Archives for May 2012

Stop Using the “I” Word: People are not illegal

May 25, 2012 by mikequinn 3 Comments

People may be short, tall, thin, heavy, broad, blonde, brunette, lazy, self-conscious, hard working, narrow minded. . . but they cannot be illegal. It is not illegal to exist. A person can do something illegal, but that does not make them illegal. Calling someone illegal is at best an outward sign of disrespect, and at worst, a sign of sheer ignorance.

We do not need to rob anyone of their human dignity. Those who do, are doing so only because they have none and they think that taking some away from someone else will bestow upon themselves the characteristics they so jealously covet.

The problem is the press often uses this label when talking about people who have entered the United States without passing inspection at a border or immigration checkpoint. This is called Entering Without Inspection or EWI. While this is a federal misdemeanor, it does not place upon that person a demeaning lable, nor does it mean that someone who has done this is going to be untrustworthy at everything else they do. That logic is tragically unintelligent. If it were so, then the entire human race is guilty of crimes and therefore none of us is trustworthy and all of us should spend the rest of our lives in some kind of prison or probation program. Obviously that is a silly proposition.

If you hear or read someone using the term illegal when talking about a person or group of people, you should send them a note and let them know that nobody is illegal, actions are illegal, people are not. Request they refrain from this type of label or you will not

Filed Under: Ethics, Hate, immigrants, Uncategorized

The GOP is Dreaming Act

May 18, 2012 by mikequinn Leave a Comment

The Dream Act has been in circulation in Congress since 2001. It was created as a compromise to all the comprehensive immigration reform bills that failed to get through congress in the decades after Regan’s landmark immigration reform bill that squeeked by in 1986. In 2008, after failing to get the backing of Congress several times, a Republican, Kay Bailey Hutchison, announced she would work with the authors of the Dream Act to add some language that would make it more palatable for Republicans to buy-off on.

This Dream Act 2.0 was then re-introduced to congress. You would think this version would have been a slam dunk, as Republicans got to put their fingerprints all over it by making it more restrictive on who is eligible and excluding some of the benefits it bestowed upon those who qualified, but wouldn’t you know it? Even after being able to amend the Dream Act, and turn it into a more restrictive measure for keeping the best immigrants residing under the radar with us today, that still wasn’t good enough. The Dream Act v2.0 failed to pass a vote in 2009.

Back to the drawing board and Republicans got to water it down some more and make it even more exclusive by adding background checks, biometric data, specifying specific crimes that would make some candidates ineligible, and more. Surely this Dream Act would sail through Congress.

Nope. Just as the Dream Act went through its last changes in 2011 and had been stripped of many of it’s benefits that were designed to encourage the best and brightest of our undocumented citizens to stay and participate in making this country better and safer, the Republicans were getting crankier and more power-drunk. Stopping President Obama from accomplishing anything in his first term appears to have been their primary objective. The only Dream Act the Republicans were working on was a one term Democratic President.

Now that the Republicans have watered down the Dream Act into something more likely to be called a Short Nap Act, they get to vote it down and deny the Democrats another Victory. And guess what? Along comes a Republican with a NEW idea!

He hasn’t said what it is, but his new Dream Act Lite will surely have what it takes to get Republican support in Congress. This time it will have one thing that the other three versions didn’t; a Republican author. (It was those blasted Democrats that kept getting in the way.)

But what about history repeating itself you may ask? Yep, I have been wondering too. I don’t think this version of the Daydream Act will pass either. Just think of all the years of effort and compromise the Democrats went though in order to appease the Republicans. Do you think the Democrats will vote for this version whenever it gets revealed?

Me neither, and I also think that’s just what the Republicans want. That way, they have an excuse to blame the Democrats for this stalemate.

This bill has been modified and tabled so many times it should be called the, “Nightmare on ‘C’ Street.”

The Dream Act as it stands right now has been crafted by both Democrats and Republicans. If that won’t help it pass through Congress, nothing will.

