Over here, I vented my spleen about the Mexican government publishing a how-to manual on illegally entering and working in the United States. But the Colorado Department of Education has done the Mexicans one better- not only did they print up their own how-to manual how-to manual, it’s even more explicit than Mexico’s. Here are a few choice excerpts (translated, of course):
“The job of the police is not to report you to Immigration. Always carry the name and phone number of an attorney who will take your calls. If you do not have [immigration] papers, you also have the right to remain silent or call a lawyer.”
“The Mexican Consulate will help you protect your rights as a citizen.” [Citizen?!]
“Many businesses employ illegal aliens without papers, or without verifying that papers are legitimate since they do not have the responsibility to investigate the legal status of employees or contractors, or to report them to the ICE. All workers, regardless of their legal status, have the same rights—the right to work—regardless of your nationality or legal status, includes…” [Completely incorrect, by the way. Illegal aliens do not have any legal right to work.
“If you need help to assert your rights, you can obtain the help of an attorney or an organization. Some lawyers help illegal aliens for a very low price.”
“If you have a low income and various people depend upon you, you may apply for a refund, called Credit Income Tax at the end of the year. If you do not have a Social Security number, you can get a Tax Identification Number from the IRS.” [Uncle Sam’s sugar tit now available to illegal aliens]
“There are some clinics who serve people without insurance and without enough money to pay. It is important to bear in mind that you can apply for Medicaid or Child Health Plan Plus for your children if they were born here or are residents even if you are not a permanent resident.”
“Regardless of your economic or immigration status, you have the right to receive medical attention if you go to the ER.” [And legal citizens have the right to pay your bills]
“Here, they feed [your children in school]…If your child’s school does not have a program for students who are learning English, the district must provide transit services to a school that does. The fact that your children do not speak English should not be a reason for them to stay behind in their abilities or knowledge. Ask that your children be evaluated in Spanish…”
“Regardless of your immigration status, it is possible to go to the university. There are scholarships for Hispanics, legal or illegal aliens. The financial aid offices for colleges and universities can help students find the best options to pay, as well as to find and apply for these scholarships.”
The pamphlet was posted on a State of Colorado website, but they took it down after people complained. No word on whether they’re still distributing hard copies. Any Coloradans care to weigh in on your state’s policy toward illegal aliens?
Would you perfer that raped women, beaten kids and robbed men not go to the police because they are afraid of being deported? Would you prefer that they not have access to lawyers? You know we’ve had some immigrant sex-slave cases lately, yeah? Most illegal immigrants will do anything to stay here, and if they are afraid of the police they will not report crimes- making them easy prey and giving violent criminals and gangs free reign. Fear of the police leads to other problems as well- my county spends hundreds of thousands of dollars taking care of vehicles abandon after minor accidents because the drivers are illegal immigrants that are afraid of the police.
Well, uh, they are citizens of Mexico and the Mexican Consulate will help them out, just like the American Consulate will try to help you abroad even if you do something bonehead stupid or illegal.
Okay, maybe this goes too far, but they should know of their rights regarding hazardous working conditions, etc. Nobody, not even illegal immigrants, should be exploited on the job. And I hope that illegal immigrants do seek out real jobs instead of turning to crime.
Uhhh…can’t they? The Mexican legal system is very different as it is based on Napoleanic law, and many immigrants don’t know that fair representation is expected here and is availble to them even if they are poor. I can’t understand why you are opposed to people- any people- knowing they have recourse for crimes committed against them.
Actually, illegal immigrants often end up paying more taxes than they owe. If they have an over-the-table job- and many do, some of their income is withheld. Often they are too scared to file and claim their refund. Or else they are using a fake social security number and can’t file. And they will likely never collect on things they pay in to like social security. Don’t you think that even illegal immigrants should have the money they’ve worked and got paid for? Or do you just like the idea of the government being able to commit willy-nilly small scale robbery on anyone they don’t like hanging around?
Ahhh, so you don’t just save your viritol for illegal immigrants. You are filled with hatred at the thought of American citizens knowing the programs their government has set up for them- if they have Mexican parents, that is. Do you really like suffering babies, or is it just that you hate the taint of Mexicaness?
Or maybe you miss the old days when things like TB were common.
