here ILLEGALLY, they are, by definition, criminals.

[democrat_patriot]

7. Bingo.

[Sapere aude]

15. This country was founded on breaking the law.

We gained our independence from England by breaking the law. Most social movements in this country come about by acts of civil disobedience.

I think that the reason most people are anti illegal immigrants is because of the change in our culture that it brings about. At least that's why I was against illegals many years go. I've since learned that my being mad about illegals didn't effect them at all but it made me spend a lot of time dealing in negativity which is something I don't need.

[joemurphy]

8. Yeah, but some people (like me) don't care.

If wanting to do something for yourself and your kids is a crime, then I'm with them. Rosa Parks was a criminal too under that definition of the term.

[AzDar]

11. Rosa Parks was an American..BIG difference. I'm sure there are

lots of people who deal drugs who are only trying to make a better life for their families as well,and yet no matter how you feel about the drug laws, people who deal drugs are STILL criminals.

[proud2BlibKansan]

24. So what Rosa Parks did was LESS illegal because she was

a US citizen? Because of where she was born, her crime is less troubling to you?

[AzDar]

29. Rosa Parks was an American CITIZEN, fighting for the rights guaranteed

her as such, but being withheld from her. NOT a foreign national, entering THIS country ILLEGALLY, then demanding rights afforded those who are LEGAL CITIZENS....
Tremendous difference; pretty much a strawman...

[proud2BlibKansan]

30. I wonder how history will judge these Hispanics

I know for a fact that Rosa Parks was thought to be a 'subversive activist' in 1955. She went to jail, remember? The FBI also had an extensive file on her and on Martin Luther King. Yet they are both considered heroes today.

So no, I don't think we can say for sure there is much difference.

[AzDar]

31. They also had an extensive file on John Lennon,who fought like hell

to stay in this Country LEGALLY.
Apples and oranges...

[democrat_patriot]

12. I don't disagree with their reasoning.

I just think they should fill out the paperwork and do it legally. If the current laws don't allow that, than protest to change the immigration law, and don't try to change the law after you have broken it.

That's what * is doing, and it's wrong.

I can'e immigrate to New Zealand, but i'm not going to live their illegally.

[proud2BlibKansan]

25. So should we arrest all 12 million of them?

After all, they are criminals!

[izzybeans]

28. When gays and lesbians get married they are doing so

illegally. Sometimes the law doesn't make it right.

[radio4progressives]

43. ¡Bastante de este crap racist estúpido!

¡Nuestra constitución concede las derechas a todas las personas, ciudadanos de Estados Unidos o no!


extractado del Declaración de la Independencia:

WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and the Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness...


The Ninth Amendment:

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others/b] retained by the people.

[philosophie_en_rose]

45. ¡No puedo creer a los racistas aquí!

Usted está correcto. Piensan que solamente los ciudadanos merecen las derechas. Nuestro la constitución no dice eso. Y una creencia básica en justicia no la permitiría.

¡Nuestra constitución concede las derechas a todas las personas, ciudadanos de Estados Unidos o no!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. Real people power in action. Si, se puede! Solidaridad!

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. Si se puede!

I just got back from the rally here in KC. Downloading my pictures now.

Great post! :yourock:

[Brigid]

16. Let Them Come Legally

I am from Indianapolis too. I don't see how illegal immigrants could be entitled driver's licenses, jobs, or anything else but humane treatment while they're sent back where they came from. They drive down wages and unfairly burden our schools, health care system, and prisons. And American middle-class taxpayers pick up the tab. If I sound like I've been listening to Lou Dobbs too long -- well -- what can I say. If I sound mean-spirited and xenophobic, I'm sorry. But I don't see why they're entitled to come here illegally any more than I am entitled to emigrate somewhere else in voilation of the law.

[Saturday]

17. I agree Brigid. n/t

[joemurphy]

19. We'll I get your point, but I disagree with it.

(a) Denying immigrants drivers licenses means they can't get insurance. They have to work and need cars. So they drive without insurance. Personally, I prefer driving in a milieu where people are insured. Then, if there's an accident, someone pays the damages.

(b) Saying they are a "burden" on our schools is kind of unfair since a lot of their kids are born here and are U.S. citizens. As such, they have a right to an education.