Some Republicans liken the latest, most stripped down version of the Dream Act as “back door amnesty.” I urge you to read the article below on the Dream Act and what it really says about the bill at is stands today. How could any sane person see this as a gift that will be used against us by masses of undeserving people? It is so restrictive and sets the bar so high for those to qualify, and STILL doesn’t guarantee anyone citizenship –just the opportunity to apply for it– AND only the best of the best will qualify. Smart, ambitious, strong, sacrificing. Who wouldn’t want these fine young people to be a part of their nation? Yet this still is not good enough for our Republican Ultra-conservative Congressmen, who have forgotten they work for us. Somewhere along the way, these elected officials began to fill themselves with themselves and I don’t think there’s anything other than themselves they are capable of thinking about. If you were to ask Congress what was the best solution for the good of the country, do you think you would get a truthful reply? I don’t think they’ve even thought about it in that context.

After you read the article below, I urge you to let Congress know how you feel. I left a link to their contact info too. And let’s not forget about the House of Representatives.

Any logical person would come to the conclusion that if they can’t pass a law that has been eleven years in the making with help from both sides of the fence, then they are incompetent of doing so, and you know what happens to you or I when our bosses think we can no longer do our jobs? Yep, we get fired.

Congress, you are on notice.

Give the President a decent immigration bill to sign or you will not be invited back, and the people who will be filling your current positions will know that the same fate will apply to them– with one major difference: instead of having eleven years to get something done, they will have just one term. We need people in our government who can play nicely with each other and help solve our nations problems. Jokers, posers and frauds need not apply.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DREAM_Act

http://www.dreamactivist.org/text-of-dream-act-legislation/

http://www.house.gov/representatives/

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Filed Under: DREAM Act, Education, Ethics, immigrants, Laws, Politics

“Two White Hats” an anti-immigrant ideology exposed

May 18, 2012 by mikequinn Leave a Comment

In response to “TWO WHITE HATS” by Lindsey Grant*

Your paper makes an argument that two child families and a small 200,000 immigrant cap per year is what is best for our country. While at first blush your argument may sound logical to some people, the premise upon which it is built is reprehensible to any free thinking person on earth. Upon closer study it reveals a mad-scientist, “Rule the World” scheme that usually can be found in late night horror movies, saturday morning cartoons, or books and movies by Ian Fleming.

Global migration is a by-product of the success and growth of any region in the world, relative to the poverty and excess labor of others. In nature it is called the law of equilibrium.

It is Natural- This has been going on since man began to travel. Nobody made up the idea to move from a poor region into a more prosperous one. It was just logical. Since it is logical and natural, to attempt to regulate it will be expensive, time and energy consuming, and almost guaranteed to be futile.

It is self regulating- Whenever an area becomes saturated with a good or service, prices dive and the competition dies off, leaving the strongest to serve the region. No area supports an over abundance of consumers with limited resources. Instead, alternate regions needing service are searched out by those unable to compete, or alternative products are created to fill the new needs of those that are able to stay behind. One only has to look at our current Net Zero Immigration which has taken place during our recession. People gave up looking for work and went home. People who have jobs did not return home for their seasonal round-trip migration. No Memo went out. This is social proof that the situation is self-regulating and natural.

It solves the needs of both the poor and the rich-. Are we to say that an area with plenty of labor but few jobs is better off the way it is, as well as an area that is growing prosperous and needing more goods and services should be left to stagnate due to a bottleneck of suppliers? Of course not. Both the overabundant and the impoverished prosper. What the heck is so wrong with this? Why is it that some of the people who have so much think they will continue to have this bounty when the bottlenecks finish draining them of their current excess resources?

This natural migration phenomenon doesn’t steal from anyone, and competition is what we as a nation are founded on. Force someone to hire a poor, lazy person, immigrant or citizen, instead of a hungry, energetic, hardworking person, and productivity will plummet, as will morale, quality control, and damage repair will increase until the reputation of that person, company, region or nation is no longer the shining example is used to be.

Our first obligation to our country is to do what is best for our country, not force it to employ people who don’t want to work, or think that the work we force them into is what they themselves really needs. I think the Germans did this in World War II, and the Japanese did this to the Chinese, and. . . Never has forced labor been a benefit to a society, rather, it always became a shame to it.