Whoo hoo! In Hyperelastic’s vision of America, we let people bleed on the streets after car accidents if they don’t have the right papers. They do that in India, too. It’s kind of cool. You have to pay for bandages and IV’s and stuff before they will do even basic emergency life-saving stuff. If you don’t have the cash they just leave you in the car until the villagers get sick of walking past your rotting body every day and burn the whole thing. It kind of smells bad sometimes.
I find it hard to believe that you are against the kids of illegal immigrants (who, we learned earlier, may well be citizens of our great country) learning English, so I must assume you are against people of Mexican decent learning in general. What do you think they are going to do if they can’t get good schooling here? Go back home where their kids can have a bright future selling chicklets to tourists? Are you secretly a gang leader that needs more people who don’t have education to do crime for you?
Yeah, I think I’m on the button with the whole gang leader thing. Here we’ve got some people that are going to do their best to stay here be it picking strawberries or being a doctor, and you are opposed to them even trying to better themselves and their ability to contribute to our society. I never thought I’d meet someone against bright young kids going to college, but now I know.
This one kind of hits home for me. One of my friends is a Brazillian immigrant who “broke the law” by being dragged here by his parents when he was twelve. He was extremely bright and scored a 5 on his calculus AP exam with no problems. But none of his teachers ever thought to tell the quiet immigrant kid that there were things like scholarships and financial aid, and he didn’t know the first thing about it since he was only a couple years out of some of the worst slums on earth and lived in an insular religious community in America. So he spent his life as a printer at his church’s printing press instead of whatever wonderful things his mind could have contributed to humanity. Another bright mind wasted.
I guess cool by you, as long as that bright wasted mind is a brown one.
It’s sad that Mexico is in such bad shape that so many people feel they have to break our laws to make their lives better. But we have laws for a reason. If they want to be part of our great experiment they need to go through the proper channels instead of a secret truck route through the desert.
I am not a resident of Colorado, though I have been briefly in the past and quite possibly will be again in the future. I see not problem with it. If the federal government makes an unjust law, states are not required to abide by the spirit of it. The facts are these. Some people claim to be opposed to “illegal” immigration. However, there’s nobody in America who really wants to suffer the consequences of having millions of our best workers thrown out of the country. When “illegal” immigrants move in to an area, they take on the crappy jobs that no one else wants to do, and thus make like better for everyone. So why shouldn’t a state do what it can to encourage “illegal” immigrants to move in? Since reform of our country’s perverse immigration laws won’t be happening any time soon, wouldn’t that be the second best option?
even sven, if things are as tough as you claim for illegal aliens, why do you suppose they keep coming?
Oh yeah, I love it when kids suffer. That’s really the entire basis for my opposition to illegal immigration - to increase the number of suffering babies. I congratulate you on your remarkable perceptivity.
If they have jobs, why do they need free medical care, school lunches and college tuition?
Uhh, because not all jobs pay enough to afford health insurance, college tuition or even decent nutrition for a family? Havn’t you ever heard the term “working poor”?
Anyway, short of death squads beating of police beathing up immigrants in the streets, almost anything America throws at illegal immigrants is going to provide a better life for their families (which is most people’s reason for coming here) than Mexico can. Unless we get serious about preventing people from coming here in the first place, we’re not going to get anywhere by finding ways to make them miserable while they are here.
Illegal is illegal .
If they are here illegally they should go home.
If they are taking the crappy jobs that americans don’t want maybe its time to look at weather the job could be changed to make it better,easier or whatever. Is it because picking lettuce is it just cheaper to do it by hand than to buy a machine? Why aren’t we designing a machine to do it? Just a hunch on my part but I’m guessing its because we have all this cheap labor to do it.
Or perhaps its because they just do a better job mowing grass? I’ll bet it has more to do with the amount of money they are willing to work for.
Or maybe they are better housekeepers? I’m sure the Mexican junior colleges are right now training our next wave of illegals, since the pictures I’ve seen don’t hint of much home training.
Its that the employers are too ** damnedcheap to pay good wages. Its the money. Its the money. It the money.
If the illegals want a freeer society then they should go home and make Mexico that place.After all thats how this place got this way.
People who cannot afford to support their families without government assistance aren’t supposed to be able to come to America - that’s actually the law, and I agree with it. We have a generous supply of poor people already and do not need to import more of them.
I know you are coming at this issue from the left. Doesn’t it bother you, as a leftist, that instead of keeping the supply of unskilled labor tight by enforcing the immigration laws, which would naturally drive wages up, the government instead is subsidizing cheap labor for big corporations like Tyson by paying for health care and education for illegal immigrants and their families?