(c) Some "burden" our health care system, I suppose. But uninsured Americans do that too. Most of them pay taxes, so in that sense they're no more of a burden than the average American taxpayer who lacks health insurance. Some can't get health insurance for the same reason Americans don't have it...they can't afford it or their employer won't cover them. Many do have insurance and pay for those who don't just like you and I do.

(d) Our prisons are disproportionately populated by minorities for all kinds of reasons. Lack of good legal representation has a lot to do with it. There's a racial angle too.

(e) And there are all kinds of laws. I know we disagree on this, but I'd rather take my belt in a notch and maybe do with a little less knowing a poor kid was getting educated, or a hardup family was getting fed, or a pregnant mother was getting decent health care. I think sometimes that there is something chronically wrong with a country that lets me have so much while our poor are allowed so little.

[Brigid]

32. Enforcing Our Laws

On night on CNN, a commentator (I forget who) on the subject of illegal immigration said that you teach people how to treat you. The same goes for nations. Why should Mexico (and every other nation) not be taught that we have our immigration laws and regulations; and they will be enforced, just as every other nation makes and enforces its immigration laws?

[joemurphy]

33. I'm not sure I understand what it is you are advocating

when you say we need to teach Mexico that our laws will be enforced. Do you advocate military action against Mexico? Machine gunning aliens crossing the border?

Anyone who has to deal with our hallowed immigration laws on a daily basis has little but contempt for them.

I've witnessed a Russian lady who came to the U.S. as a mailorder bride and found her mailorder husband didn't like her. He refused to marry her and advised CIS about the failed romance. She met another American and they fell in love. They wanted to marry. CIS made her go back to Russia and start the 2 year process all over again.

A 45-year old Iranian mother seeking a green card with the sponsorship of her U.S. citizen son was arrested for allegedly stealing a bottle of aspirin at a CVS drugstore. She was advised to plead guilty to shoplifting by an ignorant public defender and was given a 1 year suspended sentence and probation. CIS reviewed her Petition to Adjust Status and found her guilty of an "aggravated felony" under the INA and was in the process of deporting her to Iran. She was saved from this fate when we were able to persuade the State Court Judge to modify her suspended sentence from 365 days to 364 days.

A 21-year old girl from Zimbabwe who was beaten severely by members of Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF Youth Party for passing out T-shirts advocating opposition to Mugabe's autocratic rule was denied U.S. asylum because she failed to request it within 1 year of her coming to the United States. She was then placed in removal proceedings and deported.

Most people advocating strict enforcement of our immigration laws have little understanding how arbitrary and irrational they are. Most people seem to think you just file some papers and eventually you get U.S. citizenship.
It doesn't work that way at all.

As long as U.S. jobs pay 10 or 20 times what the payscale is in Mexico, Mexicans will cross the border. I don't know what that CNN pudit was alluding to about teaching people how to treat you, but personally I wouldn't want to be treated the way CIS treats most immigrants. Aside from foolish and draconian laws, you have incompetent and understaffed CIS personnel, amazing bureaucratic foulups, routine instances of lost paperwork, and hopeless processing inefficiencies.

I'm an Immigration Attorney. I know of what I speak. Please don't tell me that the problem with immigration is non-enforcement of our laws. There's a hell of a lot wrong with the laws themselves and even more wrong with those tasked with administering them.

[Brigid]

34. What I'm Advocating . . .

Since you are an immigration attorney, you know more about what goes on with immigration than I do. A lot more. And since this is a buracracy we're talking about, there's no way it isn't arbitrary and often downright stupid. But I do find it hard to believe that the system can't be cleaned up enough to make it for the most part workable, humane, and fair. Surely there is a way we can both allow for legal immigration and protect our borders. But the nonsense of having no enforcement of our own borders has got to stop. The American middle class has taken it on the chin in too many ways for too long. Jobs are disappearing; housing prices are rising; we're struggling with a mountain of public debt thanks to Bush and his immoral, illegal war; and health care costs are out of sight. Maybe this has just been the last straw. To tell the truth, illegal immigration one of the least of the problems that hard-pressed working Americans in this country have to deal with these days. Maybe it's just because I'm job-hunting, but I'm just not in much of a mood to be generous to lawbreakers who cost American taxpayers money right now.