Secondly, a two child family- I don’t know what KKK textbooks you are reading, but if you read any of the news articles circulating the past few months about the, “Net Zero Immigration” phenomenon, you will have heard that a part of the reason this is happening is the hispanic fertility rate has fallen to 2.4 children. We are already almost at a two child family right now, without legislation demanding it. Forcing people to stop having children is reprehensible. How would this be done? Abortion? Sterilization? Castration? These types of solutions are currently only on display in but a few horror movies. I can’t believe someone with a supposed education could even propose something as sick as this.

The whole thesis of “Two White Hates” is faulty and it’s implied solutions are abominable. Few societies in our planets history have ever attempted to make ideologies such as this government policy. One doesn’t have to look far to see why none of those societies are around any longer.

In summation you end with a FAIR party-line slogan of 200,000 immigrants per year cap, coming from the hugely erroneous idea that the immigration caps of the early 20th century could somehow sustain our 21st century population. Your intellectual and highly educated argument for this is,

“That level was large enough to include an immensely valuable flow of scientists and intellectual leaders, and it should be sufficient again.”

Yep, that didn’t sound stupid or forced. If something is “immensely valuable” why would you want to limit it? To drive this point home, imagine this conversation,

“Because you opened a new savings account with us, we are going to give you a free bar of gold.”

“No thanks. I have enough money. Maybe next year.”

Two White Hats: http://www.npg.org/forum_series/Two%20White%20Hats.pdf

Net Zero Immigration: http://bit.ly/JXNt7W

Lower Fertility Rates of immigrants: http://bit.ly/KwbZf6

Filed Under: Economy, Ethics, Hate, immigrants, Laws, Politics

Illegal immigrants won’t assimilate into our culture

May 11, 2012 by mikequinn Leave a Comment

Hate speech often shows up in the form of a supposedly logical argument. Sometimes, like the following, it is just plain racist.

illegal immigrants arriving in this country in large numbers won’t be unable to effectively assimilate into our society-

There are many variants to this theme such as, “they make us conform to them instead of them conforming to us” and “why should we have to learn their language, they should have to learn english” and “if I went to their country they’d make me learn spanish” and on and on.

This is really code for- “So many foreigners will come here they will take over our country.”

This has been an ongoing theme in the United States for well over a hundred years and is a driving force in the argument against immigration. Although a majority of white’s do not subscribe to this belief, this is a purely white myth, used to stir up other white’s into taking action in order to keep this country a white ruled U.S.A. It’s called protectionism and the white people who use this phrase are trying to protect our nation from the threat of mongrelization that they feel will occur once the throngs of immigrants get here, breed and take over their country. Then it won’t be the good ol’ white United States of America any more. Paranoid much?

How to combat this- Whenever you read or hear this, you will know the people communicating this are acting out of fear of people who are not like them. This is a wholly racist argument and talking rationally with these people is pointless. You can point out that this hasn’t happened throughout the entire history of the United States, even after several rounds of immigrant recruitment drives* in our past, but it won’t stop them from continuing to say or write it. The only good you can do when you confront someone like this is purely for the benefit of anyone else who hears it. Giving other listeners a more intelligent and rational point of view so they won’t be left with just that one misguided opinion is a worthy cause. It also counters the effect of not saying anything and making it appear that that phrase is unchallenged and therefore correct by default.

For more information see the report on assimilation of immigrants.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/11/assimilation_tomorrow.html

* Immigrant recruitment in U.S. history

Americans from the industrializing Northeast pursued their recruitment policy even more vigorously after independence in 1776, seeking to lift European barriers to exit that were commonplace at that time. After independence, the new republic campaigned vigorously in the name of freedom to bring about an “exit revolution” throughout Europe.

From the 1830s on, railroad and shipping companies actively promoted emigration from northern Europe, and, in many cases, the multiplying US consulates functioned in effect as labor-recruiting and land-selling agencies, eventually reaching all the way to remote Norway. Simultaneously, American entrepreneurs enticed newcomers from across Western Europe by way of private missions.

These are just a couple of examples of the U.S. aggressively recruiting immigrants in our history.