A subclass of unskilled workers with no rights - it’s a capitalist’s wet dream. I would favor legalizing everyone who shows up, except for the fact that it would totally and irrevocably destroy the American economy and way of life. The alternative is to simply enforce the laws that are already on the books. Then the Mexican underclass would stay in Mexico and eventually get justice by whatever means it finds necessary. The Rio Grande should not be a political safety valve for the racist, greedy Mexican elite. Am I speaking your language?
No country, not even the United States, can reasonably be expected to absorb unlimited immigration.
We already have plenty of citizens on the low end of the income scale, and those citizens have to compete with illegals for work, low cost housing, public medical services, and education. The money our government spends on illegals is money that can’t be spent on citizens. The money spent teaching English to an illegal’s kids is money that can’t be spent on educating my family’s kids. It’s all good and well to want to help poor illegals, but when you do it at the expense of people like me and my family–well, I begin to suspect that your compassion is pretty phony.
It is insane to go on importing poverty like this.
The left hopes to get political support from immigrants, legal or illegal. The right wants cheap labor. And neither one of them gives a damn how it affects people like me.
Right, I weighed the arguments here, and my conclusion is…insignificant issue. Firstly, the pamphlet was intended for legal migrants, not illegals. If there are some passages that offend someone in Colorado, let’em edit the thing and reissue it. I see nothing wrong with educating people who may not know the nuance of US law.
Secondly, from my own practical experience, immigrants, legal or illegal, have had no demonstratable detrimental effect on my life or that of others I know. I believe that most of the anti-immigrant argument is based on hatred of those who look or sound different from the haters. Maybe there are indeed more immigrants than there ‘should’ be in this country; I have to wonder, however, whether the immense cost of some sort of large-scale effort to seal the Mexican border and systematically raid every site supected of employing illegals would be worth the loss of the postive contributions they make to the economy. In any event, I see no evidence that the American economy is foundering due purely to these pernicious illegals. If cheap illegal labor is so available here, why has such a large amount of US manufacturing capacity fled overseas?
In sum, a lot of hot air about a non-issue. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, but I reject your arguments concerning its relative importance.
I don’t know about “anybody,” but there are certainly a very large number of those who oppose illegal immigration (and even legal immigration) who present themselves as haters. The very fact that the pamphlet under discussion, that was designed for use by legal immigrants, was demonized as though it was written to help illegal immigrants, with its opponents demanding that it be removed instead of criticizing it on the one or two points that were inappropriate and portraying the fiction that it was intended to promote illegal immigration when the authors and early supporters had already indicated at its creation that it was intended to help legal immigrants, looks to me much more like hating “them” than opposing illegal immigration.
For a while I bought into the “illegals are wrecking us” line. Then I thought about it and compared it to what I saw for myself. It didn’t add up. Illegals were sucking us dry. They were here for the handouts. But every morning I saw them on the bus going to work. Just like me. At night, they were coming back from work, just like me. Illegals were stupid and ignorant. But there they were reading newspapers, magazines etc. I know plenty of white Americans who are functionally illiterate. Illegals are thieves. Well, the burglaries I had were done by white Americans. Illegals are stealing jobs from Americans. They will work hard for cheap, just like the Germans, Irish, Italians and every other “new” group in this country before them. They try to get ahead, just like the others did.
Then the dim bulb in my head lit up. I discovered my own cognitive dissonance, my own little bigotry.
We used to pay lip service about being a generous and welcoming place, where anyone willing to try was welcome. It wasn’t exactly completely true (quotas), but at least the words were there.
“Give me your poor, your tired, your teeming masses, yearning to be free.”
No doubt * some * opponents of illegal immigrationreally are mere racists. But the vast majority are people like me who are basically concerned with the impact that massive, uncontrolled immigration has on our lives and our communities. Lefties routinely use gratuitous accusations of racism to shut down debate and discussion not only on this subject but pretty much any other subject that can even be remotely tied to race and ethnicity.
Those who dismiss our point of view as mere racism are being stupid, vicious or dishonest, or some combination of the three.
No nation has unlimited resources, and no nation can reasonably be expected to absorb unlimited immigration. Those who would turn a blind eye to the problem and scream “Racism” at those who are concerned about necessarily call their intelligence, integrity and motives into question.