As for what I'm advocating: Obviously it's impossible to round up every single illegal and send them back. No, shooting them at the borders is not the answer. But neither is allowing Mexico to dictate our own immigration policy. If we do catch illegals, send them back. The Mexican government has used illegal immigration as a sort of escape hatch to avoid the hard work of making their own country a better place for their own citizens for too long. And we're talking national security here too. The next person entering the country illegally -- from over the Mexican or Canadian border or wherever -- may not be some poor, desperate schmuck trying to improve his life, but a terrorist.

What are you advocating -- no enforcement of our borders at all? We have the right to make and enforce our own immigration laws the same as any other country does. Oftentimes during the Bush regime I have considered moving to Canada, but I am not going to break their laws to do it.

[joemurphy]

39. In rereading what I wrote before I kind of regret saying some of it.

It's sounds too strident and too know-it-all. Anyway, I'm sorry you're out of work. Being unemployed is not fun. Aside from the economics of it, there's the psychological aspect of feeling down and kind of worthless and unwanted. Anyway, I hope you find something soon. Keep looking and maintain your sense of self-worth.

I agree with a lot of what you say here. Mexico IS a problem. Personally, I think we need a Marshall Plan or something like it for Mexico. Having an economic basket case for a next-door-neighbor is the root of the problem. Until the problem of chronic Mexican poverty is resolved, I just don't see any answer to our immigration problem.

Frankly, I think we've ignored Latin American poverty too long. We've propped up tinhorn right-wing dictators in the name of fighting communism and, in doing so, have countenanced the resultant human problems that give rise to immigration.

I don't advocate no border security. We need to discourage immigration and securing our borders is important. All we need is one Al-Qaeda type to sneak across the border and the resulting frenzy might just lead to machine gun turrets along the Rio Grande. I'd not like that to happen.

But for those Mexicans that are here, I advocate pragmatic and not dogmatic responses to their situations. I don't like them being exploited and subjected to what I see as just idiotic hassling -- like not giving them driver's licenses etc. Building walls or hiring more border patrolmen is just a band aid to me and it really doesn't address or solve the real problems. The answer to me is addressing Mexican poverty somehow. How we do that is sort of beyond my level of competence. Whatever that answer is, I know that it won't be implemented for a very long time.

Good luck again on the job search. Hang in there.

[coalition_unwilling]

48. Thank you for this -- I would like to add that everybody at

DU needs to decide if they're with people who work their asses off (immigrants, undocumented or no-) or with right-wing demagogues who would make poor, working people the enemy in order to distract Americans from who the real enemy(s) is/are.

No Mexican day laborer left me on my rooftop to die in New Orleans. Get it?

[radio4progressives]

44. Not all laws are just.. In FAC T We need to ABOLISH A TON OF LAWS

that are extremely UNJUST and UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

Jeeze - When the hell did all of this grandoise "reverence" for draconian and inhumane laws become such the noble cause among progressives????

[EFerrari]

36. Well, maybe you have never been that hungry, Brigid. And

I hope you never are. :)

[salin]

18. It would have been very interesting to see.

There were much fewer than that at the huge Peace Rally around the world (February of 2003) - of course there was an icestorm going at the time.

For those who are voicing consternation ... I ask them to step back a moment and think... red Indiana... apathetic Indianapolis. More than ten thousand people turning out to make a statement. Wow!

[joemurphy]

20. Right and believe me, these people are all going to be

Democrats. You should have heard them talking and seen some of the signs. They know all about Sensenbrenner's plan to make them all felons.

[NotGivingUp]

22. It's not about liking or not liking these people.

And Lou Dobbs hasn't said that he doesn't like these people either.

[joemurphy]

23. Yeah, Lou really loves them. Sheesh.

[proud2BlibKansan]

26. Lou Dobbs likes his ratings

It isn't about human beings to him.

[EFerrari]

35. No, he hasn't. But he said they were spreading infectious diseases.

:rofl:

[Brigid]

37. Any Proof?

Did Lou Dobbs offer any evidence to back up this claim, like epidemilogy studies from the CDC, or whatever? I don't always agree with him, but it's not like him to make wild claims like that with nothing to back it up.

[EFerrari]

38. Maybe some other DUer who can watch him will chime in.

I can't even remember if it was typhus or TB or what. I can't watch him.

It was just timed perfectly to upset people when the last thing we need right now is to be upset.

I believe in the American people. Maybe I'm an idiot but I believe most people will make good decisions if they have access to the facts. And when they're not worried about catching malaria.

/typo

[radio4progressives]

41. Si, se puede!

¡gracias sir por el gran informe!