Source: http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=401

Filed Under: Assimilation, Education, Hate, immigrants, Immigration Myths, Immigration's effects on citizens

Illegal immigrants make us pay to educate their kids

May 11, 2012 by mikequinn Leave a Comment

Why should we pay to educate their kids-

This really means: undocumented immigrants don’t deserve to have their children benefit from our educational system– they’re not good enough.

How to respond-

Would you rather a bunch of kids grow up next door to you, being really stupid and unemployable, whose only recourse would be to really live off the taxpayer or drive up the crime rate? If that doesn’t shut them up, do you need the aggravation of continuing this argument? Besides, although schools do not collect immigration data it is noted that the overwhelming majority of children in K-12 are American Citizens due largely to the fact that immigrants don’t often bring families across the border due to the hazards and dangers of the process. Most children of undocumented immigrants are born here in the United States and are therefore U.S. Citizens. They have every right to be educated here just like every other U.S. Citizen.

Filed Under: Education, Hate, immigrants, Immigration Myths, Immigration's effects on citizens

Illegal immigrants make us teach spanish in our schools

May 11, 2012 by mikequinn Leave a Comment

They make us teach spanish in our schools-

What this means is they really don’t know what they are talking about. This is more ignorance than hate, although hateful people use this as an argument to try to add to the credibility of their position. How this all came about is they either overheard it from a friend or walked by a classroom and heard the teacher teaching in Spanish.

How to respond-

Quite frankly I too was a little miffed when I walked past my son’s classroom and heard the teacher of another class speaking spanish. It wasn’t until much later that I learned they only do that for a few years, while they teach them english. If you’ve ever taken a foreign language you know they ALWAYS use your language as a basis for communication. If you walked into a french class and the teacher refused to speak english, you would learn french much more slowly, especially when you got tired and frustrated at not understanding very much of what was going on and were getting poor grades because of it. They aren’t teaching spanish as much as using spanish to teach them english.

They may counter with the argument, “We shouldn’t have to spend money to hire bi-lingual teachers to teach them english.”

Answer: A bi-lingual teacher costs the same as an english only speaking teacher, but now you are helping an immigrant learn english, which is really what you want in the first place– less spanish speaking people in the United States.

If they won’t stop there, then move along. You just shot down one of their favorite arguments and now they’re going to hit you with all the other ones until your ears bleed.

Filed Under: Education, Hate, immigrants, Immigration Myths, Immigration's effects on citizens

Illegal Immigrants are a burden on our medical system

May 11, 2012 by mikequinn Leave a Comment

They get are a burden on our Medical System-

What this means is immigrants are so poor they can’t afford medical coverage through their employer, so they just go to the hospital, and skip out on the bill.

How to respond-

Millions of Americans live below the poverty level too, and they make up the vast majority of people who can’t pay their medical bills. Should they be denied medical treatment because they are too poor as well, or are we just singling out the few undocumented immigrants? Also, why pick on the minority population of people who are doing something you don’t approve of? Because it’s really not about the medical system blight. It’s about race.

This is a common argument used by people who don’t like Latino’s.

What they really mean is immigrants are so poor they can’t afford medical coverage through their employer, so they just go to the hospital and skip out on the bill.

<strong>How to respond- </strong>

If you are really concerned with picking up the tab for someone’s medical expenses, why pick on the smaller group of people who are doing it? Because it’s really not about picking up the tab for medical expenses. It’s about race.

If this doesn’t stop them cold, nothing will. You can show them the infographic below, taken from a study done by Kaiser Permanente– not any political or otherwise biased organization– but that won’t help. If someone insists on taking this stand, they just don’t like Latino’s.

<a href=”http://southoftheborderbook.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/image2.gif“><img src=”http://southoftheborderbook.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/image2.gif” alt=”” title=”Uninsured in America” width=”500″ height=”375″ /></a> The real picture of our Medical System

Filed Under: Hate, immigrants, Immigration Myths, Immigration's effects on citizens, Medical

Illegal Immigrants don’t pay taxes

May 11, 2012 by mikequinn Leave a Comment

They don’t pay taxes-

What they’re really saying is they don’t like latinos, and this is the best argument they can come up with. They heard someone say it, or read it somewhere and it validates their anti-latino mindset, so they never bothered to check the actual facts.

How to respond-

Over 75% of undocumented immigrants pay taxes, and most of that is money they can not benefit from. They cannot collect unemployment, or social security, and many of them cannot qualify to file a tax return and according to Standard and Poors

“Each year, for example, the U.S. Social Security Administration maintains roughly $6 billion to $7 billion of Social Security contributions in an “earnings suspense file” — an account for W-2 tax forms that cannot be matched to the correct Social Security number. The vast majority of these numbers are attributable to undocumented workers who will never claim their benefits.” ⁴

If this fact from a completely unbiased organization who got their facts from the United States Government, then they are hopelessly lost in the anti-Latino rhetoric and continuing the conversation with logic and real statistics is worse than futile; it could actually make you both angry and heated, which neither of you really needs anyway. Give it up. Take your educated and unbiased mentality to a safer, more nurturing environment. Life is too short to argue with people who won’t listen to facts or reason.

http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/apr2006/pi20060407_072803.htm

Filed Under: Hate, immigrants, Immigration Myths, Taxes

Hate Decoded- Series

May 11, 2012 by mikequinn Leave a Comment

Hate is one of those social crimes that every society is guilty of, but few people want to be openly associated with. Sometimes it lives in shadows and secrets. Sometimes it is coded and boasted about like a badge of honor. Each flavor of hate, from which there are many, has it’s own special language.

There has always been a distrust, or dislike for things that are different than ourselves. Each immigrant population that has come to this country has had to live with the darker side of their new communities, until such a time as a newer, more vile immigrant population takes it’s place as public enemy #1. Our current winner of this auspicious award goes to the latino population.

Since there is little room for logic or enlightenment inside someone who’s spirit is full to the brim with hatred, it is the misinformed I hope to speak to, as well as the latino population themselves. We all need to be aware when someone wears a mask of civility, but in reality they harbor no good will.

This series offers a list of words or phrases, some of which are used by people who hate our Latino population but wish to be viewed as being compassionate or fair. Some are blatant hate speech that the speaker feels just in delivering. Directly following this term or phrase is an interpretation of what it really means, often revealing their true intentions.

This list is by no means exhaustive, but rather ongoing, so if anyone has seen other words or phrases that are being used to disguise their true feelings towards Latino’s, please feel free to add them in the comments below this article. If I can, I’ll add it to this list.

Illegal Aliens- While this term has been the lingua franca for generations it is now a staple in most hate speech you see and hear today, often intended to be an insult towards Mexicans, and all other Latino’s by proxy. As such it is now being frowned upon by the more favored, “Undocumented Immigrant.” Technically when someone comes into this country without inspection (the actual technical term is EWI, or Entered Without Inspection) they did enter the country illegally. Not being a citizen they are also technically an Alien by definition. It is easily understandable how this term became so standard in our lexicon for years, but with all the negative connotations implied today, people who use Undocumented Immigrant are making a conscious effort to use a more respectful term towards a part of our society that is already dealing with difficult issues on many different fronts. People who refuse to change their language and continue to flaunt the “Illegal” and the “Alien” aspects of a group are in effect continuing to insult a group of people they consider to be inferior to themselves.

How to combat this- Whenever you read or hear the term Illegal Alien, stop them right there and let them know that there is a more polite and respectful way of addressing this group of individuals: Undocumented Immigrant. Let them know that using illegal alien is comparable to other disparaging terms that have been used against other minorities in this country and are no longer tolerated. A word of caution: Some people may not be aware that the dialogue has changed and are using the term out of ignorance and habit. If you Google illegal alien today you will come up with millions of results. Try to educate, not humiliate and infuriate.

Filed Under: Hate, immigrants

Archives for May 2012

Stop Using the “I” Word: People are not illegal

The GOP is Dreaming Act

“Two White Hats” an anti-immigrant ideology exposed

Illegal immigrants won’t assimilate into our culture

Illegal immigrants make us pay to educate their kids

Illegal immigrants make us teach spanish in our schools

Illegal Immigrants are a burden on our medical system

Illegal Immigrants don’t pay taxes

Hate Decoded- Series

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